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SpaceX tests extra-fast ocean landing, celebrates 50th launch

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The happy tragedy of 1044

SpaceX has successfully completed the 50th launch of Falcon 9 a bit less than eight years after its 2010 debut, and has done so in a fashion that almost perfectly captures the veritable tsunamis the company has begun to make throughout the global aerospace industry. After a duo of delays due to hardware issues and range conflicts, this evening’s launch successfully placed Hispasat 30W-6 into a geostationary transfer orbit (GTO), where the massive ~6100 kilogram communications satellite will now spend several months raising its orbit to around 36,000 km (22,000 miles) above Earth’s surface.

Aside from becoming the heaviest commsat the company has yet to launch into GTO, the mission’s anticipated landing attempt stirred up quite a bit of intrigue and uncertainty in the spaceflight fan community. Stormy Atlantic seas, partially connected to the chaotic weather recently seen on the East coast, proved to be far too dangerous for SpaceX’s eastern recovery fleet and its drone ship, OCISLY, and they returned to Port Canaveral around 48 hours ago, under the watchful eyes of many anxious SpaceX followers. Tragically, this means that the brand new Falcon 9 booster (B1044) – originally expected to attempt perhaps the most difficult landing yet – had to be expended. Although the booster went through its paces as if it were preparing to land, it found no drone ship beneath it once it reached sea level, and subsequently dunked into the stormy Atlantic seas.

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However, due to the last-minute nature of SpaceX and Hispasat’s decision to expend the booster rather than delay for better recovery conditions, launch technicians at Pad 40 simply did not have time to remove the rocket’s iconic landing legs and valuable titanium grid fins – the first time their titanium iteration has been chosen for a Falcon 9 to resist extreme reentry heating. Due to massive swells, recovery of even pieces of the expended booster – theoretically following a soft landing – will not be possible, as no SpaceX recovery vessels remained at the planned point of touchdown 400 miles off the Florida coast. Notably, following the successful inaugural flight of Falcon Heavy, CEO Elon Musk stated that upgraded titanium grid fins were “super expensive” and unequivocally “the most important thing to recover.” SpaceX’s decision to expend Falcon 9 B1044 without even sparing the time to remove the booster’s recovery hardware and titanium fins demonstrates just how focused the company is on its customers’ needs. In the case of geostationary communications satellites like Hispasat 30W-6, launch delays on the order of a few days can cause millions of dollars of financial harm to the parent company – each day a satellite spends on the ground orbit is also a day with no revenue generation, a less-than-thrilling proposition to shareholders.

B1044 sadly lost any hope at a second flight, but the data SpaceX gathered from its uniquely fast reentry and attempted soft-landing will hopefully pave the way for the recovery of Falcon 9 and Heavy boosters after all but the heaviest satellite launches. GovSat-1, a launch that saw its flight-proven booster famously survive a similarly hot landing in the ocean, was the first largely successful test of this new and experimental method of more efficiently recovering Falcons. By igniting three of its nine Merlin 1D engines instead of the usual single engine while landing, Falcon boosters can theoretically reduce the amount of fuel needed to safely land, fuel savings that can then be used to push its payloads higher and faster. However, the downsides of this approach are several. With three times as many engines igniting at landing, the margin of error for a successful landing becomes downright miniscule – the tiniest of problems with ignition, throttle control, or guidance could cause the rocket to smash into the drone ship at considerable speed. Additionally, triple the landing thrust would subject the booster to as much as 10Gs of acceleration (10 times the force of Earth’s gravity), forces that would almost instantaneously cause the average human (and even specially trained fighter pilots) to black out.

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Regardless of 1044’s untimely demise, another successful mission for SpaceX is purely positive. Happy customers make for a happy company, and SpaceX has achieved an incredible consistency of success in the last year alone. The loss of a new, potentially-reusable Falcon 9 booster is sad, but it only serves to foreshadow the imminent introduction of Falcon 9 Block 5, an upgrade hoped to realize Elon Musk’s decade-old dream of rockets that can be reused as many as 10 times with minimal refurbishment, and 100 times with maintenance. That debut could occur as early as April, just a month away.

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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 Semi gets new product launch as mass manufacturing hits Plaid Mode

While the 1.2 MW Megacharger handles quick 30-minute en-route boosts, the Basecharger serves as a reliable overnight solution for longer dwell times at warehouses, distribution centers, fleet yards, and even, potentially, homes.

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Credit: Tesla

The Tesla Semi is getting a new production launch as mass manufacturing on the all-electric truck is gearing up to hit Plaid Mode.

Tesla has introduced a game-changing addition to its commercial charging lineup with the new 125 kW Basecharger for Semi. Launched this week as part of the new “Semi Charging for Business” program, this compact unit is purpose-built for depot and overnight charging of Tesla Semi trucks.

While the 1.2 MW Megacharger handles quick 30-minute en-route boosts, the Basecharger serves as a reliable overnight solution for longer dwell times at warehouses, distribution centers, fleet yards, and even, potentially, homes.

Delivering up to 60 percent of the Semi’s range in roughly four hours, perfect for overnight top-ups during mandated driver rest periods or while trucks are loaded or unloaded. Its fully integrated design eliminates the need for bulky separate AC-to-DC cabinets.

Tesla engineers tucked one of the power modules from a V4 Supercharger Cabinet directly inside the sleek post, resulting in a compact footprint. It also features a six-meter cable for layout flexibility. This is one thing that must have been learned through the V4 Supercharger rollout.

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Installation and operating costs drop dramatically thanks to daisy-chaining. Up to three Basechargers can share a single 125 kVA breaker, slashing electrical infrastructure requirements. The unit outputs 150 amps continuous across an 180–1,000 VDC range, matching the Semi’s high-voltage architecture while supporting the MCS 3.2 standard.

Tesla Semi sends clear message to Diesel rivals with latest move

Priced from $40,000 for a minimum order of two units, the Basecharger is far more affordable than the $188,000 Megacharger setup for two posts. Deliveries begin in early 2027. Buyers also receive Tesla’s full network-level software, remote monitoring, maintenance, and a guaranteed 97 percent or higher uptime—critical for fleet reliability.

This launch arrives as Tesla accelerates high-volume Semi production at its Nevada factory, targeting 50,000 units annually. By pairing affordable depot charging with ultra-fast highway options, Tesla removes one of the biggest obstacles to electrifying Class 8 trucking: infrastructure cost and complexity.

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Fleet operators stand to gain lower electricity rates during off-peak hours, dramatically reduced maintenance compared to diesel, and quieter yards at night. The Basecharger isn’t just another charger—it’s the practical bridge that makes large-scale electric semi adoption economically viable.

With the Basecharger handling “home” duties and Megachargers powering the road, Tesla is delivering a complete ecosystem that could finally tip the scales toward zero-emission freight. For trucking companies ready to go electric, the future just got a whole lot more charger-friendly.

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Tesla revises new Intervention Reporting system with Full Self-Driving

It is the second revision to the program as Tesla is trying to make it easier to decipher driver and owner complaints, but also to make it easier to report issues within the suite for them.

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Credit: Tesla

Tesla has revised its new Intervention Reporting system within the Full Self-Driving suite that now categorizes reasons that drivers take over when the semi-autonomous driving functionality is active.

It is the second revision to the program as Tesla is trying to make it easier to decipher driver and owner complaints, but also to make it easier to report issues within the suite for them.

With the initial rollout of Full Self-Driving v14.3.2, Tesla included a new reporting menu that gave four options for an intervention: Preference, Comfort, Critical, and Other. A slightly revised version of Full Self-Driving with the same ID number then came out a few days later, changing the “Other” option to “Navigation” after numerous complaints from owners.

It appears Tesla has listened to those owners once again and has not only made it smaller and more compact, but also easier to report the issues than previously.

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The new menu is now embedded within the request for a Voice Memo from Tesla, and does not block the entire screen, as the second rollout of the menu was:

There will likely be one additional revision to the Interventions Menu, as we have coined it here at Teslarati.

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Unfortunately, at times, there are no reasons for an intervention at all, but the menu does not give an option to simply disregard the reporting and forces the driver to choose one of the options. We, as well as other notable Tesla influencers, indicated that there is not always a reason for an intervention.

For example, I choose to back into my parking spot in my neighborhood at least some of the time for the reason of charging. I usually hit “Preference” for this, but it sends a false positive to Tesla that there was a reason I took over that I was unhappy with.

Tesla begins probing owners on FSD’s navigation errors with small but mighty change

Instead, I’m simply performing a maneuver that is not yet available to us. When Tesla allows drivers to choose the orientation at which their car enters a parking spot, I and many others won’t have to deal with this menu.

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Others are still skeptical that it will help resolve any issues whatsoever and prefer to disregard the menu altogether. It does seem as if Tesla will issue another revision in the coming days to allow this to happen.

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California hits Tesla Cybercab and Robotaxi driverless cars with new law

California just gave police power to ticket driverless cars, including Tesla’s Cybercab fleet.

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Concept rendering of Tesla Cybercab being cited by CA Highway Patrol (Credit: Grok)

California DMV formally adopted new rules on April 29, 2026 that allow law enforcement to issue “notices of noncompliance”, or in other words ticket autonomous vehicle companies when their cars commit moving violations. The rules take effect July 1, 2026 and officially closes a regulatory gap that previously let driverless cars operate on public roads with nearly no traffic enforcement consequences.

Until now, state traffic laws only applied to human “drivers,” which meant that when no person was behind the wheel, police had no mechanism to issue a ticket. Officers were limited to citing driverless vehicles for parking violations only. A well-known example came in September 2025, when a San Bruno officer watched a Waymo robotaxi execute an illegal U-turn and could do nothing but notify the company.

Under the new framework, when an officer observes a violation, the autonomous vehicle company is effectively treated as the driver. Companies must report each incident to the DMV within 72 hours, or 24 hours if a collision is involved. Repeated violations can result in fleet size restrictions, operational suspensions, or full permit revocation. Local officials also gained new authority to geofence driverless vehicles out of active emergency zones within two minutes and require a live emergency response line answered within 30 seconds.

Tesla Cybercab ramps Robotaxi public street testing as vehicle enters mass production queue

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California’s new enforcement rules arrive at a pivotal moment for Tesla. The company is ramping Cybercab production at Giga Texas toward hundreds of units per week, targeting at least 2 million units annually at full capacity, while simultaneously pushing to expand its Robotaxi service to dozens of U.S. cities by end of 2026. Unsupervised FSD for consumer vehicles is currently targeted for Q4 2026, and when it arrives, Tesla’s fleet may not have a human to absorb legal accountability, under the July 1 rules.

Tesla has confirmed plans to expand its Robotaxi service to seven new cities in the first half of 2026, including Dallas, Houston, Phoenix, Miami, Orlando, Tampa, and Las Vegas, with the service already running without safety drivers in Austin. Musk has said he expects robotaxis to cover between a quarter and half of the United States by end of year.

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