Connect with us

News

SpaceX, ULA aim for back-to-back Starlink, spaceplane rocket launches

SpaceX and ULA are hoping to perform Falcon 9 and Atlas V launches within ~20 hours of each other later this week. (Richard Angle/Boeing)

Published

on

SpaceX and ULA are just four days away from a ~20-hour period that could see them attempt back-to-back launches of their respective workhorse rockets, potentially sending both Starlink satellites and a US military space plane into orbit.

If successful, the two missions would mark the fastest turnaround for launches performed by the two competing companies from the same coast, a testament to improvements made by the US Air Force (now Space Force) outfits that operate the range. The ultimate goal of those upgrades is to enable up to 40 annual orbital-class launches from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station (CCAFS) pads – a cadence not seen in the US since the 1960s.

As of now, the United Launch Alliance (ULA) is tracking towards 8-10:30 am EDT, May 16th for the sixth launch of Boeing’s small X-37B spaceplane, used by the military for orbital experiments and other more mysterious purposes. SpaceX’s eighth launch of 60 Starlink satellites could follow as few as 20 hours later at approximately 4 am EDT, May 17th, carrying the next batch of operational internet satellites into low Earth orbit (LEO).

60 Starlink satellites depart Falcon 9’s spinning upper stage on April 22nd. (SpaceX)

Aside from a potentially impressive back-to-back launch from the United States’ only two commercial orbital launch providers, SpaceX’s Starlink-7 mission is also expected to include several important milestones for reusable rocketry and the company’s rapidly-growing satellite constellation. Notably, SpaceX and CEO Elon Musk have recently stated that the mission will be the first launch of Starlink satellites with a prototype ‘visor’ designed to make each spacecraft nearly invisible from the ground.

A render of SpaceX’s so-called ‘VisorSat’. (SpaceX)

If SpaceX’s so-called VisorSat prototypes are successful, the company plans to outfit all future Starlink satellites with visors. Additionally, the Starlink-7 spacecraft will be the first to trial a new approach to satellite orientation en masse, a change also designed to mitigate the constellation’s impact on ground-based astronomy. By angling satellites in such a way that they give very little surface area for sunlight to reflect off of, SpaceX could potentially decrease or fully remove ground reflections from orbiting satellites, useful even if only temporary.

SpaceX’s Starlink satellites can produce truly spectacular and inspiring views when flying overhead, although that same visibility can disrupt some astronomy. (Richard Angle)

Additionally, SpaceX is set to launch – and attempt to land – Falcon 9 booster B1049 for the fifth time in support of Starlink-7, only the second time an orbital-class booster has flown five times. If B1049 is able to stick a landing aboard drone ship Of Course I Still Love You (OCISLY), Starlink-7 will also mark the first time a SpaceX booster has completed five landings, also setting B1049 up to become the first booster to attempt its sixth launch in the near future.

B1048 was unfortunately lost to a mid-launch anomaly that also prevented the rocket from successfully landing. (Pauline Acalin, SpaceX, Tom Cross, Richard Angle)
B1049 completed its fourth launch, landing, and recovery in early-January 2020. (Richard Angle)

As always, delays are par for the course in the world of orbital launches, so it’s possible that one of the two launches scheduled on May 16th and 17th will slip. After Starlink-7, SpaceX’s next orbital launch – Crew Dragon’s Demo-2 NASA astronaut launch debut – is perhaps the most important mission in the company’s 18 year history and is scheduled to lift off no earlier than (NET) May 27th.

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.

Advertisement
Comments

News

Tesla CEO Elon Musk says flying cars are coming

Published

on

Credit: Grok Imagine

Tesla CEO Elon Musk said that flying cars will be coming to the market, something that his own company has hinted at previously.

Musk said on X, in response to a post that read, “We were promised flying cars and all we got is infinite superintelligence for everyone,” “You will get flying cars.”

The post rang back to when Musk teased flying and hovering capabilities for the Tesla Roadster, the company’s supercar that has been delayed more times than anyone cares to count. It was set for an unveiling earlier this year, but it was then pushed back to August. There is still no sign of it coming.

However, that does not mean it won’t. But one of the biggest features of the Roadster that was teased was a SpaceX package that featured cold gas thrusters on the rear end that would help with white-knuckle acceleration. Another set would face the ground and would help the Roadster gain small bits of altitude, potentially helpful to jump over obstacles.

Elon Musk hints at Tesla Roadster’s “hovering” abilities in SpaceX package

But it is not a straightforward thing for Musk. As a serial entrepreneur, he tends to spend his time on major disruptors; currently, his largest projects are artificial intelligence and compute power, as well as SpaceX’s launches that will eventually make life multiplanetary.

In the past, he has been critical of flying cars and has been in favor of tunnels, one of the big reasons he started the Boring Company. In 2017 at a TED talk, he said:

“There is a challenge with flying cars in that they’ll be quite noisy. The wind force generated will be very high. Let’s just say that if something’s flying over your head, if there are a whole bunch of flying cars all over the place, that is not an anxiety-reducing situation…You’re thinking, ‘Did they service their hubcap? Or is it going to come off and guillotine me as they’re flying past?'”

However, he’s never been against them. He has also said he’s in favor of both tunnels and flying cars.

Most recently, Musk said that anyone who wants a flying car should be able to get one. This was stated last October on the Joe Rogan Experience:

“My friend Peter Thiel once reflected that the future was supposed to have flying cars, but we don’t have flying cars… I think if Peter wants a flying car, we should be able to buy one.”

Whether the Roadster will be Tesla’s flying car or potentially another one remains in the mind of Musk. Of course, the Roadster will have to make its way to production lines before we find out.

Continue Reading

Elon Musk

SpaceX’s next trillion dollar bet has nothing to do with rockets, Musk tells staff

Elon Musk told SpaceX staff AI revenue will soon dwarf rockets and Starlink combined entirely.

Published

on

By

Elon Musk told SpaceX employees this week that artificial intelligence, not rockets, will soon carry the company’s revenue. In a roughly 29 minute internal address posted on SpaceX’s X account on Tuesday, Musk said AI revenue will pass every other line of business at SpaceX “probably in September” and pull further ahead by the fourth quarter.

The numbers he gave are specific. SpaceX currently runs 1.4 gigawatts of AI compute capacity. Musk wants that at 10 gigawatts by the end of 2027, a jump he tied directly to revenue: “if we bring 10GW of AI online by the end of next year, it will be $300 billion to $500 billion a year in revenue.” He called those “big numbers,” which undersells a projection larger than what most countries produce in a year.

Musk went further on where AI fits into SpaceX’s future. “Probably in four or five years, AI will be 99% of the value of SpaceX,” he told staff, adding that digital intelligence would eventually run “a trillion times” ahead of biological intelligence as computing scales. He tied that growth to the company’s founding mission, telling employees “we must win on AI, because the future is overwhelmingly AI and robots,” with the payoff meant to help fund Starship and a Mars program that increasingly runs through Terafab, the joint Tesla, SpaceX and xAI chip plant.

Elon Musk launches TERAFAB: The $25B Tesla-SpaceXAI chip factory that will rewire the AI industry

None of this is entirely new territory. SpaceX told investors much the same story during its first earnings call as a public company on August 4, where Musk moved the company’s $1 trillion revenue target up a year to 2030 and said Starlink could someday carry a majority of the world’s internet. What the all hands video adds is a hard deadline and a specific power figure Musk had not given publicly before, along with a franker pitch to his own workforce that AI, not launch cadence, is now the thing SpaceX is betting its future on.

The AI revenue itself is not coming from SpaceX training its own models. It is largely Starlink acting as the network layer for xAI’s workloads, plus SpaceX renting out compute capacity directly, the same approach behind the roughly $16 billion the company spent on AI infrastructure in a single quarter.

Musk closed the video with a pitch aimed at recruiting and retention rather than investors, telling employees that anyone who helps SpaceX win the AI race will eventually get the chance to go to the moon or Mars themselves. Whether SpaceX can turn 1.4 gigawatts into 10 in seventeen months is the more immediate question, and one that will show up in quarterly numbers well before anyone leaves Earth.

Continue Reading

Investor's Corner

Tesla has one big financial question to answer for investors: Morgan Stanley

Published

on

Credit: Tesla

In a new note to investors on Tuesday, Morgan Stanley analyst Andrew Percoco said that Tesla has one big financial question to answer for investors regarding its Robotaxi rollout, Full Self-Driving software, and Optimus.

Percoco said in the note that, for the most part, investors are still very positive about the direction the company is headed. However, there are some things the firm would like to see, and they have to do with financials.

Tesla (TSLA) Q2 2026 earnings results: miss on EPS, beat on revenue

Tesla bulls are more than convinced that the company’s Full Self-Driving software is proof it can develop physical AI. Financially, however, there are still some questions, especially on elevated spending, which CEO Elon Musk said would occur as the company works to roll out Robotaxi faster and continue developing its Optimus robot.

The latter two are where Tesla will have to prove progress to investors, as Percoco writes that both projects “will require clearer evidence that Robotaxi is scaling and more tangible Optimus proof points to support the ROI on elevated capex.”

Percoco said the second quarter earnings call did not change his long-term thesis of where Tesla is positioned in the AI race, which is out in front. However, there are concerns that weaker gross margins and higher R&D spend will stress financials, and that has “sharpened our (and investors’) focus on measurable progress across Robotaxi and Optimus.”

Additionally, Robotaxi still needs to be proven with more operation in existing cities while maintaining safety but improving how many rides it gives in any given time, he said. For Optimus, Percoco wrote that he is “still looking for evidence beyond commentary around SOP.”

Morgan Stanley put Percoco in charge of covering Tesla after long-time analyst Adam Jonas transitioned to the automotive side.

Currently, Morgan Stanley has a $415 price target on Tesla and a ‘Hold’ rating on the stock. It is trading at around $330 at the time of publication, which was 2:30 P.M. on the East Coast.

Continue Reading