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SpaceX set to launch 240th Starlink satellite as space internet nears prime time

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket is scheduled to launch the second batch of 60 Starlink satellites in 20 days just a handful of hours from now. (Richard Angle)

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SpaceX is just hours away from a Monday launch that should leave the company with almost 250 Starlink satellites in orbit — the latest in several recent steps towards prime time for the fledgling space internet constellation.

Scheduled to lift off no earlier than (NET) 9:49 am EST (14:49 UTC) on January 27th, a twice-flown Falcon 9 booster, new upper stage, 60 Starlink satellites, and a mysteriously blank payload fairing will try to thread the needle from SpaceX’s Cape Canaveral Air Force Station (CCAFS) LC-40 pad. Weather is tepid according to USAF forecasts and Monday’s – already just 50% ‘go’ – doesn’t even account for extremely high-speed upper-level winds that will absolutely have to wane before Falcon 9 can launch.

SpaceX’s fourth dedicated launch, today’s mission – known as Starlink V1 L3 (the third launch of v1.0 satellites) – will raise the number of spacecraft the company has placed in orbit to 240. Based on past statements from executives and SpaceX’s very own Starlink.com website, successfully completing Starlink V1 L3 could place the company just a hop, skip, and a jump away from the space-based internet constellation’s prime-time. With a little luck, the fledgling satellite internet provider could be serving customers much sooner than almost anyone might imagine.

As of now, it appears that SpaceX will indeed attempt to launch later today despite a good chance that weather conditions will force the company to try again on January 28th. Thankfully, SpaceX’s unique operating procedures brings with it a fair amount of flexibility to scrub launches with very little consequence less than 40 minutes before liftoff.

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Falcon 9’s Starlink V1 L3 payload fairing is mysteriously blank – making it SpaceX’s first launch ever without fairing artwork. Ships Ms. Tree and Ms. Chief will each try to catch one of the halves pictured here — their second simultaneous catch attempt ever. (Richard Angle)

SpaceX is able to wait that long out of sheer necessity. The company introduced the use of ‘subcooled’ liquid oxygen and kerosene on its Falcon launch vehicles all the way back in 2016, encouraged by the fact that its propellant becomes significantly denser as it gets colder. By toeing the line between liquid oxygen and kerosene actually solidifying into slush, SpaceX was able to boost Falcon 9’s payload capabilities by an incredible ~30% or more. To get that benefit, however, Falcon 9’s propellant must remain as cold as possible, and it begins warming the second that it leaves its far-more-insulated storage tanks and enters Falcon 9.

Once loaded with its supercool propellant, Falcon 9’s liquid oxygen tanks develop a hefty coating of frost and ice as the tank walls literally freeze the moist Florida air. (SpaceX)

As a result, SpaceX must load Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy with propellant as late as physically possible, translating to no sooner than 35 minutes before liftoff on all recent launches. In other words, if the weather is firmly on the ‘bad’ side of things at T-38:00-35:00, SpaceX is often able to scrub a given launch attempt before propellant loading begins, both saving the rocket from an unnecessary thermal cycle and saving propellant that might otherwise have to be wasted.

120 satellites, 20 days

Weather challenges and the likelihood of a 24-hour delay aside, SpaceX will soon launch its third batch of upgraded Starlink v1.0 satellites — also the company’s fourth dedicated launch of 60 spacecraft. If things go as planned, SpaceX will have launched nearly 250 satellites total – all but 5 (or so) of which are happily operating in Earth orbit right now.

Falcon 9 B1049 returned to port on January 9th after launching Starlink V1 L2. (Richard Angle)
Perhaps just 20 days later, Falcon 9 B1051 is scheduled to launch another 60 Starlink satellites. (Richard Angle)

Deemed Starlink V1 L3, a successful mission later today will also mean that SpaceX has launched an incredible 120 spacecraft – weighing more than 30 metric tons – in less than 20 days. It’s difficult to say for sure, but it’s very likely that that will mark the latest global record secured by SpaceX, following on the heels of the company’s recent ascendance as the newest owner of the world’s largest private satellite constellation (~180 satellites).

However, the ultimate goal of Starlink is, of course, to deliver unprecedentedly high-performance internet service to customers anywhere on Earth. The “anywhere on Earth” modifier is likely more than 20 dedicated SpaceX launches away from reality, but the company has said it will begin serving internet to customers in “the Northern U.S. and Canada in 2020”. As of mid-2019, SpaceX indicated that that regional North American beta test could begin after just six launches.

More recent comments from a SpaceX executive suggest that it could require more like 8 launches of 60 Starlink satellites before initial service can begin in North America, but that ultimately means that the company should be no less than 50-65% of the way there after Starlink V1 L3. With a little luck, that could mean that SpaceX is just two or three Starlink launches away from inviting the first non-employee customers onto the company’s space-based internet. Given SpaceX’s current launch cadence, six Starlink launches may well be well behind the company by the end of February – perhaps just a month or less from now.

Weather permitting, tune in to SpaceX.com/webcast around 9:35 am EST (14:35 UTC) later today (January 18th) to watch SpaceX’s latest Starlink launch live.

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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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Investor's Corner

Tesla gets its latest short from Michael Burry: ‘Happy it jumped back to this level’

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Credit: MarcoRP | X

Tesla short seller Michael Burry, the subject of the film “The Big Short,” where he was portrayed by Steve Carell, has revealed he has opened a new bet against the stock.

In a new update to his Substack newsletter in a post titled “Trading Post June 30, 2026,” Burry revealed a new set of bets against Tesla, Caterpillar, NVIDIA, Applied Materials Inc., and the iShares Semiconductor ETF.

In regard to Tesla, Burry wrote:

“And finally I shorted Tesla at 416.22. Happy it jumped back to this level.”

This means Burry likely opened his new short position after the company’s recent rally on Wall Street, which saw Tesla shares sink in mid-May, only to recover to well over the $400 mark. Currently, shares trade at around $427.

The company saw a big Tuesday as shares climbed considerably, over 10 percent. The size of the Tesla short was not provided, nor did Burry give any information on the position’s structure, the number of shares, dollar value, or whether options were used in the short.

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

Over the years, Burry has been one of the more vocal critics of Tesla, calling its share price “media inflated,” and saying it was “ridiculously overvalued” as recently as December.

The company has largely transitioned away from being known as an automotive company and instead is much more widely regarded as an AI play, mostly due to its Full Self-Driving efforts, Optimus robot development, and data collection related to both.

This has not pulled those skeptics away from being vocal about their distaste for how Tesla is valued, but there’s no denying that the company is a global force in many things, including sustainable energy, automotive, and AI.

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Investor's Corner

SpaceX gets initial stock coverage from Tesla’s biggest bull

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SpaceX Starship V3 flight 12
SpaceX Starship V3 flight 12 (Credit: SpaceX)

Wedbush Securities is initiating stock coverage on SpaceX (NASDAQ: SPCX), marking the first comments on the company since it went public several weeks ago. Wedbush and its analyst handling coverage, Dan Ives, are widely bullish on fellow Musk company Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA).

Ives wrote his first note initiating coverage of SpaceX shares on Wednesday with a $190 price target and an ‘Outperform’ rating. The firm believes the company is well positioned off of its IPO because of its wide array of projects, including AI compute power and infrastructure, connectivity projects, and launches.

“We view SpaceX as one of the most differentiated assets within the tech market with a strong footprint across its three core markets, with Starlink driving success with connectivity,” Ives wrote, “Starship launches leading to a demand flywheel and increasing deal flow for its Colossus clusters.”

Elon Musk called it Epic: The full story of SpaceX’s Starship Flight 12

Wedbush leans heavily on Starlink, which they say is the “profitability driver given the strength of its recurring revenue base of ~12 million subscribers as of June 5th.” Ives believes Starlink is still in the “early innings” of penetrating the global telecommunications and broadband market, as it only holds less than a 1 percent share. However, this number is sure to increase over time.

It also highlights the importance of Starship, which it says is an “essential layer” of SpaceX’s overall success. SpaceX developing and displaying the ability to reuse rockets is a major cost and reliability advantage “as it reduces the necessary hardware launch costs while generating a feedback loop for future flights to improve their launch flight rate without accelerating capex spend.”

Finally, SpaceX’s recent AI/Compute projects are also very elementary, Ives writes. It is worth mentioning Wedbush said its $190 price target is derived from a valuation forecast that sees the company yielding roughly $2.48 trillion of implied enterprise value.

There are also some factors that Wedbush did not take into account with its initial coverage. The firm wrote in the note:

“We note that there is optional value coming from Starship’s accelerating scale towards sub-$200/kg unit economics, orbital data centers, and enterprise AI monetization as these factors could drive meaningful upside but these face major hurdles, so we do not take that into account with our valuation.”

SpaceX shares are down just over 2 percent today, trading at around $167 at the time of publication.

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Tesla expands massive safety feature worldwide in latest update

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Credit: Tesla

Tesla has expanded the footprint of a massive safety feature worldwide with a recent Software Update labeled as 2026.20.6. The expansion of the “Blind Spot Warning While Parked” feature represents the more widespread availability of the feature, which aims to prevent “dooring.”

Dooring is when a driver or passenger opens a car door into the path of an oncoming road user, usually a cyclist or motorcyclist. It is among the most common types of cycling accidents, the League of American Bicyclists says.

For this reason, Tesla created a feature that warns occupants not to open the door because an object is approaching. The feature will sound a chime, and it will also delay the opening of the door to prevent an incident.

The release notes state (via Not a Tesla App):

“If you attempt to open a door while an approaching object is detected in your blind spot (for example, a bicyclist approaching from behind) a chime sounds, and your door will not open upon initial button press. Wait a short time and press the button a second time to override the warning.”

Tesla initially rolled out this feature back in 2024 with the Model 3 “Highland.” However, it remained with the Model 3 exclusively for over a year; that was until Tesla added it to the Cybertruck this past Spring.

Now, it is making its way to the new Model Y, 2021 and newer Model S, and 2021 or newer Model X.

The prevention of dooring incidents could eliminate many injuries to cyclists, especially in an urban setting. Dooring accounts for 10-20 percent of bike-related crashes in major cities, and over 17,000 dooring-related incidents were treated in the U.S. over the course of a decade. These usually involve fractures, contusions, and head trauma.

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