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SpaceX sticks dramatic drone ship landing, third reuse flight a resounding success

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9 years ago

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SpaceX has once more accomplished what the launch industry long dismissed as infeasible, conducting their third commercial reuse of a recovered Falcon 9 booster. This particular mission was tasked with launching the 5,200 kg SES-11/Echostar 105 communications satellite into a geostationary transfer orbit. Once it makes its way into the final geostationary orbit, the satellite can be expected to provide communications services to North America in the form of digital television.

After the Falcon 9 booster separated from the second stage, it conducted a rapid 180 degree flip in order to orient itself towards the landing target, an autonomous spaceport drone ship (ASDS) stationed several hundred miles East of the Kennedy Space Center. The hypersonic booster then slowed itself down from roughly 5,000 mph with a series of two burns, culminating in the stage’s second recovery after an orbital-class launch. The booster, 1031, was previously tasked with launching the 10th cargo Dragon mission to the ISS, later landing at SpaceX’s land-based LZ-1 pad in February 2017.

 

This time around, 1031 got a taste of the ocean while landing aboard Of Course I Still Love You (OCISLY), despite sea conditions that were deemed relatively rough and stormy. It is unlikely that 1031 will ever launch again, as it is a Block 3 Falcon 9 and thus intended to only be reused once or twice. Nevertheless, this core will add to SpaceX’s ever-growing fleet of both operational and decommissioned Falcon 9 cores, most of which are stored in and around SpaceX’s Florida facilities.

This landing and recovery was  quite possibly the most dramatic yet for SpaceX. While rapidly reentering into Earth’s thickening atmosphere, the stage experienced extraordinary heating that resulted in the aluminum grid fins nearly glowing white, and the same camera caught gorgeous interplay between ionizing gases coming off the stage and its final landing burn. For a solid minute thereafter, ground control lost the video feed from the first stage, seemingly foreshadowing the core’s untimely demise. However, cameras aboard OCISLY maintained their live coverage and revealed the stage’s successful landing aboard the drone ship soon after.

 

The second stage continued to orbit, coincidentally catching an incredible view of the sun setting behind Earth’s limb just before its first orbital insertion burn ended. After a coast period of some 20 minutes, the second stage reignited to boost the SES-11/EchoStar 105 satellite into its final transfer orbit, after which the satellite separated from the stage and continued on its way. The Falcon 9 second stage will eventually reenter Earth’s atmosphere and break apart before impacting the ocean, a process that may be expedited if the vehicle has enough residual fuel to hasten the orbital decay.

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Put simply, SES-11/EchoStar 105 demonstrates SpaceX’s growing consistency and the resounding success they are having with the routinization of rapid launch cadence and commercially reusable rockets. The mission is the company’s 15th in 2017 alone, as well as the 12th successful recovery of a first stage this year and the 18th successful recovery total. More importantly, its launch was the third commercial reuse of a Falcon 9 first stage, paving the way for future reuses as the endeavor’s record of success continues without flaw.

 

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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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Tesla Model Y L’s new features flexed at unveiling event at Diner

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1 hour ago

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July 31, 2026

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Tesla Model Y L in a field
Credit: Tesla

Tesla flexed the new features of the Model Y L with a dedicated media event at the company’s Diner on Santa Monica Boulevard in Los Angeles.

The Model Y L is the extended-wheelbase version of the all-electric crossover, which has been voted the best-selling car in the world on three occasions. The vehicle is already rolling off production lines at Gigafactory Texas, and first deliveries are slated to take place later this year.

Tesla brings Model Y L ‘Launch Series’ to the U.S. at $61,990

Teslarati was invited to the event, but due to some scheduling conflicts, we could not make it to Los Angeles. Instead, we will have our hands on a media unit sometime in August, so we’ll be able to spend some more extended time with the Model Y L.

However, plenty of those who made it to LA shared some cool features that set the Model Y L apart from the Model Y.

Multi-Row Climate Control

Tesla fitted the Model Y L with full climate control on all three rows on the front screen. It can be adjusted by selecting which row you’d like to modify on the right-hand side of the touch screen:

Better Rear Window Visibility

One of the strangest things about the Model Y, especially the Juniper iteration, is the rear window has extremely limited visibility when looking into the rearview mirror.

Tesla has improved upon this with the Model Y L:

PowerShare will be included

Model Y L will come with PowerShare in North America, with an 11.5kW output to your home. Tesla said it would require Powerwall 3 for operation.

Wireless Charging Pad

There has been some speculation that Tesla would upgrade the wireless charging pads in the United States, but this is not the case.

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Tesla owner fixes common feature complaint with crafty DIY retrofit

Tesla confirmed that it does not come with the cooled pads as the Y L in China does. This is because North America has not adopted Qi charging yet.

Thermal Management Improvements

These improvements in the Model Y L were seen with thermal management:

  • Up to 15% faster cabin cooling
  • +23% thermal efficiency gained in hot weather, 7 miles of real-world range gained
  • 8x more solar energy reflection off of glass roof
  • 30% reduction in solar energy entering the cabin

Demand

Tesla said the Model Y L is almost sold out in the U.S. It comes with

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  • 1 year of FSD Supervised
  • 1 year of Supercharging
  • 1 year of Premium Connectivity
  • Free exterior paint color, interior, and wheel option at no additional cost
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Elon Musk

Tesla CEO Elon Musk denies ridiculous Gigafactory Shanghai rumor

Published

3 hours ago

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July 31, 2026

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(Credit: Tesla)

Tesla CEO Elon Musk took to his social media platform X on Thursday night to deny a ridiculous rumor regarding the sale of the company’s Chinese vehicle production plant, Gigafactory Shanghai.

On Thursday, the Wall Street Journal, citing sources familiar with the matter, claimed in a scathing new report that Tesla was exploring a potential sale of the entire China business in an effort to help bolster a potential merger between SpaceX and Tesla.

Musk immediately denied the rumor not once but twice, initially calling it “fake news,” and then calling it “absurdly fake news” in a separate post just a few moments later:

The original poster of the Wall Street Journal article that Musk saw deleted the initial post sharing the headline and the rumored sale of Tesla’s China business.

The report seemed absolutely and unequivocally false to begin with; Tesla’s business in China is among the most important pieces of the company’s business. Not only does the factory supply vehicles for the domestic market, but also for various other markets in Asia and Europe.

China is also one of the largest automotive markets in the world, and Tesla has performed well there despite the robust competition.

The speculation regarding a Tesla and SpaceX merger has started to gain steam this year as the space exploration company went public just a month ago. There has been speculation that Musk will bridge all of his companies under one “umbrella company,” and analysts believe this could happen before the end of the decade.

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

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This is the latest iteration of Musk’s very evident war on mainstream media. Reports regarding any of Musk’s companies are quick to get the dreaded “false” or “fake news” response from the CEO when they are unfounded.

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Elon Musk

Tesla AI boss reveals how big Optimus is going to get

Tesla’s Optimus chief corrected himself on X, confirming a staggering 10 million robot production target.

Published

11 hours ago

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July 31, 2026

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Tesla Optimus Gen 3 [Credit: Tesla]

Tesla’s Optimus program has a new number attached to it, after Ashok Elluswamy, the executive who has run the humanoid robot program since June 2025, posted a three word correction on X Thursday, “Correction, 10 million robots.”

The line clarifies the long term annual capacity Tesla is building toward its planned second Optimus production line at Gigafactory Texas, a figure Musk has cited repeatedly since last year’s shareholder meeting.

The scale is worth noting, because ten million robots a year would mean Tesla building more units annually than most countries sell in new cars. Tesla has framed this as a second line, not the first. The buildout is happening in two phases: a roughly one million unit per year line inside Tesla’s Fremont factory, installed on the floor space vacated when Model S and Model X production ended earlier this year, and a much larger dedicated facility under construction at Giga Texas that broke ground on its first steel structure in May. That Texas facility is the one Elluswamy’s correction refers to, and is expected to reach volume production sometime in 2027.

Tesla Optimus project fires up as Musk sees production line progress

Elluswamy took over Optimus from Milan Kovac last summer and has spent the months since talking up the program’s trajectory. Elon Musk has also floated the ten million figure at Tesla’s 2025 shareholder meeting.

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Ending Model S and Model X production to make room for the first Optimus line was one of the more consequential manufacturing decisions in the company’s recent history, retiring two flagship vehicles in favor of a robot that has yet to enter mass production. Musk has previously estimated per unit production costs at $20,000 to $25,000 once Tesla reaches a million units a year, though he hasn’t said what that cost looks like at ten times the volume.

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