News
SpaceX’s Starlink satellites “happy and healthy” as Elon Musk fires managers and VP
Reuters is reporting that SpaceX’s Starlink internet satellite constellation project experienced significant organizational upheaval earlier this year, triggered by fundamental disagreements between CEO Elon Musk and executives overseeing Starlink as to how exactly SpaceX should approach the complex system’s development.
Despite the report’s primary focus on reorganization and Musk’s decision to simply fire 5+ key executives, SpaceX employees that spoke with Reuters were of the opinion that the two demo satellites – named Tintin A and B – are operating nominally in orbit more than half a year after launch.
The 2 test sats launched in Feb, Tintin A and B, seem to be healthy. "We’re talking with them every time they pass a ground station, dozens of times a day," one employee said. In the first week they streamed "4k YouTube and played ‘Counter-Strike: GO’ from Hawthorne to Redmond."
— Joey Roulette (@joroulette) October 31, 2018
Musk apparently believed that Starlink’s development timeline ought to be far shorter than certain senior executives overseeing the program were planning for. As a result of continuing success with the first two prototype satellites that launched in March 2018, a SpaceX engineer paraphrased Musk as being of the opinion that Starlink “can do the job with cheaper and simpler satellites, sooner.”
Rajeev Badyal, Vice President of SpaceX’s satellite program before being fired by Musk in June 2018, apparently wanted another three full iterations of prototype satellites to be launched and tested prior to beginning serious mass-production and launching the first real batch of Starlink satellites. While his extremely cautious approach may have had undeniable long-term benefits, it would also be a major hindrance in a field now rife with competitors like Telesat, OneWeb, LeoSat, and more, all eager to be first to offer internet services from low Earth orbit (LEO).
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- SpaceX’s first two Starlink prototype satellites are pictured here before their inaugural launch, showing off a thoroughly utilitarian bus and several advanced components. (SpaceX)
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- One of the first two prototype Starlink satellites separates from Falcon 9’s upper stage, February 2018. (SpaceX)
Prior to joining SpaceX in 2014, Badyal – like dozens of others now working on SpaceX’s Starlink constellation – worked at Microsoft for almost two decades, developing the consumer electronics and software company’s hardware programs (Zune, Xbox, Surface, etc.). In retrospect, it may not come as a huge surprise that a senior hardware development manager at Microsoft might be moderately risk-averse or at least methodical – while Surface and other more modern hardware programs have more functional iterative life cycles (usually annual), Xbox infamously spent nearly seven years between the launch of the Xbox 360 and Xbox One.
On the ground hardware side of Starlink development, user terminals, ground terminals, and other high-volume networking equipment could certainly benefit from someone like Badyal’s extensive experience developing high-volume consumer electronics like Xbox, but the Starlink satellites themselves are a different story. As a technology essentially without precedent, it could ultimately be almost anachronistically expensive to ‘refine’ the design of constellations of hundreds or thousands of high-bandwidth internet satellites before ever actually building and operating such a system.
A clash of approaches – Musk vs. Silicon Valley
What Musk instead seems to prefer – as demonstrated through his strategic direction of Tesla and SpaceX – is an approach where hardware development projects explicitly avoid striving for perfection with the first general iteration of a new system. Tesla did not spend years prototyping and performing limited tests in secret before building Model 3 as their first car ever – high-volume desirable electric vehicles simply did not exist. With SpaceX, Musk chose to explicitly develop a very small operational rocket – Falcon 1 – rather than very tediously attempting to go from scratch to Falcon 9 or BFR.
For Starlink, a Musk-style development program would fast-track a bare-minimum baseline for the satellite constellation and its ground systems, mass-producing and launching hardware that would inevitably be lacking in many ways but would still be able to act as a proving ground for the broader concepts at stake. One step further, the FCC’s Starlink constellation grant depends on an odd but unwavering requirement that SpaceX (or any other prospective LEO constellation-operator) launch at least 50% of all of any planned constellation within six years of receiving a license.
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- SpaceX’s first Starlink prototypes launched in late February aboard a flight-proven Falcon 9 booster. (Pauline Acalin)
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- Falcon 9 Block 5 will be absolutely critical to the success (and even the basic completion) of Starlink. (Tom Cross)
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- B1048 returns to port on drone ship JRTI after its successful July 2019 launch debut. (Pauline Acalin)
For SpaceX, that means that the basic ability to commercially operate Starlink is fundamentally at risk unless the company can somehow launch a minimum of 2213 (and up to ~5950) Starlink satellites between 2018 and 2024, an almost unfathomable challenge. Assuming ~500kg per satellite and perhaps 20 satellites per Falcon 9 launch, completing 50% of Starlink by 2024 would demand – without interruption – a minimum of one launch every two weeks for five years, mid-2019 to mid-2024. As such, every month spent prototyping and refining can essentially be viewed as a month where SpaceX didn’t launch dozens of Starlink satellites in pursuit of initial operational capabilities.
The news coming from Reuters’ reporting is ultimately a very positive look at Starlink, aside from Musk’s characteristically brusque and uncompromising approach to program management and leadership. Employees spoke proudly of the operational health and overall success of the two Tintin satellites already on orbit, noting that “they’re happy and healthy [and functioning as intended], and we’re talking with them [dozens of times a day] every time they pass a ground station”. Contrary to tenuous evidence to that suggested one of the two satellites had suffered an anomaly, preventing it from operating its electric thrusters, it appears that both satellites are doing just fine.
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- SpaceX is already fairly experienced with launching multi-satellite missions and building custom payload adapters. (NASA)
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- During a normal Iridium NEXT launch, two groups of five satellites are stacked on top of each other. Here, the top stack was replaced by NASA/DLR’s GRACE-FO spacecraft. (NASA)
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- A spectacular view of Iridium NEXT satellites during orbital deployment. Starlink deployment will be even more of a spectacle. (SpaceX)
Up next for Starlink is the launch of a second batch of demonstration satellites, expected to occur “in short order” according to an official SpaceX comment on the matter.
“Given the success of our recent Starlink demonstration satellites, we have incorporated lessons learned and re-organized to allow for the next design iteration to be flown in short order.” – SpaceX spokesperson Eva Behrend
Musk’s ultimate hope with this reorganization is to push Starlink to begin operational satellite launches as early as mid-2019, an ambitious goal to say the least. Understandably, the intent with such an expedited schedule would be to continuously modify, update, and improve Starlink satellite, terminal, and network designs at the same time as they are being built and operated. Much like SpaceX and Tesla, this helps to ensure that the ultimate result of development is a rapid initial product offering eventually followed by a highly-optimized ‘finished’ product.
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Tesla is ending Cybertruck production sometime in mid-2027, according to CEO Elon Musk.
Musk made the announcement on X last night, which came as a shock to many. He said that the Cybertruck will end production “to make room for increased Cybercab production” at Gigafactory Texas.
It is a huge blow to the fans of Tesla who have come to love the Cybertruck and identify with it as a symbol of their fandom. It has been the best-selling electric pickup, but it has had an underwhelming sales performance in terms of what was expected. This is mostly due to Tesla not meeting the prices it planned to offer the Cybertruck, as its unveiling and actual release were four years apart.
Tesla will be winding down production of the Cybertruck at Gigafactory Texas around the middle of next year to make room for increased Cybercab production
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 6, 2026
Overall, the responses were mixed. Some fans understood the move toward Cybercab production, especially as Tesla is truly pushing the autonomous future through its Robotaxi platform. However, others did not understand it.
“Damn, how many Cybercabs do you guys need?” one response read. Another said it was “Sad but understandable.”Even analyst Gary Black had responded to the news, stating he hoped Tesla planned to replace it with a traditional pickup design.
It doesn’t seem like that will be the case.
Tesla is so hell-bent on delivering autonomy and eventually providing a driverless service that owning a car seems like an arbitrary idea, according to their thesis. Instead, Cybercabs will be available to pick you up and drop you off on demand, safely, without any human help.
As a result, Tesla has thinned its lineup considerably, and one can only ask where the vehicle lineup goes from here. Eventually, it seems like Cybercab could be the only vehicle that Tesla will sell.
Elon Musk
SpaceX’s next Starship flight set to make history on Friday the 13th
SpaceX is targeting Friday, November 13 for Starship Flight 15 and its first ship catch.
SpaceX is targeting Friday, November 13 for Starship Flight 15, the mission the company plans to use for its first attempt at catching the ship itself with the launch tower.
SpaceX Vice President of Launch Kiko Dontchev shared the date on stage at the UP.Summit on Thursday, according to Ars Technica’s Eric Berger, who was in attendance. It is the first launch target to come directly from a SpaceX executive. Until now, the public schedule had relied on FAA air traffic planning slides, which listed Flight 15 for no earlier than November 8 and later November 12. SpaceX has not posted an official mission page yet, and no launch time has been shared.
The date lands inside the window Elon Musk sketched out last month. Speaking at Giga Texas on October 10, Musk said the flight would “probably launch a little bit before Thanksgiving,” as Teslarati reported. On SpaceX’s third quarter earnings call ten days later, he confirmed that Flight 15 would try to catch both the Super Heavy booster and the ship, and put the odds of a successful ship catch at “more likely than not.” SpaceX also aired an animation of the maneuver during that webcast, showing the ship swinging vertical over Starbase before dropping into the tower’s chopsticks.
The hardware is ready. Booster 22 fired all 33 of its Raptor engines for a full duration static fire at Pad 2 on October 25. Ship 42 followed with a single engine burn simulating a deorbit maneuver on October 26 and a 60 second firing of all six engines the next day, according to NASASpaceflight. Ship 42 had already rehearsed the catch in September, when the Pad 2 arms lifted it into position and crews connected the quick disconnect arm while the vehicle hung from the tower.
The remaining hurdle is regulatory. The FAA’s Starship page does not yet list a Flight 15 license. SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell said in October that, after “significant constructive engagement with the FAA,” she expects the license to cover a return to the launch site and a tower catch for both stages. Bringing the ship home means a reentry path that heads toward land, rather than ending over open ocean as every Starship flight so far has.
SpaceX has caught Super Heavy three times, on Flights 5, 7 and 8, but the ship comes back from orbital velocity and has never been caught. Flight 14 on September 28 was the first Starship to reach orbit, deploying 26 Starlink V3 satellites before splashing down despite an early engine shutdown that Musk blamed on engine computer software.
Musk has called a successful ship catch “the first time that there’s been full recovery of an orbital class rocket,” and he has already named the step after it: a Flight 16 where both the booster and the ship fly again. NASASpaceflight reports that Ship 43, the next vehicle in line, is set for static fire testing in December.
EVgo has tapped Tesla Superchargers for its most recent efforts to expand its charging presence in the United States, a move that seems logical based on the effectiveness of the automaker’s own infrastructure.
EVgo opened its first Supercharger site in Illinois, a 12-stall station near downtown Chicago at 3145 South Ashland Avenue in the Riverside Square & River’s Edge center, right beside a grocery store. This marks the start of the company’s plan to deploy hundreds of Supercharger stalls across the United States, primarily at grocery-anchored Regency Centers properties where drivers can shop, eat, or run errands while they charge.
We’ve opened our first EVgo Supercharger location in Illinois, marking the start of our plan to add hundreds of Supercharger stalls across the U.S.
Designed for both NACS and CCS vehicles with Magic Dock technology, these new sites help make fast charging more accessible and convenient for all EV drivers. Learn more: https://t.co/V92t5FDryQ
— EVgo Fast Charging Network (@evgonetwork) November 5, 2026
The new location uses Tesla’s Magic Dock technology so both NACS and CCS vehicles can plug in natively without drivers needing to carry their own adapters. Peak power reaches 325 kW at this site, with pricing set between $0.25 and $0.35 per kWh depending on the hour—the same rate for Tesla and non-Tesla drivers.
The stalls also appear in Tesla’s in-car navigation and Trip Planner, making them easy for Tesla owners to find and route to. Illinois has seen EV registrations rise nearly 60 percent over the past two years, and EVgo’s broader network has experienced more than 700 percent growth in charging demand over three years, so the timing fits the market’s trajectory.
Choosing Tesla hardware through the Supercharger for Business program turns out to have been a smart, practical move.
Tesla’s V4 stalls and cabinets deliver high, reliable power with a proven track record of strong uptime, while Magic Dock delivers true dual-standard compatibility in one package. Because the sites show up in Tesla’s navigation tools, EVgo instantly gains visibility among millions of existing Tesla drivers, which should raise utilization and help the company double its addressable market as more vehicles adopt NACS. EVgo still owns the stations and sets pricing, yet benefits from Tesla’s established hardware, longer cables, and operational support.
The result is faster, lower-risk infrastructure expansion that serves every EV driver—Tesla or otherwise—with convenient, high-power charging at everyday retail locations. For drivers, that means fewer adapters, more predictable stops, and a denser network just as electric vehicles become everyday transportation.
Tesla is ending Cybertruck production
SpaceX’s next Starship flight set to make history on Friday the 13th
