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SpaceX hits new Falcon 9 reusability milestone, retracts all four landing legs
SpaceX appears to have selected Falcon 9 B1056 to become the first booster to have all four landing legs retracted and stowed. While relatively minor in the scope full Falcon 9 booster reuse, in-situ leg retraction could save SpaceX days of recovery and preflight work, a big help for truly rapid reusability.
A handful of prior retraction attempts have been made on Block 5 boosters but unknown issues prevented the process from taking hold. With some modifications to the legs and their deployment/retraction mechanisms, SpaceX seems to have solved those issues and is ready to graduate to a new level of rapid and easy rocket reusability. Teslarati photographer Tom Cross was on site in Port Canaveral, Florida when SpaceX began its first operational leg retractions and was able to capture photos and videos of the process.
Falcon 9 doesn’t even lift
The crux of the need for a relatively complex crane-and-jig method of leg retraction rests on SpaceX’s landing leg design. Put simply, after rapidly deploying with a combination of gravity and hydraulics, Falcon 9 landing legs have no built-in way to return to their stowed state. Each of the four legs are quite large, weighing around 600 kg (1300 lb) and stretching about 10m (33 ft) from hinge to tip. They use an intricate telescoping carbon fiber deployment mechanism to give the legs enough strength to stand up to the forces of Falcon 9 booster landings.
Combined, the legs’ size and telescoping mechanism makes the addition of an onboard retraction mechanism impractical. All the needed hardware would struggle to find a good place for installation and would quite literally be dead weight during launches and landings, stealing from Falcon 9/Heavy payload capacity and generally serving no purpose until a booster has been lifted off the ground with a giant crane.
As a result, SpaceX engineers instead decided to separate leg retraction hardware from the rocket itself and designed a custom crane jig. Pictured above, the jig attaches to Falcon 9’s interstage and allows the crane operator to lift the entire booster as needed. It also features four independent motors and pulleys that are meant to attach to a specific port on the outside of each booster landing leg. The jig then lifts the landing legs up, nominally retracting the telescoping deployment mechanism, at which point latches should be able to safely secure the legs to the booster’s body.
This has been significantly more difficult than expected, judging from a number of retraction attempts over the past six or so months. Falcon 9 Block 5 debuted in May 2018 – in fact, almost exactly one year ago – and SpaceX has since built 11 boosters that have supported 15 launches. SpaceX has thus taken ~12 months to get to a point where Falcon 9’s landing legs can be safely retracted, perhaps owing more to the fact that said legs are of minimal monetary value relative to the rest of a recovered booster. Improving leg retractibility is a bit of a luxury in that sense, as retracting legs offers little value proposition in terms of significantly lowering the cost of launch or reuse.
What leg retraction does do, however, is shave a significant amount of time off of the process of booster recovery and post-recovery processing. Instead of the normal process of totally dismantling and removing the legs piece by piece, stowing Falcon 9’s legs saves not only the time it takes to remove them but also the time it then takes to reinstall said legs for the next launch. At a minimum, this could save 12-24 hours of dedicated work, up to as much as several days according to CEO Elon Musk. Taken to the extreme, it’s likely that SpaceX’s ultimate goal is to lift a booster off the drone ship, retract its landing legs mid-air (or close), flip the booster horizontal, and lower it onto a transporter in one fluid movement.
If SpaceX can arrive at something approximating that in the near future, the company will be well on its way accomplish Musk’s goal of launching the same Falcon 9 booster twice in ~24 hours. Even further down the road, if or when SpaceX manages to optimize the reusability of its Falcon 9 boosters to the extent that almost zero refurbishment or in-depth inspection is needed between launches, minimizing the amount of human effort that goes into something as basic as preparing landing legs may actually have a significant impact on launch costs. For the time being, we get to enjoy the new and unusual spectacle of a giant reusable booster carefully stowing its landing legs for another launch attempt.
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Lifestyle
Tesla makes the cut on California’s newest EV Rebate program
California just signed a $270 million EV rebate into law and it starts this summer.
California Governor Gavin Newsom signed SB 168 into law on Monday, July 13, 2026, creating a $270 million EV rebate program that delivers money directly at the dealership rather than as a tax credit applied months later. The program, called MyFirstEV, is funded equally by California’s state budget and participating automakers, with each contributing $135.5 million to make the math work.
The timing is directly tied to the loss of federal support when the $7,500 federal EV tax credit ended, removing the most significant consumer incentive that had driven EV adoption in the U.S. California, which accounts for roughly one-third of all EVs sold nationally, moved to fill that gap with a state-level replacement.
The rebate structure is straightforward. First-time EV buyers can receive $3,500 off any new battery-electric vehicle with an MSRP up to $50,000. Used EVs priced at $25,000 or below qualify for a $1,750 rebate. The credit is applied at the point of sale, which removes the friction of the old federal system where buyers had to wait for tax season to see the benefit. The program goes live later this summer, with the California Air Resources Board expected to release full participation details next month.
California hits Tesla Cybercab and Robotaxi driverless cars with new law
For Tesla buyers, the implications are mixed. The Tesla Model 3 RWD at $42,490 and the Model 3 Long Range at $47,490 both fall under the $50,000 cap and would qualify for the full $3,500 rebate for first-time buyers. The Model Y, which starts at $44,990 after Tesla’s recent price adjustment, also qualifies. The Model X, Model S, and Cybertruck all exceed the cap and receive no benefit. As Teslarati has reported, the program also includes a carve-out exempting California-based automakers like Rivian and Lucid from the price cap entirely, a provision that puts Tesla at a disadvantage since it relocated its headquarters to Texas in 2021.
Other qualifying vehicles include the Chevrolet Equinox EV, Ford Mustang Mach-E, Hyundai Ioniq 5, Kia EV6, and Volkswagen ID.4.
The Tesla Semi is entering a new Pilot Program with Paper Transport, LLC (PTI), a Wisconsin-based transportation provider. The company will test the Semi’s Long Range configuration through “dedicated operations within the Chicago market.”
Chicago presents an interesting challenge for the Semi, as it will be a colder-weather climate that will test the Semi’s ability to operate in lower temperatures and in potentially large accumulations of snow. This is something Tesla has been testing with the Semi in Alaska and even in Northern California during the colder months, but Chicago will present a truly tough midwestern winter.
Tesla Semi spotted on journey home after winter performance testing
PTI says it is using the Semi to evaluate its strategy of reducing transportation emissions while maintaining performance, reliability, and cost efficiency. These are major arguments for the Semi being introduced into new fleets.
CEO of PTI Tyler Ellison said:
“PTI has been a leader in sustainable transportation solutions for over 15 years. We take a consultative approach to helping customers identify and implement the right transportation solution for their network. Our partnership with Tesla expands our portfolio alongside renewable natural gas and intermodal, giving customers more ways to reduce Scope 3 emissions without compromising service or economics.”
PTI is far from the first company to adopt the Semi within a fleet, as Tesla entered strategic agreements with PepsiCo. and its subsidiary Frito-Lay for a Pilot Program that extended throughout the California region.
Tesla has let companies like those utilize the Semi to determine whether it would be suitable for their operations. Additionally, Tesla gets valuable information regarding the Semi’s performance, knowing what to improve and what is ideal for companies that will utilize the all-electric truck for regional and nationwide logistics.
PTI plans to utilize the Long Range configuration, which is priced at $290,000 and features a range of approximately 500 miles, a three-motor powertrain, up to 800 kW of drive power, and consumption of just 1.7 kWh per mile.
Tesla Semi pricing revealed after company uncovers trim levels
VP of Maintenance at PTI, Bryan Ellen, added:
“We are excited to partner with Tesla, leveraging their ever-evolving technology. We are bullish in our estimation of the parallels available between our dedicated model and the efficiency of their fully electric Class 8 tractor. We anticipate a growing synergy between our businesses as we work to facilitate this sustainable solution for our customers.”
PTI has logged more than 87 million miles using sources like compressed and renewable gas, but now is looking to take it a step further with fully electric operations.
Tesla revealed on Monday that it is building a new autonomous vehicle at Gigafactory Texas, its plant just outside of the City of Austin. This particular vehicle will be geared toward those who are in need of a wheelchair-accessible car that would require no human driver for operation.
According to a new report from Wired, Tesla’s Senior Policy Advisor, India Herdman, told members of the Washington D.C. City Council on Monday:
“We are in development for a purpose-built, wheelchair-accessible autonomous vehicle. We know that paratransit can be very difficult, and people who are confined to wheelchairs permanently should still be able to move around freely, so that is an active product being built by Tesla in Texas.”
This builds upon what CEO Elon Musk said last year on X, which confirmed the company was working on accessible rides within its Robotaxi platform, which currently is confined to the Model Y.
Absolutely
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) September 19, 2025
Tesla is also developing the Cybercab, which started employee rides last week. However, this vehicle is not necessarily geared toward wheelchair accessibility.
That leaves a major gap in the autonomous ride-sharing program that Tesla is attempting to build; the company has been pretty clear that it does not want to complicate its manufacturing lines by bringing in a wide array of body styles.
However, it seems necessary to have something larger that could help transport people to appointments when they cannot drive. For wheelchair accessibility, the Robovan, which was unveiled at the “We, Robot” event in October 2024, seems to be the most ideal solution:
Herdman did not indicate whether she was referring to the Robovan or if Tesla is building yet another body style that is geared toward full autonomy but also caters to the handicapped.
Tesla might need to develop something specifically for the handicapped in order to align with the Americans with Disabilities Act, which prevents discrimination against people with disabilities in transportation services. Uber was hit with a lawsuit late last year for “refusing to reasonably modify its policies, practices, or procedures where necessary to avoid discriminating against riders with disabilities.”
Tesla would obviously like to avoid this.
It will be interesting to see what Tesla will do with this project, and whether it will introduce something new to the market or just continue with the Robovan.
Tesla makes the cut on California’s newest EV Rebate program
Tesla Semi enters new Pilot Program with interesting challenge
