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SpaceX tweaks Starlink Gen2 plans to add Falcon 9 launch option

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4 years ago

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SpaceX says it has revised plans for its next-generation Starlink Gen2 constellation to allow the upgraded satellites to launch on its workhorse Falcon 9 rocket in addition to Starship, a new and unproven vehicle.

Set to be the largest and most powerful rocket ever flown when it eventually debuts, SpaceX’s two-stage Starship launch vehicle is also intended to be fully reusable, theoretically slashing the cost of launching payloads into and beyond Earth orbit. Most importantly, SpaceX says that even in its fully-reusable configuration, Starship should be capable of launching up to 150 tons (~330,000 lb) to low Earth orbit (LEO) – nearly a magnitude more than Falcon 9. However, once said to be on track to debut as early as mid-2021 to early 2022, it’s no longer clear if Starship will be ready for regular Starlink launches anytime soon.

In August 2021, SpaceX failed a major Starlink Gen2 revision with the FCC that started the company along the path that led to now. That revision revealed plans to dramatically increase the size and capabilities of each Gen2 satellite, boosting their maximum throughput from about 50 gigabits per second (Gbps) to ~150 Gbps. Just as importantly, SpaceX’s August 2021 modification made it clear that the company would prefer to launch the entire constellation with Starship, although it included an alternative constellation design that would lend itself better to Falcon 9 launches.

In January 2022, SpaceX chose to solely pursue the constellation optimized for Starship, strongly indicating that the company believed the rocket would be ready to support Starlink launches in the near future – or at least around the same time the constellation receives its Gen2 FCC license. With the benefit of technical Starlink Gen2 satellite details and renders provided by SpaceX and CEO Elon Musk in Q2 2022, a single Starship Gen2 launch using the current satellite and rocket designs and carrying 54 satellites could potentially deploy around 7-8 times more usable bandwidth than a Falcon 9 with Starlink V1.5, meaning that Starship could achieve similar deployment results with just a few launches per year.

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Starship’s Starlink Gen2 deployment mechanism is far different than Falcon 9’s current Starlink V1/V1.5 approach. (SpaceX)

In theory, that makes it at least somewhat easier for Starship to make a major impact even as SpaceX works to ramp up the brand-new rocket’s launch cadence, a task that has almost always taken several years.

However, additional changes made to its Starlink Gen2 FCC license application in August 2022 suggest that SpaceX has at least partially tempered that all-in bet on Starship. The most important modification: developing a different Starlink Gen2 satellite variant that will be optimized to fit inside Falcon 9’s much smaller payload fairing. According to SpaceX, despite the seemingly major form-factor changes required to make Gen2 fit, Starship and Falcon 9-optimized satellites will still be “technically identical.”

The implication is that the satellites launched on Falcon 9 will still offer the same performance as those launched on Starship, albeit in a different form factor. Nonetheless, the only thing SpaceX guarantees in the document is that the Falcon 9-launched Gen2 satellites won’t be more powerful than those launched on Starship, presumably preserving the applicability of existing analysis in the current Starlink Gen2 application. It’s thus possible that Falcon 9-optimized Starlink Gen2 satellites will have to sacrifice some of their performance relative to the unconstrained Starship-optimized variant.

With a usable diameter of 4.6 meters (~15 ft), Falcon 9’s payload fairing is about 50% narrower than the payload bay present on early Starship prototypes. Without a major redesign, Starlink Gen2 satellites optimized for Falcon 9 will likely need to sit vertically inside the fairing, the standard version of which stands 6.7 meters (~22 ft) tall before its conical tip begins curving inwards. Weighing about 1.25 tons (~2750 lb) and measuring 7 meters (~23 ft) long, Starlink Gen2’s design may only need a few moderate tweaks to fit on Falcon 9, but they’ll have to be stacked vertically instead of horizontally. Falcon 9’s established performance of roughly 16.5 tons (payload adapter included) to LEO means that the rocket will be limited to around 12 or 13 Gen2 satellites per launch, however, making the task somewhat easier.

If SpaceX can squeeze that many Starlink Gen2 satellites inside of Falcon 9’s existing reusable fairing, it could still boost the efficiency (total bandwidth per launch) of each Starlink mission by ~50% relative to the same rocket carrying 50-60 Starlink V1.5 satellites. It’s no surprise, then, that SpaceX appears to be doing everything it can to begin launching Starlink Gen2 as quickly as possible, whether or not Starship is ready to help.

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Eric Ralph is Teslarati's senior spaceflight reporter and has been covering the industry in some capacity for almost half a decade, largely spurred in 2016 by a trip to Mexico to watch Elon Musk reveal SpaceX's plans for Mars in person. Aside from spreading interest and excitement about spaceflight far and wide, his primary goal is to cover humanity's ongoing efforts to expand beyond Earth to the Moon, Mars, and elsewhere.

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Tesla Full Self-Driving attempts 150-mile stress test: the good and the bad

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27 minutes ago

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June 2, 2026

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Credit: TESLARATI

I recently took my Tesla Model Y running Full Self-Driving (Supervised) v14.3.3 over 150 miles on the Pennsylvania Turnpike in an effort to truly put the system under a stress test. There were a lot of good moments, and some bad, but overall, Full Self-Driving impressed me.

Last Thursday, I decided it was time to visit the Flight 93 National Memorial near Shanksville, PA. I go a few times a year, and it was a beautiful day. Others have taken some pretty lengthy drives using FSD, but I haven’t had the opportunity to really do something lengthy in quite a few months on an older version. I decided it was the perfect opportunity to try some things out.

I recorded the entire ride there on a GoPro, edited to highlight the crucial moments, and shared them on our social media accounts. If you want to watch them, I’ll share them throughout the piece, but I did not get to do a real breakdown of what I felt about its performance.

Overall Thoughts

I realize it is probably better to do a summation of its performance toward the end of the piece, but I feel like it is also reasonable to lead with this because I was overly impressed with how well it handled everything. The only moments where I felt a little bit of reason to touch the wheel, at least while traveling on the Turnpike and Rt. 30, were due to other drivers and their behaviors.

I have taken many drives to the Memorial over the past several years, and although it’s not incredibly long, it is a tiring drive. It’s about five hours both ways, close to 300 miles, and I think most of the exhaustion comes from the toll of sitting in the car and then visiting something that is pretty heavy to take in.

This was the first time I’ve ever taken the ride and not felt like I needed to avoid my vehicle after I got home. In the past, I could not even think about driving after I finally arrived at my house, but this was simply different.

It was nice to have something else take the drive for me, while I still had the freedom to take over if I chose to. It made the entire trip more enjoyable.

Full Self-Driving Recognizes Lane-Ending Arrows on Road

After traveling in the fast lane for a little while, FSD noticed the arrows on the road indicating the lane was coming to an end ahead. The car was also in the process of making a pass on a slower vehicle in the middle lane, but aborted this maneuver and backed off to get behind the vehicle.

I was really impressed by this because I thought that the car would absolutely try to make the pass, only to get in front of the other car, and then slow back down to 75 MPH:

Full Self-Driving Notices Veering Tractor Trailer, Adjusts Lane Positioning

My two rules of the road are never cruise in the fast lane and never drive next to a tractor-trailer. This clip is a perfect example as to why.

FSD v14.3.3 recognized this tractor-trailer attempting to change lanes while we were still next to it. The car shifted its lane positioning to the shoulder slightly to make room for the merging semi, executed the pass safely, and on we went.

I will admit this one made me a little nervous, but more so because of the 18-wheeler, and not because of the Tesla:

Full Self-Driving Follows the Rules of Tunnel Travel

Many people who are not familiar with Full Self-Driving and its capabilities are pretty limited in what they know about the really simple things it does well. Part of supervising FSD is being aware of things it might make mistakes with, and anticipating maneuvers it might want to make at the wrong time.

Entering the Blue Mountain Tunnel on the Turnpike, I was ready for FSD to attempt to get back into the right lane after making a pass on a tractor-trailer, but I was pleasantly surprised. Several signs outside the tunnel advise drivers to stay in the lane they’ve chosen while driving through the tunnel; this eliminates the possibility of an accident caused by lane changes, which would impede traffic on a crucial logistics route.

I was happy to see that Tesla Full Self-Driving v14.3.3 did not make this mistake:

Full Self-Driving Navigates Toll Plazas with Ease

I was interested to see how FSD would handle toll plazas, including the speed at which it would travel through them, and whether it would stop on the Turnpike at these booths, which have since been transitioned to a “Toll by Plate” system, which mails you a bill.

It was flawless:

Full Self-Driving Still Struggles with Parking from Time to Time

Since I took delivery in late August, I’ve never had a single instance of my Tesla struggling to park at a Supercharger. Other spots at the mall, market, or gym are another story.

This was the first time it did such a terrible job of backing into a spot. This required me to take over and manually park at another charger:

Full Self-Driving Gets Confused After Arriving at Its Destination

This was the first time I have ever experienced FSD getting confused and just circling the lot. The navigation continued to reroute to try to resolve the issue, but after four laps, I decided it was time to overtake the car’s controls and park manually:

This was a baffling behavior that I truly couldn’t explain. Other owners communicated that they have also experienced this issue.

Final Thoughts

I am so incredibly impressed by FSD that it has really made traveling stress-free. The two issues related to parking were not ideal, but to be fair, I usually take over when arriving at parking lots. However, this shortcoming is something Tesla has to make some serious progress with, because parking has truly stumped FSD at times.

Solving that will be a major breakthrough for autonomy, but Tesla has struggled with it for some time.

All in all, FSD v14.3.3 is unbelievably accurate and handles many of the more stressful maneuvers with ease, one of them being avoiding merging traffic on highways, which was shown above.

Some things that would be great to see improvements on are parking, Speed Profiles, which are relatively tough to adjust (I stayed in Standard for the duration of this drive), and, of course, navigation.

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SpaceX’s amended S-1 is sparking a major Tesla merger conversation

A single line in SpaceX’s amended S-1 just sent Tesla stock down 5% in one day.

Published

13 hours ago

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June 1, 2026

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A single line buried in SpaceX’s amended S-1 filing is doing more to move Tesla’s stock price than anything Tesla itself has announced in months. The clause, disclosed as SpaceX prepares for what could be the largest IPO in Wall Street history, states that the company “may issue a significant amount of equity in connection with future transactions.” While this may be seen as boilerplate language in S-1 filings, the historical ties between SpaceX and Tesla, and with Elon Musk reportedly discussing a possible merger with close colleagues, investors are interpreting it as something closer to a signal.

The concern among institutional investors like Gary Black, managing director of The Future Fund, pointed directly to the amended filing on X, saying it “strongly suggests more SPCX equity will be issued,” which could potentially be used to acquire Tesla. He estimated such a deal could be 28% dilutive to Tesla shareholders since SpaceX would likely command a significantly higher valuation multiple. Black added that institutional investors he knows hate the idea of a combination because they prefer pure plays over conglomerates, which he said “nearly always gravitate to the lowest common multiple.”

The Tesla and SpaceX merger everyone is talking about is quietly building

The bull case runs the math differently. Tesla influencer and retail shareholder advocate AleXandra Merz pushed back on what she called a widespread misunderstanding of how merger-of-equals deals actually work. Rather than simply splitting the difference between two market caps, a merger exchange ratio is negotiated based on relative fair market values, meaning the lower valued company typically sees its stock reprice upward toward the deal value.

Under her model, SpaceX enters at a $2.5 trillion valuation and Tesla at $1.6 trillion, producing a combined entity worth $4.1 trillion split evenly between both shareholder groups. That implies Tesla’s side of the deal would be valued at $2.05 trillion, a gain of roughly $450 billion from its current market cap. She cited Dow-DuPont and CBS-Viacom as historical examples of how markets reprice both companies toward the announced exchange ratio after a deal is unveiled.


The SpaceX S-1 amendments also revealed just how much financial infrastructure already binds the two companies together. As Teslarati has reported, SpaceX purchased $697 million in Tesla Megapacks, $131 million in Cybertrucks, and the two companies have shared supply chain resources, and semiconductor fabrication plans since well before any merger conversation became public. A retail poll by Tesla influencer Sawyer Merritt is finding that 36% of respondents do not plan to buy SpaceX shares at IPO and 15.3% saying their decision depends on the valuation.


Whether the merger happens or not, the amended filing is seemingly moving markets and sharpened a debate that is no longer theoretical. SpaceX is weeks away from trading publicly, and Tesla shareholders are now watching every word of every filing for clues about what Musk plans to do next.

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Tesla’s European Comeback: Registrations soar in May as recovery gains momentum

Published

22 hours ago

on

June 1, 2026

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Credit: Tesla

Tesla is staging a powerful rebound in Europe. New vehicle registrations surged dramatically across multiple key markets in May 2026, signaling a strong recovery from the challenges of 2025.

Data released this week show double- and triple-digit year-over-year gains in several countries, driven by refreshed Model Y production, supportive policies, high fuel prices, and renewed consumer interest in electric vehicles.

In France, registrations exploded 655 percent to 5,446 vehicles, marking Tesla’s best May performance ever in the country. Norway, a longtime EV stronghold, saw 3,345 new Teslas registered, up 29 percent from May 2025. The company even captured a commanding 21.5 percent market share there, according to Detroit News.

Growth extended to other markets as well. Sweden posted a 71 percent increase to 858 registrations. Denmark jumped 136 percent to 1,750 units, where the Model Y became the top-selling vehicle overall. Spain climbed 113 percent to 1,690 sales, while Portugal soared nearly 350 percent to 1,463.

RELATED:

Tesla Full Self-Driving expansion in Europe continues with new addition

The May results build on a broader turnaround for Tesla in Europe. The company’s sales on the continent had declined sharply in 2025, dropping between 27 and 28 percent amid production shifts, intense competition from Chinese rivals like BYD, and shifting consumer sentiment.

Early 2026 showed signs of life, with registrations rising about 45 percent across Europe in the first quarter and continuing upward momentum through April, up over 46 percent region-wide.

Europe’s overall electrified vehicle market (including BEVs, PHEVs, and hybrids) grew about 21 percent in May, providing a favorable tailwind. Tesla’s gains align with this trend, boosted by government incentives and high fuel costs that make EVs more attractive.

Earlier data from March and April already hinted at strength in Germany, where registrations had surged dramatically in prior months.

Analysts note that while competition remains fierce, Tesla’s refreshed lineup and Europe’s policy support for EVs are helping the company regain ground. The May surge suggests the worst of the 2025 downturn may be behind it, positioning Tesla for stronger performance in the second half of 2026.

This rebound is welcome news for the EV pioneer, demonstrating resilience in a competitive and evolving market. As more data rolls in, investors and industry watchers will be closely monitoring whether this momentum can sustain through the summer and beyond.

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