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SpaceX rocket recovery fleet dodges tropical storm amid Starlink launch delays

SpaceX's fleet of rocket recovery ships have changed course to dodge a tropical and account for Starlink launch delays. (SpaceX)

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In the last 24 hours, SpaceX’s fleet of rocket recovery ships has had to dramatically change course to dodge a tropical storm, weather that has partially delayed the company’s next Starlink satellite launch.

Previously scheduled to launch no earlier than (NET) ~4 am EDT on May 17th, less than 24 hours after the United Launch Alliance (ULA) planned to launch a US military spaceplane, the ULA launch was delayed by weather at the last second, pushing SpaceX’s Starlink launch to May 18th. Nine hours later, SpaceX announced that it had delayed its eighth Starlink launch another ~24 hours to avoid impacts from a tropical depression developing where the company’s rocket recovery fleet was assembling in the Atlantic Ocean.

As of now, Starlink-7 is scheduled to lift off on an exceptionally flight-proven Falcon 9 rocket at 3:10 am EDT (07:10 UTC) on Tuesday, May 19th. It will be the eighth time SpaceX has performed a dedicated launch of 60 Starlink satellites since May 2019 and the 7th launch of Starlink v1.0 spacecraft since November 2019, a little over six months.

Falcon 9 Block 5 booster B1049 will be supporting the mission, set to be the rocket’s fifth launch since it debuted in September 2018 and second launch this year. Most recently, B1049 successfully launched SpaceX’s third Starlink mission (Starlink-2) on January 7th.

B1048 is pictured on March 14th prior to its fifth launch. Things did not go as planned. (Richard Angle)
Falcon 9 B1049, January 9th, 2020. (Richard Angle)

B1049 will be the second SpaceX booster to attempt a fifth orbital-class launch. Designed to fly no fewer than 10 times each, five flights marks the halfway point on the path to that ambitious design goal, itself just a preliminary target short of an even more ambitious goal of 100 flights per booster (with regular overhauls). It remains to be seen if SpaceX and CEO Elon Musk continue to aim for that ~100-launch target for Falcon 9 and Heavy boosters but with multiple boosters already nearing their fifth flights, it’s a question that will have to be answered sooner than later.

Unfortunately, during SpaceX’s inaugural fifth flight of Falcon 9 booster B1048, the rocket stage suffered a critical engine failure and emergency shutdown shortly before main engine cutoff and booster separation. B1048’s engine failure also prevented the booster from successfully landing, resulting in its destruction. SpaceX ultimately concluded that improper refurbishment – not an issue with the hardware itself – was the cause of the failure.

B1048’s swan song; March 18th, 2020. (Richard Angle)

As a result, B1049’s fifth launch is much more important than it might otherwise be. If successful, it will help demonstrate that nothing (aside from shoddy quality assurance) should hold back Falcon reusability from SpaceX’s design goals. If a similar failure occurs, however, it could quickly start to look like Falcon 9 Block 5 has hit a wall with respect to reusability, potentially capping each booster and five flights per life. Either way, SpaceX’s Starlink-7 mission will be a crucial mission for the company – up next is Crew Dragon’s inaugural NASA astronaut launch.

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 FSD takes owner on a 20,000+ mile joy ride

Tesla owner David Moss just pushed his intervention free FSD streak past 20,000 miles total.

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Tesla FSD 14.3 [Credit: TESLARATI)

Tesla Model 3 owner David Moss has spent the better part of eight months turning his vehicle into a rolling stress test for Full Self-Driving, and this week he pushed his single, continuous FSD streak past 20,000 miles without a human intervening.

Moss, a Tacoma, Washington resident who sells LiDAR scanning equipment for a living, first drew wide attention in December 2025 when he logged 10,000 consecutive miles on FSD v14.2. Days later he drove from the Tesla Diner in Los Angeles to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, covering 2,732 miles in two days and 20 hours with zero disengagements, the first verified coast to coast autonomous drive in Tesla’s history. Tesla even featured the trip as an official customer story in March. That original streak eventually reached 12,961 miles across 30 states before ending in rural Wisconsin in January, when snow and single digit temperatures forced Moss to take over.

Tesla FSD successfully completes full coast-to-coast drive with zero interventions

He started over, and this run has gone further. In late May, Moss drove 3,760 miles across Canada with two companions, from Horseshoe Bay in Vancouver to a Tesla showroom in Halifax, again without a single intervention, a trip Tesla AI software VP Ashok Elluswamy publicly congratulated him for on X. In June, he pushed the same unbroken streak south, aiming to link the Canadian border to the Mexican border, and crossed 10,000 miles on Tesla’s newly added in car streak counter along the way, the first driver to do so since Tesla began showing confetti animations for the feature.


It’s worth noting that every mile is logged through the FSD Database, a community run tracker built by Tesla influencer Omar Qazi, well known as @WholeMars on X, that pulls telemetry straight from the car and records disengagements down to a tenth of a mile. That verification is what separates Moss’s numbers from casual claims on social media.

The streak itself is a fairly recent addition to Tesla’s software. FSD v14.2 introduced a Self Driving Stats panel tracking the ratio of autonomous to manual miles, and v14.3.4 added the live streak counter in June, which resets the moment a driver brakes, wrenches the wheel or cancels navigation. Reaching 20,000 miles on that counter means a single Tesla drove itself through countless highways, city grids, construction zones and Supercharger stalls without a single reset.

Moss has said the goal was never to set a record for its own sake, but to show, mile by verified mile, what the software can already do.

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Elon Musk explains what happens when AI outsmarts all of us

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Elon Musk told The Economist that artificial intelligence will likely surpass the combined intelligence of every human on Earth within about five years, and that humans may not remain in charge once that happens. In a wide-ranging interview with editor-in-chief Zanny Minton Beddoes, recorded at Giga Texas for the outlet’s Insider series, Musk compared the widening gap between AI and human intelligence to the gap between humans and chimpanzees.

“It’s hard to imagine that the chimpanzee would be in charge,” he said, addressing what happens to human authority once AI moves far beyond us.

Elon Musk reiterates his most optimistic prediction yet with “UHI” forecast

Musk’s timeline stretches out from there. Five years for AI to out-think humanity combined, ten years before humans lose meaningful control, and by 2036, he says, money itself may stop mattering.

Musk notes that if robots and AI produce more goods and services than people could ever consume, currency loses its purpose. He told Beddoes that governments could respond with direct payments, what he called “universal high income,” a term he first used in an X post last August describing a future where “everyone will have the best medical care, food, home, transport and everything else.”

He also floated a more surprising prediction that deflation, and not inflation, would become the bigger economic problem, since expanding the supply of goods and services faster than the money supply grows would push prices down rather than up.

None of this is new territory for Musk, who has spent years describing an “age of abundance” built on Optimus and autonomous vehicles. What’s notable is the timing. The interview landed the same week Tesla shares dropped roughly 19 percent following a second quarter earnings report that beat on revenue but missed badly on profit, and as SpaceX stock continues to slide from its post-IPO peak.

Musk’s own net worth has fallen close to $700 billion since mid-June, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, even as he describes a future where personal wealth stops being the point.
Musk did not dodge the risk side of the equation either. He put the odds of AI contributing to human extinction somewhere in the 10 to 20 percent range, then arrived at what he called his “philosophical conclusion” since the technology cannot realistically be stopped and the arguably better response is to keep building it and hope the outcome leans toward abundance rather than catastrophe. “I’ve gone from exhilaration to terror regarding AI,” he told Beddoes, “even intraday.”

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Tesla adds new ‘Traction Control Modes’ for better handling in any conditions

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Credit: Tesla

Tesla is adding a new “Traction Control Modes” feature to its cars for better handling in any conditions. These features will roll out to the Model 3 and Model Y, the two vehicles in Tesla’s lineup that typically do not have drive modes for various conditions.

Tesla did include this in the Model S and Model X, as well as the Cybertruck.

The new feature will roll out with the 2026 Summer Update, which Tesla announced last week and subsequently started rolling out to some owners today. The Summer Update is the latest iteration of the usual four seasonal releases the company rolls out throughout the year. These releases typically feature some owner-requested features, as well as improvements to things like the Full Self-Driving suite.

Tesla reveals 2026 Summer Update with crazy fixes to Nav and more

This release is no different. Among the changes are improvements to Navigation, new customization options with wraps and how they can be shared and stored, more functionality with the Tesla smartphone app, and new gamification with self-driving.

However, Tesla announced today that it was adding another feature to the Summer Update. Traction Control Modes will now be available with the release

Tesla describes them:

“Choose from three updated Traction Control Modes: Auto for normal driving conditions, Slippery Surface for icy or wet roads, Stuck Assist when stuck in snow, mud, or sand. The mode resets to Auto at the start of each drive. To select, go to Controls > Dynamics > Traction Control Mode.”

The use of these modes will help improve a Tesla’s overall performance in less-than-ideal conditions. Typically, these traction control modes monitor wheel speed through sensors and track engine power to adjust responsiveness in various conditions.

These drive modes are not an ultimate solution to all driving conditions; just because there is a “Stuck Assist,” doesn’t mean your Tesla will dig itself out of a foot-and-a-half trench during a blizzard. It is important to remember that some of these scenarios also require some assistance from the driver. For example, driving in sand requires tires to be aired down significantly to increase traction and control.

However, this will be a welcome addition for those who use the Full Self-Driving suite and might not be convinced of its performance in adverse conditions. Some of us prefer to be in control in rain, snow, or ice, which is totally understandable. However, adjusting the Traction Control Mode while utilizing FSD in snow, rain, or ice could increase confidence and overall experience.

Tesla’s Summer Update is already rolling out to some owners, so it should be making its way to most of the fleet over the next several weeks. The Spring Update rolled out at a very conservative pace, so if you don’t have it by the end of August, don’t be too upset. It might just be Tesla’s method.

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