News
SpaceX Starlink competitor OneWeb misled the FCC, media with false “near-miss” narrative
In the latest trials and tribulations of a SpaceX Starlink competitor that went bankrupt after spending $3 billion to launch just 74 small internet satellites, it appears that OneWeb knowingly misled both media and US regulators over a claimed “near-miss” with a Starlink satellite.
Back on April 9th, OneWeb went public with claims that SpaceX had mishandled its response to a routine satellite collision avoidance warning from the US military, which monitors the location of satellites and space debris. According to OneWeb government affairs chief Chris McLaughlin, SpaceX disabled an automated system designed to detect and automatically command Starlink satellite collision avoidance maneuvers to let OneWeb move its satellite instead. McLaughlin also stated that “Coordination is the issue – it is not sufficient to say ‘I’ve got an automated system.’”
He also recently criticized the maneuverability of Starlink satellites, claiming that “Starlink’s engineers said they couldn’t do anything to avoid a collision and switched off the collision avoidance system so OneWeb could maneuver around the Starlink satellite without interference.” As it turns out, OneWeb’s “near-miss” appears to have been a farce and the company scrambled to promise to retract those statements in an April 20th meeting with the FCC and SpaceX.
In far more egregious comments made on April 20th to the Wall Street Journal, a publication with a long history of blindly disseminating anti-SpaceX rhetoric, McLaughlin likened OneWeb’s satellites to “Ford Focus” cars and attempted to lambast Starlink satellites by comparing them to “Teslas: They launch them and then they have to upgrade and fix them, or even replace them altogether.”
Over the past 17 months, SpaceX has launched more than 1380 operational Starlink v1.0 satellites, some 870 of which are operational. Another ~440 are in the process of reaching operational orbits. All told, some 1365 are still in orbit and around 1345 of those satellites are working as expected for a total Starlink v1.0 failure rate of roughly 2.5%. As is SpaceX’s bread and butter, however, reliability has been continuously improving and of ~960 Starlink satellites launched over the last ~12 months, the overall failure rate has dropped to less than 1% – an almost threefold improvement.
After exiting bankruptcy last November, OneWeb has completed just two more launches for a total of 140 operational satellites in orbit of a planned ~650. Operating at a much higher ~1200 km (~750 mi) orbit, any failure of OneWeb satellites would produce debris that could remain in orbit for decades, whereas SpaceX has explicitly chosen much lower ~550 km (~340 mi) orbits, meaning that debris reenters in a matter of years. At Starlink’s sub-300-kilometer (~185 mi) insertion orbit, any faulty satellites screened during SpaceX’s checkout process reenter in a matter of days or weeks thanks to drag from Earth’s atmosphere.
The first phase of SpaceX’s Starlink constellation will require approximately 4400 satellites in low Earth orbit (LEO) and the company is already almost a third of the way to that milestone. A second phase could see those numbers grow as high as ~12,000, followed by a third phase with more than 40,000 satellites much further down the road. Relative to OneWeb, Starlink is dramatically more ambitious and each SpaceX satellite offers superior bandwidth and latency in a bid to blanket the Earth in affordable, high-quality broadband internet.
Of course, as a consequence of needing so many satellites to build out a network with enough bandwidth to serve tens to hundreds of millions of people, there is an obvious risk that unreliable satellites could make LEO a much more challenging place to operate for both SpaceX and the rest of the world. It also demands an entirely new approach to collision avoidance given the impracticality of human operators manually managing a fleet of thousands – or tens of thousands – of satellites.
Towards that end, SpaceX is developing an autonomous collision avoidance system – though virtually nothing is known about that system outside of the company, creating a far from optimal situation for all other satellite operators. Nevertheless, aside from one publicized avoidance maneuver in 2019, SpaceX appears to be quickly becoming a responsible and (mostly) transparent operator and custodian.
In an apparent attempt to capitalize on vague fears of “space debris” and satellite collisions, OneWeb – or perhaps just McLaughlin – took it upon itself to consciously misconstrue a routine, professional process of collision-avoidance coordination between OneWeb and SpaceX. McLaughlin ran a gauntlet of media outlets to drag SpaceX through the mud and criticize both the company’s technology and response, ultimately claiming that SpaceX’s Starlink satellite was incapable of maneuvering out of the way.
Instead, according to a precise, evidenced timeline of events presented by SpaceX to the FCC, the coordination was routine, uneventful, and entirely successful. OneWeb itself explicitly asked SpaceX to disable its autonomous collision avoidance software and allow the company to maneuver its own satellite out of the way after SpaceX made it clear that the Starlink spacecraft could also manage the task. The event was neither “urgent” or a “close call,” as OneWeb and media outlets later claimed. SpaceX says it has been coordinating similar avoidance maneuvers with OneWeb since March 2020.
Most damningly, SpaceX says that immediately after OneWeb disseminated misleading quotes about the event to the media, “OneWeb met with [FCC] staff and Commissioners [to demand that] unilateral conditions [be] placed on SpaceX’s operations.” Those conditions could have actually made coordination harder, “demonstrating more of a concern with limiting [OneWeb’s] competitors than with a genuine concern for space safety.” Crucially, despite lobbying to restrict its competitors, “OneWeb [has] argued forcefully that [it] should be exempt from Commission rules for orbital debris mitigation due to their status as non-U.S. operators.”
In simple terms, OneWeb is trying to exploit the FCC to suppress its competition while letting it roam free of the exact same regulations. Meanwhile, SpaceX is focused on launching satellites and serving tens of thousands of beta customers as Starlink speeds towards virtually uninterrupted global coverage barely a year and a half after operational launches began – all while coordinating with dozens of other satellite operators to be the best ‘neighbor’ it can be in space.
News
Tesla’s surprise Roadster video hints the 2017 design is gone
Tesla ended its Semi event with a Roadster teaser revealing a new front light bar.
Tesla closed out its Semi event in Nevada on Thursday night with a nod to its own history, dropping a short Roadster teaser that suggests the production car will look noticeably different from the prototype first shown in 2017.
“We can’t have a Semi event without the Roadster,” Tesla engineering executive Lars Moravy told the crowd before the clip played. The line was a deliberate callback. Tesla first revealed the next generation Roadster in November 2017 by driving it out of the back of a Semi trailer at the truck’s original unveiling in Hawthorne, California.
The new video opens on trailer doors swinging apart in the dark. A thin white light bar glows across what appears to be the nose of the car, Tesla and SpaceX logos flash over the frame, and the Roadster name appears before the clip ends on “See you next week.” Tesla posted the nine second clip on X after the livestream wrapped.
See you next week pic.twitter.com/BT52bGVxFu
— Tesla (@Tesla) September 25, 2026
The light bar is the most concrete design detail so far. The 2017 prototype used two separate curved headlamp pods, while a connected front light strip would bring the Roadster in line with the Cybertruck, Cybercab, Semi, and refreshed Model Y. Sawyer Merritt was among the first to point out what looked like part of a SpaceX logo in the video, something Tesla has not addressed.
That logo fits the buildup around the optional SpaceX Package, which Elon Musk has long said would use cold gas thrusters to improve acceleration and possibly allow the car to briefly leave the ground. Tesla’s “Go for launch” post on September 12 set the October 1 date, and invitations sent to reservation holders place the event in Waco, Texas, at 8:30 p.m. Eastern. Waco sits roughly 20 minutes from SpaceX’s McGregor rocket test site, where the FAA has put a temporary flight restriction in place from September 18 through October 2, covering a 1.5 nautical mile radius from the surface up to 10,000 feet.
Tesla is also taking money ahead of the reveal. The company reopened Roadster reservations earlier this week with a $5,000 refundable card payment, followed by a $45,000 wire transfer due within 10 days. That puts buyers at $50,000 committed before Tesla has published a price.
The original pitch set a high bar: 0 to 60 mph in 1.9 seconds before any upgrades, 620 miles of range, a top speed above 250 mph, and production in 2020. That timeline has slipped repeatedly, and Tesla has since pointed to production at Gigafactory Texas no earlier than 2027. The company has said next Thursday’s event will include pricing, specifications, and production targets, the three details original reservation holders have been waiting on for nearly nine years.
Tesla Full Self-Driving’s release in Europe is set to be delayed by at least a few months.
The European Union will not vote on Tesla’s Full Self-Driving (Supervised) on October 6. The draft agenda for the 119th meeting of the Technical Committee on Motor Vehicles lists only a 25-minute “continuation of discussions” on the Netherlands’ Article 39 request, not a decision. The next scheduled TCMV session is in December, which is now the earliest date a bloc-wide vote could occur.
Tesla Europe had pointed to October 6 as a possible EU-wide vote after the Dutch vehicle authority RDW granted the first European type approval on April 10.
That approval, under UN Regulation 171 plus an Article 39 exemption in EU Regulation 2018/858, is the legal file other member states have been recognizing one by one. The same committee has already discussed the request twice without voting.
Elon Musk’s reply to the delay was a single word: “Sigh.”
Sigh
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) September 25, 2026
Seven EU countries have now cleared FSD Supervised on their own roads: the Netherlands, Lithuania, Estonia, Denmark, Belgium, Slovenia, and Czechia. Those seven states represent about 53 million people, or roughly 12 percent of the EU population. An EU-wide authorization still needs a qualified majority: at least 15 of 27 member states representing 65 percent of the bloc’s population, about 292 million people.
Germany, France, Italy, and Spain remain the decisive markets. France has already rejected the current system; several other governments have flagged speed-limit compliance as the main sticking point.
The safety case Tesla is putting in front of those governments is now public. On September 1, Tesla Europe said FSD Supervised was in use by more than 70,000 customers, covering over 1 million kilometers a day, and was 4.1 times less likely to be involved in a crash than manual driving across 100 million kilometers on EU public roads.
An earlier mid-year cut of the same fleet data, covering 65 million kilometers in five approved countries, put the collision advantage at 5.2 times, with zero highway collisions over 41.9 million kilometers. Tesla also reported far fewer automatic emergency braking events, harsh accelerations, and hard swerves than in comparable manual Tesla driving. Those figures are company-reported, not independently audited.
Tesla Full Self-Driving is taking over Europe: fourth country gets FSD approval
The public-health backdrop is harder to dispute. European countries recorded about 19,400 road deaths in 2025, or roughly 53 a day, most of them attributed to human error. FSD Supervised is not unsupervised autonomy; the driver remains legally responsible. But the software is already legal and in daily use across seven member states.
Until TCMV votes, the rest of the EU remains a patchwork: available in Prague and Amsterdam, locked behind review in Paris and Berlin. December is now the next chance to close that gap.
News
SpaceX readies Starship Flight 14 for a historic journey into uncharted territory
SpaceX finished Starship’s Flight 14 rehearsal, clearing the way for its first orbital flight Monday.
SpaceX has cleared one of the last hurdles before Starship’s first trip to orbit. The company posted on X Thursday afternoon that its launch rehearsal for Flight 14 was complete, keeping the mission on track for Monday, September 28. The launch window opens at 7:15 a.m. CT at Starbase, Texas, and runs for 75 minutes.
A wet dress rehearsal is essentially launch day without the launch. Crews fill Booster 21 and Ship 41 with thousands of tons of extremely cold propellant, run the countdown nearly to ignition, then drain everything back out. It lets engineers catch leaks or equipment problems before anything leaves the pad. SpaceX still needs a launch license from the FAA before the stack, which stands 407 feet tall, can fly.
Flight 14 matters because of where it is going. All 13 previous Starship flights followed a suborbital path, which works like throwing a ball extremely high and far: the vehicle reaches space, but it is always on a course that brings it back down within about an hour. This time, Ship 41 will perform a short engine firing called an orbital insertion burn roughly 25 minutes after liftoff, giving it enough speed to keep falling around Earth instead of back into it. SpaceX plans about six laps at an altitude near 275 kilometers (171 miles) over nearly 10 hours, as Teslarati detailed when the mission was first announced.
Launch rehearsal complete ahead of Starship Flight 14 pic.twitter.com/h5LBYyBqi4
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) September 24, 2026
Getting into orbit also means Starship has to prove it can get back out. The ship must relight a single Raptor engine in space to slow down for reentry. SpaceX says it will only attempt the orbital insertion burn after flight controllers confirm the hardware needed for that return burn has enough backup, and its flight plan includes health checks that could shorten the mission to two or five orbits.
Flight 14 is also the first to put working satellites into service. Flight 13 carried 20 Starlink V3 satellites in July, but they came back down with the ship because that mission never reached orbit. This time, 26 V3 satellites are meant to stay up and join the constellation within a few weeks. Together they add about 26 terabits per second of network capacity, which SpaceX says is roughly 10 times what a single Falcon 9 launch of older V2 Mini satellites adds. Three of them carry cameras that will photograph Starship’s heat shield in orbit to check for tile damage before reentry.
The hardware has changed too. Ship 41 flies with extra fasteners on tiles in the most vulnerable areas, fixes for gaps where superheated plasma slipped behind tiles, and curved tiles designed to reduce heating between them. Two tiles recovered from Ship 40 will fly again, the first reuse of any part of a Starship heat shield. Booster 21 carries better engine filtering and new relight software after ice clogged three center engines on the previous booster, leaving only eight of 13 engines to restart for its landing burn.
Ship 41 is targeting a splashdown in the Pacific Ocean west of Chile, a new recovery zone after several Indian Ocean landings, while Booster 21 aims for the Gulf. Neither will be caught by the tower on this flight. Elon Musk said in August that a ship catch was likely “in a few months.”
Tesla’s surprise Roadster video hints the 2017 design is gone
Tesla Full Self-Driving release in the EU gets delayed
