News
SpaceX delivers 59 spacecraft to orbit on fifth flawless rideshare launch
Update: After a slight eight-minute delay, SpaceX has successfully launched its fifth dedicated ‘Transporter’ rideshare mission, carrying 59 different spacecraft into a sun-synchronous orbit (SSO).
Following the Falcon 9 upper stage’s initial deployment of 39 different spacecraft, two of the deployed spacecraft will deploy another 20 or so small satellites over the next several weeks. Around an hour and a half after liftoff, SpaceX finally announced that the final Transporter-5 payload deployment was complete, confirming that the mission was a total success.
Falcon 9 booster B1061 performed as expected, acing its second Transporter launch in a row and eighth launch and landing overall since November 2020. Transporter-5 was SpaceX’s fifth launch this month and 22nd launch this year, representing an average of one launch every 6.5 days since the start of 2022. If SpaceX is able to complete four launches in June, it will be exactly half of the way to achieving 52 launches – an average of one launch per week – in a single calendar year.
SpaceX appears to be on track to launch its fifth dedicated Falcon 9 rideshare mission as early as 2:27 pm EDT (18:27 UTC) on Wednesday, May 25th, carrying a wide variety of interesting payloads into Earth orbit.
SpaceX has reportedly assigned Falcon 9 B1061 to the mission and Transporter-5 will be its eight launch and landing attempt since November 2020 and third launch this year. While of no particular consequence, B1061 will also become the first Falcon 9 booster to launch two Transporter missions back to back after supporting Transporter-4 less than two months ago. Falcon 9 is scheduled to lift off from SpaceX’s Cape Canaveral Space Force Station (CCSFS) LC-40 facilities and boost the Transporter-5 payload and upper stage most of the way out of the atmosphere, while the booster will return back to the Florida coast to land on a concrete pad just a few miles to the south.
Like Transporter-4, which launched with just 40 deployable payloads on April 1st, Transporter-5 appears to be another very small rideshare mission relative to SpaceX’s first three Transporter launches, demonstrating the company’s continued commitment to operating the service a bit like public transit. A public bus will still happily carry just a single passenger – efficiency, while important, comes second to dependability. For many of SpaceX’s individual Smallsat Program customers, that may help to alleviate some of the downsides of massive multi-dozen-satellite rideshares, which can often make individual customers feel forgotten and unimportant when they’re forced to swallow delays caused by payloads other than their own.
Based on official information provided by SpaceX on May 24th, Falcon 9 is scheduled to deploy only 39 payloads during Transporter-5. However, the real number of satellites deployed during the mission will likely be a bit higher due to the presence of three or four different vehicles that are designed to host or carry some of those payloads to different orbits. Spaceflight’s ‘Sherpa-AC1’ won’t have significant propulsion but it will carry several hosted payloads (‘hosted’ in the sense that the payload is not a free-flying satellite of its own) after deploying from Falcon 9.
The other two or three are true orbital transfer vehicles (OTVs), meaning that they have some kind of propulsion and are designed to deploy smaller satellites in customized orbits. The ultimate goal of the many startups trying to develop high-performance OTVs is to extract the best of both worlds from large rideshare missions and small rockets, combining ultra-cheap prices and orbits that are heavily optimized for each payload. Transporter-5 may carry Exolaunch’s “Reliant” OTV (unconfirmed) but is definitively scheduled to launch with D-Orbit’s “ION SCV-006” OTV and startup Momentus Space’s first ‘Vigoride’ OTV. Vigoride carries the unique distinction of being propelled by a first-of-its-kind “microwave electrothermal thruster” that turns water into a superheated plasma propellant.
Vigoride’s first true launch will be treated mainly as a test flight but it will also carry up to eight different small satellites. D-Orbit’s ION OTV only has one confirmed satellite on its manifest but will likely launch with at least a few more. All told, the number of satellites deployed as a result of Transporter-5 will likely be closer to 50 – a decent improvement over Transporter-4.
-
Several of those 50 or so payloads are particularly intriguing. Momentus Space’s first Vigoride OTV, if successful, could pave the way for the most capable commercial space tug currently available, with up to 2000 meters per second of delta V (dV) – a way to measure the stamina of rocket propulsion. NASA has also manifested its small Terabyte InfraRed Delivery (TBIRD) technology demonstrater satellite on Transporter-5 and will attempt to prove that it’s possible to use small, high-power lasers as extremely high-bandwidth downlinks. NASA hopes the tiny satellite will be able to transmit at up to 200 gigabits per second (Gbps), allowing it to downlink terabytes of data during a single pass over an Earth-based ground station.
AISTECH Space will launch an Earth observation satellite prototype outfitted with a first-of-its-kind high-resolution thermal imager. Last but certainly not least, Nanoracks and Maxar are scheduled to launch the first of multiple planned demonstrations and technology maturation missions for in-space manufacturing and construction technologies. The hosted payload is relatively simple by many measures and will only operate for about an hour, but it aims to demonstrate the first structural metal cutting in space.
Parent company Voyager Space ultimately wants to use the expertise it gains from the ‘Outpost Program’ to convert expended rocket upper stages into orbital ‘Outposts’ that will host customer payloads and support the continued development of in-space harvesting, recycling, construction, and more.
As of 5 am EDT (09:00 UTC), SpaceX still hasn’t officially confirmed via Tweet or website update that Transporter-5 is ‘go’ for launch. If it is, an official webcast available here will likely begin around 2:10 pm EDT (18:10 UTC).
Tesla has revealed plans through permit submissions for a massive Robotaxi charging hub in Austin, Texas.
Tesla plans to build the Supercharger hub in multiple phases, with the second phase potentially introducing wireless induction charging, something the company has been developing for the Robotaxi fleet.
Initially, 48 Tesla Robotaxi-geared Superchargers will be built on a lot just across from the St. Elmo, Texas, Service Center. There are about 80 additional spots that will not be impacted by phase 1 of the construction process.
Filings show that the second phase of the project will turn those 80 additional spots into wireless charging for Robotaxi, but it might be an error. The Key Notes state that item 3 is listed as “V4 Charging Cabinet to Support 80 Wireless Chargers in Phase 2. However, the drawings point to V3 Cabinets that are already tied to Superchargers:
There are roughly 128 total spots in the lot, but it is unclear if they will all be used for charging based on what appears to be some sort of typo in the blueprint.
A new Robotaxi fleet charging hub is coming soon to Austin, Texas!!
Permits have been filed for the installation of 48 (V3) stalls in a vehicle storage lot across the road from Tesla’s St Elmo service center. pic.twitter.com/xwRgSWDqht
— MarcoRP (@MarcoRPi1) August 18, 2026
This is among the first Robotaxi charging hubs Tesla has started to develop, as it currently has four others planned throughout various areas: one in Phoenix, one in San Antonio, another in Irving, which will serve the Dallas-Fort Worth area, and another in Las Vegas.
These projects are necessary as Tesla expands its Robotaxi program. Now that preparations have started for the public launch of Cybercab, Robotaxi will likely be expanding aggressively, especially over the next two to three years.
Last night, The Information reported that Tesla was planning to launch Cybercab as soon as the end of August. Hours later, Tesla then announced it was launching a competition for fans to potentially ride in Cybercab during its first public rides.
Tesla’s plan to expand its charging infrastructure in the regions where Robotaxi will initially operate is great preparation for the expanding service. There is still a lot to do, including launching the Cybercab on time.
Tesla got its largest order for the all-electric Class 8 Semi yet, a 500-unit order from Einride AB, a Swedish trucking company.
Einride made the announcement this morning following its second-quarter earnings call. The company said it plans to use 500 Tesla Semi units on its fleet intelligence platform, called Saga AI. The deployments will serve large companies like Amazon and will extend Einride’s electric freight network across logistics routes in California, New Jersey, Texas, Illinois, and Georgia.
🚨 Tesla has received a MASSIVE order from Swedish freight company Einride AB, which placed an order for 500 Tesla Semi trucks
Tesla’s biggest order for the Semi yet! pic.twitter.com/PrtLp5yzvh
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) August 18, 2026
The deployment is being carried out in several phases over the next two years as Tesla ramps production of the Semi at its dedicated production facility in Sparks, Nevada. Einride will receive its first Semi units in September.
Saga AI
Saga AI is Einride’s dedicated fleet intelligence platform. It enables scaled adoption of electric trucks for freight use and allows shippers to integrate electric capacity without the operational burden or capital risks of managing a fleet. This helps integrate cost-efficient logistics and makes budgeting and forecasting much more accurate.
Tesla Semi’s Adoption
The Tesla Semi is now gathering large-scale clients past those who have helped the company operate a Pilot Program to gain initial information and feedback from real-world drivers.
Perhaps the biggest and most notable is that of Frito-Lay and PepsiCo., who have worked with Tesla for the past several years to dial in the finer details of the truck, including its efficiency and operation-related components.
Tesla Semi gets strange-but-understandable comparison from Jay Leno
There has been tremendous progress in that time, and it even catalyzed Tesla to make some design changes, which were unveiled earlier this year.
But Einride CEO Roozbeh Charli says his company’s partnership with Tesla will continue to push those things forward:
“This deployment is yet another proof point that we can execute at the scale our customers demand. Working closely with Tesla to bring next-generation Semis into active operations quickly and at scale is a testament to the strength of that partnership, and how quickly this technology is maturing from promise to daily operations.”
Additionally, Dan Priestley, the Director of the Semi Program at Tesla, said the partnership is ideal due to Einride’s focus on sustainable transport:
“Einride is at the forefront of sustainable freight, and we are thrilled to deepen our relationship with them through this order of 500 Semis. EV heavy trucks provide lower costs per mile from fuel savings, reduced maintenance, and better uptime over diesel trucks. These savings increase further through operational efficiency when deploying EV trucks at scale, and we are excited that Einride recognizes this and look forward to supporting their deployments.”
Elon Musk
India tells Elon Musk’s X to “Follow the Law” in latest censorship update
Elon Musk says X now exposes government censorship, but India’s secrecy laws complicate that promise.
Elon Musk’s promise to make government censorship requests on X “clearly visible” is running into a wall in India, where the law forbids the very disclosure Musk is promising.
On August 15, Musk responded to an update from X’s open-source algorithm team by writing “Any censorship required by governments is now clearly visible.” The claim referred to a change X pushed two days earlier to its public xai-org/x-algorithm repository, which now includes a controversial filter written directly into the code. The filter suppresses posts from 665 accounts flagged by Brazil’s Superior Electoral Court from appearing in the For You feed of any viewer located in Brazil, unless the viewer already follows the account. The election tied to the filter is scheduled for October 4.
India’s government wasn’t as impressed, and responded on Monday that “X will have to follow the law of the land,” in response to Musk’s transparency push covered by the Times of India. The problem is structural rather than political. India issues content blocking orders under Section 69A of its IT Act, and Rule 16 of the accompanying 2009 Blocking Rules requires those orders to stay confidential. Publishing an India equivalent of the Brazil filter, naming specific accounts and citing specific government orders, would itself violate Indian law. Government use of Section 69A has grown from roughly 6,000 orders a year between 2018 and 2023 to about 24,300 in 2025, according to a Tech Times report.
The contrast puts Musk’s transparency pledge in an odd spot. It works largely as advertised in Brazil, where electoral law requires disclosure and X can point to specific account IDs and a specific court order in public code. It cannot work the same way in India, where the law requires the opposite. X users in India will keep seeing content disappear from search and their feeds without any public accounting of why, even as X tells the rest of the world that its censorship compliance is now inspectable.
This isn’t the first time X’s fights with a national government have shaped how the platform operates. Brazil’s Supreme Court ordered X to suspend the accounts of sitting lawmakers and journalists in 2024, a standoff that cost X its Brazilian revenue for months and froze Starlink’s local accounts before the investigation into Musk and X was closed in March with no evidence of wrongdoing found. X also sued California over a state law requiring moderation disclosures, arguing the mandate itself violated the First Amendment.
Whether India’s government pursues anything beyond a public statement remains to be seen. For now, the mismatch between what X can legally publish and what different governments legally allow it to publish is the real story behind Musk’s seven word claim.
Tesla reveals plans for Robotaxi charging hub in Austin
Tesla Semi gets its largest order yet
