News
A SpaceX surprise: Falcon Heavy booster landing to smash distance record
In an unexpected last-second change, SpaceX has moved Falcon Heavy Flight 3’s center core landing on drone ship Of Course I Still Love You (OCISLY) from 40 km to more than 1240 km (770 mi) off the coast of Florida.
Drone ship OCISLY is already being towed to the landing site, necessary due to the sheer distance that needs to be covered at a leisurely towing pace. The current record for distance traveled during booster recovery was set at ~970 km by Falcon Heavy center core B1055 in April 2019. If successful, Falcon Heavy center core B1057 will smash that record by almost 30% after sending two dozen spacecraft on their way to orbit. Falcon Heavy Flight 3 is scheduled to lift off in support of the Department of Defense’s Space Test Program 2 (STP-2) mission no earlier than 11:30 pm ET (03:30 UTC), June 24th. A routine static fire test at Pad 39A will (hopefully) set the stage for launch on Wednesday, June 19th.
This comes as a significant surprise for several reasons. First and foremost, the difference between a center core landing 40 km or 1300 km from the launch site is immense. For Falcon Heavy, the center core shuts down and separates from the rest of the rocket as much as a minute after the rocket’s two side boosters, potentially doubling the booster’s relative velocity at separation.
That extra minute of acceleration means that the center core can easily be 50-100+ km downrange at the point of separation. In other words, landing 40 km offshore aboard drone ship OCISLY would be roughly akin to a full boostback burn, meaning that the center core would need to nullify all of its substantial downrange velocity, turn around, and fly ~50-100 km back towards the launch site. Being able to perform such an aggressive maneuver would indicate that Falcon Heavy’s boost stage has a huge amount of propellant (delta V) remaining after completing its role in the launch.
To have STP-2’s center core recovery moved from 40 km to 1240 km thus indicates an absolutely massive change in the rocket’s mission plan and launch trajectory. For reference, Falcon Heavy Flight 2’s Block 5 center core (B1055) set SpaceX’s current record for recovery distance (970 km/600 mi) after launching Arabsat 6A – a massive ~6500 kg (14,300 lb) satellite – to a spectacularly high transfer orbit of >90,000 km (56,000 mi).
Why so spicy?
There are three obvious possibilities that might help explain why the STP-2 mission has abruptly indicated that it will require SpaceX’s most energetic booster recovery yet.
1. STP-2 is carrying at least 1-2 metric tons worth of mystery payload(s)
This is highly unlikely. The USAF SMC has already released a SpaceX photo showing the late stages of the STP-2 payload stack’s encapsulation inside Falcon Heavy’s payload fairing. Short of an elaborate faked encapsulation followed by the installation of additional mysterious spacecraft or some extremely dense hardware hidden inside, it’s safe to say that the STP-2 payload stack weighs what the USAF says it weighs, which is to say not nearly heavy enough to warrant a record-smashing booster recovery given the known orbital destinations.
The USAF further confirmed that there is no ballast on the stack, removing the possibility of a lead weight or steel boilerplate meant to artificially push Falcon Heavy to its limits.
2. STP-2’s already-challenging Falcon upper stage mission profile is even more exotic than described
Per official mission overviews, it’s already clear that STP-2 could be the most challenging launch ever attempted for SpaceX’s orbital Falcon upper stage. According to SpaceX itself, “STP-2…will be among the most challenging launches in SpaceX history, with four separate upper-stage engine burns, three separate deployment orbits, a final propulsive passivation maneuver, and a total mission duration of over six hours.”
While undeniably challenging, it’s not clear why it would require such a high-energy center core recovery. With a payload mass of just ~3700 kg, Falcon 9 has launched much larger payloads to (relatively) higher orbits, but this fails to account for the added challenge of long coasts and multiple different orbits. Also of note, the above graph (courtesy of a years-old USAF document) appears to disagree with SpaceX’s description of “four… upper-stage burns”, instead showing five burns (red spikes).
More likely than not, OCISLY’s ~1200-kilometer move can be explained largely by the reintroduction of what the above graph describes as the Falcon upper stage’s “disposal burn”, likely referring to a deorbit burn. On top of the delta V already required for the first four burns, it isn’t out of the question that an additional coast and deorbit burn from 6000 km (3700 mi) would push the recovery equation in favor of attempting to incinerate center core B1057.
3. USAF/DoD conservatism strikes again?
The last plausible explanation for this radical shift is that the US Air Force/Department of Defense (DoD) has decided last-second that they want more margins on top of their already-overflowing safety margins, quite literally pushing B1057 to the edge of its performance envelope to mitigate low-probability failure modes. This has been done to an even more extreme extent with the US Air Force’s recent GPS III SV01 launch, in which SpaceX was forced to expend a new Falcon 9 Block 5 booster to provide the extreme safety margins the USAF desired.
According to the USAF, the STP-2 mission – including launch costs – represents as much as $750M, coincidentally similar to the estimated cost of the GPS III SV01 satellite and an expendable Falcon 9 rocket. As such, it’s not out of the question that a similar level of paranoia/conservatism is in play for STP-2.
Numbers 2 and 3 are equally plausible explanations for this last-second booster recovery shift. Given the US military’s active involvement, it’s more likely than not that no explanations will be offered. Regardless, this surprise development is bound to result in a truly spectacular recovery attempt for SpaceX’s second Block 5 center core and will likely involve breaking several still-fresh records in the process.
Falcon Heavy Flight 3 is in the middle of rolling out to SpaceX’s Kennedy Space Center Pad 39A launch facilities for a routine pre-launch static fire test, scheduled to occur no earlier than 12:30 pm ET (16:30 UTC), June 19th. If all goes well, SpaceX should be on track for its first STP-2 launch attempt at 11:30 pm ET (03:30 UTC), June 24th.
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Elon Musk
Nvidia’s board meets on Jensen Huang, and Elon Musk already has an answer
Elon Musk says it would be an honor to hire Jensen Huang amid Nvidia turmoil.
Elon Musk says he would welcome Jensen Huang at one of his companies if Nvidia’s board decides to push out its longtime chief executive.
On Wednesday evening, the financial account ZeroHedge posted “Elon please hire Jensen” on X. Musk replied roughly two hours later: “That would be an honor.” Neither Huang nor Nvidia had responded publicly as of Wednesday night.
Musk’s reply came as Nvidia’s board met to decide Huang’s future. The Wall Street Journal reported that directors were preparing to oust him following reports of two extramarital relationships. One involves Alice Huang, a Singapore-based businesswoman whom U.S. intelligence officials reportedly believe was working for China’s Ministry of State Security. The New York Times separately reported a relationship with Kimberly Powell, Nvidia’s vice president of health care. Huang acknowledged being unfaithful in a memo to employees on Sunday but gave no details.
@zerohedge That would be an honor
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 12, 2026
Under Nvidia’s bylaws, a majority of its 11 directors can remove the CEO with or without cause. Bloomberg reported that the board has been working with an outside firm on possible replacements and may name an interim chief, with CFO Colette Kress seen as the likely pick. Nvidia shares fell more than 8 percent in extended trading, according to CNBC, and the company is scheduled to report quarterly earnings on November 17.
Musk has more riding on Nvidia’s leadership than most tech executives. In August, he told investors on SpaceX’s first earnings call as a public company that it would build its AI infrastructure exclusively on Nvidia hardware, calling Vera Rubin “the best architecture.” SpaceX is also working with Nvidia on the compute payload for Starmind, its planned orbital AI constellation. In October, SpaceX said it had a binding commitment for a roughly $40 billion lease of Vera Rubin GPUs and related equipment, with the leases expected to begin in the first half of 2027.
The scale of that dependence is already enormous. On its Q3 call, SpaceX said it was bringing roughly 200,000 to 220,000 Nvidia GB300 GPUs online each month and expects 2.5 to 3 GW of nameplate compute by the end of the year. That buildout is now reaching new sites like the proposed $24 billion power plant and supercomputer campus at Starbase.
The relationship between the two executives also goes back nearly a decade. Huang has often told the story of personally delivering Nvidia’s first DGX-1 AI supercomputer to Musk in 2016, when no other customer wanted one. “Nobody wanted to be part of it, except for Elon,” Huang said on the Joe Rogan Experience last December.
Musk did not say what role Huang might fill, and his reply stops short of a formal offer. Huang co-founded Nvidia in 1993 and still owns about 3.6 percent of its stock, so any move to a Musk company would depend on whether, and how, he leaves the chipmaker he has run for more than three decades.
SpaceX officially launched the Starlink Mini 2 on November 10, delivering the first portable Starlink terminal designed around independent power.
Invitation-only preorders for select U.S. customers are priced at $999 plus tax, a figure that includes a full year of Roam Unlimited service valued at roughly $2,100. A refundable $100 deposit reserves the kit, with the balance due at shipment, expected to begin in mid-December. Broader availability is listed as coming soon.
Starlink just unveiled Mini 2, its next-gen portable dish.
Quick-swap battery, up to 4.5 hrs per charge
USB-C power
Built-in Wi-Fi
Online in about 60 secondsPreorders are open now. https://t.co/QawqgbswrQ
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) November 10, 2026
The headline feature is the quick-swap 71 Wh battery. Clipped to the rear of the dish without tools, it delivers up to 4.5 hours of connectivity on a single charge.
The 490-gram pack includes its own USB-C port and LED indicators, so users can charge a spare separately and swap it in seconds while staying online. Starlink notes that the terminal can continue operating while the battery charges or run directly from a 60 W USB-C source. The retail box includes one battery, a 60 W USB-C charger, and a 3-meter cable.
Beyond power, the Mini 2 is thinner at 23.1 mm (versus 38.5 mm on the original Mini) while measuring 263 × 314 mm. With the battery and kickstand attached it weighs 1.6 kg.
Built-in Wi-Fi 6 expands coverage to up to 1,800 square feet, an IP67 rating protects against dust and water, and a standard 1/4-20 tripod thread plus physical power button round out the design. Field of view remains 110 degrees, and the unit retains support for mobile use.
For travelers, campers, and remote workers, the swappable battery removes the longstanding requirement for an external power bank or vehicle outlet that defined the first Mini. Spare packs sold separately further extend runtime, turning the compact terminal into a more self-contained solution.
While the bundled $999 invitation price sits well above the original Mini’s current $149 starting point, the included year of service and genuine untethered operation mark a clear step forward in portable satellite internet.
Elon Musk
SpaceX’s $24B Starbase supercomputer plan slipped past a key roadblock
SpaceX wants a Starbase tax break for a $24 billion gas plant and supercomputer campus.
SpaceX is asking its own company town for a tax break on a $24 billion natural gas power plant and supercomputing facility at Starbase, Texas, and the land it picked sits just outside the reach of a data center moratorium that took effect in neighboring Brownsville last week.
A City of Starbase public hearing notice says SpaceX “proposes to construct, own, and operate a gas-fired power plant and super-compute facility” on roughly 444 acres between Boca Chica Boulevard and the Port of Brownsville. The $24 billion figure covers only the initial phases, and the notice leaves room for future expansions. The Starbase City Commission will consider a property tax abatement and a related economic development agreement at a 7 p.m. hearing on December 9. The notice does not disclose the size or length of the abatement, or how much computing capacity the site would hold.
The location has a history. Over the summer, SpaceX asked Brownsville to remove the tract from its city limits and offered $220 million for water and wastewater projects in return. Brownsville approved the move in August, and Starbase later annexed the land. Brownsville’s own 90-day pause on data center applications took effect last week, and had the tract stayed inside the city, the project likely would have needed a different home.
The power side is already in front of state regulators. SpaceX has applied to the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality for air permits covering 35 mobile gas turbines producing roughly 750 megawatts, according to Politico, which also noted that two of the three Starbase commissioners voting on the incentives are SpaceX executives.
Building its own plant lets SpaceX skip the Texas grid. Gov. Greg Abbott paused new data center grid connections in August pending an audit, but a facility that generates its own electricity does not need one. The air permit still has to clear the TCEQ, where Abbott also ordered a halt on data center permits.
The bigger test arrives in January. Governor-elect Gina Hinojosa, who unseated Abbott last week, has said she will block data center approvals until the legislature passes new protections, and she has already asked state officials to hold off on any sale of Boca Chica State Park to SpaceX until she is sworn in. Tesla and SpaceX shares both fell the day after the election, and Musk’s first reaction on X was “Data centers in space looking pretty appealing right now.”
That line points to Starmind, SpaceX’s orbital compute constellation. Musk has said terrestrial compute will be “peanuts compared to orbital compute” and expects monthly orbital deployments to pass ground deployments around the end of 2028, as Teslarati reported. Until then, SpaceX still needs gigawatts on the ground. It ended the third quarter with 1.7 GW of nameplate compute, is targeting 2.5 to 3 GW by the end of this year and wants at least 10 GW more in 2027. Its existing Colossus sites around Memphis already run on gas turbines and face a lawsuit from residents over emissions.
Local reaction is split. The South Texas Environmental Justice Network has announced a protest, citing air quality, water use and energy bills, while some Brownsville residents told the Tribune they welcome the jobs. SpaceX did not respond to the Tribune’s questions about the project.
Nvidia’s board meets on Jensen Huang, and Elon Musk already has an answer
Starlink Mini 2 arrives with one feature for true off-grid connectivity
