News
SpaceX filing shows plans to bring Starlink to U.S. school buses
SpaceX plans to bring Starlink internet to students on school buses in the U.S., according to a new filing with the Federal Communications Commission.
The space exploration company is collaborating with several school districts for pilot projects in rural areas of the country to support students who have to travel on long bus routes. This gives students internet access while on those long rides.
SpaceX is focusing on school bus routes that are over an hour long each way and are also predominantly inaccessible to other mobile broadband services. In a letter addressed to FCC Secretary Marlene Dortch, SpaceX expressed its support for the agency’s efforts to fund the Schools and Libraries Universal Service Support Mechanism (E-Rate program) connecting millions of students who don’t have access to broadband internet.
“SpaceX is committed to ensuring access to high-speed, low-latency broadband service to benefit American students as quickly as possible, not only at home but on their way to and from school. In fact, SpaceX has prioritized connecting otherwise unserved schools and libraries in the most remote parts of the country, including on Tribal lands.”
“SpaceX therefore strongly agrees with Chairwoman Rosenworcel that providing Wi-Fi on school buses is critical to bridging the Homework Gap and that the provision of such services should be eligible for E-Rate support.”
“The Commission should quickly act to expand the scope of the E-Rate program by adopting the Chairwoman’s draft Declaratory Ruling to ensure equitable access to high-speed broadband services on school buses in addition to the already eligible schools and libraries.”
This lines up with what Elon Musk said over the summer about Starlink, education, and access to the internet. When asked about solutions to poverty, he said,”Literacy and access to internet, I think, are fundamentally helpful.”
According to the Borgen Project, 60 million people could be alleviated from poverty if they received two or more years of education or completed secondary school. DoSomething.org notes that over 30 million children are growing up in poverty and that there is only one book for every 300 children in low-income communities.
In addition, a higher percentage of young adults without a high school diploma live in poverty, and 40% of children living in poverty aren’t prepared for primary schooling.
“So I think those things are helpful. Generally, education, obviously, is good. These days you can learn almost anything online. MIT, for example, has all of their lectures online and a number of other universities do. If you wanted to, you could learn almost anything for a very low cost just using a simple phone or an old tablet–a router box basically,” Elon Musk said.
“You’ve got access to all the world’s information. I think that this fact is really underappreciated and it’s something we should be I think pretty excited and optimistic about or feel good about which is that information before the internet was very limited.”
“If you wanted to learn a skill or trade or learn something, you would have to go to a school and you’d have to get the specific books or you’d have to go to a library in that library wouldn’t necessarily have all the books that you’d want. Or maybe there isn’t a library or there might not be a library near where you live.”
“But with the internet, you’ve got instant access to basically all the world’s information. So information equality is really incredible compared to where it used to be.”
In the letter to the FCC Secretary, SpaceX also pointed out that low-income students are affected disproportionately.
“According to a Pew Research Center Study, roughly one-third (35%) of households with children ages 6 to 17 and an annual income below $30,000 a year do not have a high-speed internet connection at home.”
“And many students who need the most support live miles from school, with lengthy commutes but no connectivity. Subsidized funding such as the E-Rate program should address digital equity and enable increased educational opportunities for students across the United States by ensuring access to high-speed internet at home and on the way to school.”
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The Tesla Model Y L is arguably the most hyped trim of the all-electric crossover, other than the Performance configuration that comes with white-knuckle speed and sports car-level handling.
However, it is not all perfect. Tesla owners in China who took delivery of the Model Y L, denoted with an L to highlight its longer wheelbase, are experiencing what they are referring to as “collapsing” of the rear wheels, as suspension issues appear to be an issue with some of the builds.
🚨 Model Y L owners in China report rear suspension sag
• Six-seat long-wheelbase Y. Shanghai. On sale since August 2025
• Owners say the rear tire-to-arch gap shrinks after mileage or a full load. Some cases after about 9,000 km loaded. Others near 30,000 km
• Tesla service… pic.twitter.com/Lr6i5Tbi07— Joe Hansen (@joehansen) September 1, 2026
The gap between the wheel arch and tire has narrowed to the point that “not even a single finger” could fit, according to a report from Car News China. The failures are not tied to a specific mileage, as one owner said that after just 9,000 kilometers (5,600 miles), they noticed the suspension issue when their car was fully loaded.
Another one had the issue at 30,000 kilometers (18,640 miles) and noticed that the wheel gap shrank to two fingers, so not as drastic as the person who reported a similar issue at 9,000 km.
Tesla Model Y L is gaining momentum in China’s premium segment
Along with the visual recognition of the issue, others are saying the sagging is causing abnormal wear on the inside of the tires. Extra weight and instant torque already provide additional stress on the tires in electric vehicles during normal operation, so it is no surprise that this is another complaint.
There has been no recall issued by Tesla, and the company has not yet publicly acknowledged the issue.
Some are suggesting that owners use a “finger test” to self-diagnose whether there is an issue with the suspension. There should be four fingers between the tire and the wheel well; anything less than that starts to get dicey.
Tesla is starting to truly tease and hype its groundbreaking Cybercab event, which takes place tomorrow in Austin, Texas. It will be the first time members of the public will be able to ride in a Cybercab, a vehicle without any manual controls, on public roads.
Tesla has been dropping some hype on X over the past several days, but this morning, the excitement has truly started to build up for the event. Although Cybercab has been unveiled before, this is truly Tesla’s announcement that it is ready to start offering autonomous rides for public passengers in its new ride-hailing-geared vehicle for the first time.
The hype has started with a variety of different social media posts that are a true indication that Tesla is preparing for something big. Teasing so much of the potential of Cybercab, including its ability to truly revolutionize how people hail rides for local travel, is what the big idea for the event entails. The time that many Tesla owners, fans, and investors have been waiting for is potentially here:
— Tesla (@Tesla) September 2, 2026
The event has remained slim on details. Even invitees are still awaiting true details about what the event will entail, where they’ll go, and what is in store for the evening. This is pretty typical for an event run by Tesla; they keep things under wraps for the most part until the very last minute.
However, there is no secret about what the real intention of Tesla is for this event: it is going to be a huge reveal party for a vehicle that has no steering wheel and no pedals. It is a truly massive step for the company moving forward.
No steering wheel, no pedals
— Tesla Robotaxi (@robotaxi) September 2, 2026
Speculation persists as to whether this is going to be an event that simply announces that rides will begin with the Cybercab, or it will be something more substantial. Tesla has said in the past that they plan to sell the Cybercab to the general public in what could become a great way to earn passive income by adding it to a more global fleet of Robotaxi-geared vehicles.
Tomorrow, the show begins in Austin, and the Cybercab goes live at some capacity; we just don’t know exactly how quite yet.
News
SpaceX tells the FCC that Starship Flight 14 is going to orbit
SpaceX filed with the FCC for Starship Flight 14, its first true orbital launch attempt.
SpaceX has asked the Federal Communications Commission for permission to fly Starlink terminals during Starship’s fourteenth flight test, and the filing lays out a genuine trip to orbit, something the program has never attempted.
Every Starship flight so far, including Flight 13’s successful splashdown in the Indian Ocean on July 24, has flown a suborbital arc that ends with the ship reentering the atmosphere within the same hour it launches. The FCC paperwork describes a mission profile built around an actual orbital insertion instead.
The payload is the other half of the story. Flight 13 carried 20 production Starlink V3 satellites, but because that mission never reached orbit, the satellites reentered along with the ship rather than joining the constellation, something Teslarati covered in detail after SpaceX released footage shot from one of those satellites as it drifted away from Starship in space. Flight 14 is designed to close that gap. If the orbital insertion holds, the roughly 20 V3 satellites onboard would separate into an operational orbit and could eventually go into service, each one rated for about 1 terabit per second of downlink capacity by SpaceX’s own account.
SpaceX announces new Starbase for ‘thousands of Starship launches annually’
Elon Musk first flagged the orbital attempt during SpaceX’s August 4 earnings call, the company’s first as a public entity following its June IPO under the ticker SPCX. He also floated catching the ship with the Starbase tower on the same flight, an idea he walked back on August 20, saying the catch attempt would more likely come “in a few months,” as Teslarati reported at the time. Flight 14 will instead target a splashdown for the ship in the Indian Ocean, the same recovery method used since Flight 12.
Hardware has been catching up to the ambition. Booster 21 completed a full 33-engine static fire on August 28, and Ship 41 finished its own six-engine test the week before. An airspace briefing circulated to pilots on August 20 listed September 15 as the target date, later than the end of August window Musk mentioned on the earnings call, though SpaceX has not confirmed a launch date publicly and Starship schedules routinely slip while hardware and FAA paperwork line up.
The FCC filing itself does not guarantee a launch date. It covers communications authority, and not flight readiness, considering SpaceX still needs Ship 41 fully stacked and cleared by the FAA before Flight 14 can fly. But the filing is a real marker of intent and it puts a specific regulatory process behind what had so far only been Musk’s word on the earnings call.
Tesla Model Y L gets suspension complaints in over odd issue China
Tesla Cybercab event gains steam ahead of massive launch
