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SpaceX, ULA win multibillion-dollar military launch contract years in the making
Ending a process that began almost two years ago, the US Air Force (now Space Force) has selected SpaceX and ULA to be the recipients of a multibillion-dollar series of launch contracts that stretch into the late 2020s.
Known as the National Security Space Launch Phase 2 Launch Services Acquisition (LSA), the US Air Force publicly began the initiative in Q4 2018. In May 2019, the LSA process was opened to bidders and the military ultimately received serious proposals from SpaceX, the United Launch Alliance (ULA), Northrop Grumman, and Blue Origin.
While the latter three companies proposed their respective next-generation rockets – still in development – to complete at least a dozen military launches from 2022 to 2027, SpaceX offered up Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy. As of April 2020, Falcon 9 officially usurped ULA’s Atlas V rocket to become the United States’ most prolific operational rocket. While ULA has technically included Atlas V as a backup option in its NSSL Phase 2 bid, the company’s primary launch vehicle is Vulcan Centaur, scheduled to fly for the first time no earlier than July 2021.
As a result, failing to award SpaceX at least one of the two NSSL LSA Phase 2 slots – split 60:40 – would have almost assuredly made a farce of the US military competition. The real question, then, was who would win the other award, and whether the US military would shock the industry with a final decision more technical than political. As previously discussed on Teslarati, the fact that four separate companies submitted serious bids for Phase 2 gave the US military a significant opportunity.
“For dubious reasons, the US Air Force (USAF) has structured the NSSL Phase 2 acquisition in such a way that – despite there being four possible competitors – only two will be awarded contracts at its conclusion. The roughly ~34 launch contracts up for grabs would be split 60:40 between the two victors, leaving two competitors completely empty handed.”
Teslarati.com — August 14th, 2019
Despite repeated petitions by Blue Origin and the attempted intervention of lawmakers in Congress, the US military remained ardently against awarding Phase 2 launch contracts to more than two providers throughout the competition. Barring a successful protest from snubbed bidders Northrop Grumman and/or Blue Origin, it appears that the military ultimately won the battle, selecting two providers.
Instead of awarding even just a handful of the 34 launch contracts up for grabs to Northrop Grumman, the US Space Force is all but guaranteeing that the company’s Omega rocket will die in the cradle without an immediate slew of additional military contracts. There’s a chance that NSSL Phase 1 LSA funding will continue, likely giving NG the money it needs to complete Omega’s development, but that’s far from guaranteed.
Funded entirely out of Jeff Bezos’ pocket, Blue Origin’s ambitious New Glenn reusable rocket is more insulated from a lack of US military contracts and the company could also continue to receive several hundred million dollars as part of an LSA Phase 1 award. For Blue Origin, already set on entering New Glenn into the commercial launch market, military funding could ensure that the company does the extra work needed to certify the rocket and its production facilities for military launches.
Down the road, that means that the US Air Force, Space Force, or National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) could all feasibly award Blue Origin or Northrop Grumman launch contracts outside the 34 Phase 2 missions without having to start a development and certification process that can take a year or more from scratch.
Regardless of the missed opportunities, the NSSL LSA Phase 2 contract is a major win for SpaceX and guarantees the company’s Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rockets some 13-14 military launch contracts over a five-year period. For ULA, the victory is likely a massive relief, given that the company’s next-generation (expendable) Vulcan Centaur rocket has next to no chance of sustaining itself with commercial launch contracts. Much like Atlas V in the last decade of the rocket’s life and Delta IV over most of its two-decade career, ULA’s Vulcan rocket will continue the trend of relying almost exclusively on US military contracts.
This time around, however, the US military’s preferential treatment of ULA is nakedly obvious. At almost every turn, SpaceX’s Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rockets can provide the same launch services as ULA for anywhere from 20-50% less. For the few missions (direct to geostationary) where ULA’s Atlas V, Delta IV, and Vulcan rockets might actually have a step up over SpaceX, the US could have easily awarded ULA the smaller 40% share or even split that 40% share with Blue Origin or Northrop Grumman, giving SpaceX the lion’s share and likely saving hundreds of millions of dollars – if not $1B+ – over the next seven years.
Instead, business (more or less) as usual will continue for at least another decade as the US military functionally subsidizes ULA’s existence by prioritizing a more expensive rocket to achieve the same outcome. The first LSA Phase 2 launches are currently scheduled to begin no earlier than (NET) 2022.
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Tesla pulls back the curtain on Cybercab mass production
Tesla’s Cybercab drives itself off the Gigafactory Texas line in a striking new production video.
Tesla has provided a first look from inside a production Cybercab as it drove itself off the assembly line at Gigafactory Texas. The video footage, posted on X, opens on the factory floor with robotic arms and assembly equipment visible through the Cybercab windshield, and follows the car through a branded tunnel marked “Cybercab”, before autonomously navigating itself to a holding lot.
The first Cybercab rolled off the Giga Texas production line on February 17, 2026, with Musk writing on X, “Congratulations to the Tesla team on making the first production Cybercab.” April marked the official shift to volume production. The Giga Texas line is being prepared to produce hundreds of units per week, with 60 units already spotted on the Gigafactory campus earlier this month.
Purpose-built for autonomy
Cybercab in production now at Giga Texas pic.twitter.com/Y9qG3KyWBa
— Tesla (@Tesla) April 23, 2026
The Cybercab was first revealed publicly at Tesla’s “We, Robot” event in October 2024 at Warner Bros. Studios in Burbank, California, where 20 pre-production units gave attendees rides around the studio lot. Musk said he believed the average operating cost would be around $0.20 per mile, and that buyers would be able to purchase one for under $30,000. The two-seat design is deliberate. Musk noted that 90 percent of miles driven involve one or two people, making a compact two-passenger vehicle the most efficient configuration for a fleet-scale robotaxi. Eliminating rear seats also removes complexity and cost, supporting that sub-$30,000 target.
Tesla’s annual production goal is 2 million Cybercabs per year once several factories reach full design capacity. The Cybercab has no steering wheel, no pedals, and relies entirely on Tesla’s vision-based FSD system. What the video shows is the first evidence of that system working not as a demo, but as a production reality, driving itself off the line and into the world.
🚗 Our first ride in Tesla Cybercab last October: pic.twitter.com/kGqIqgJPRn https://t.co/BITCXFhbVd
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) April 22, 2025
Elon Musk
Elon Musk talks Tesla Roadster’s future
Elon Musk confirmed the Roadster as Tesla’s last manually driven car, with a debut coming soon.
During Tesla’s Q1 2026 earnings call on April 22, Elon Musk made a brief but notable comment about the long-awaited next generation Roadster while describing Tesla’s future vehicle lineup. “Long term, the only manually driven car will be the new Tesla Roadster,” he said. “Speaking of which, we may be able to debut that in a month or so. It requires a lot of testing and validation before we can actually have a demo and not have something go wrong with the demo.”
That single statement is the entire Roadster update from yesterday’s call, and while it represents another timeline shift, it comes as no surprise with Tesla heads-down-at-work on the mass rollout of its Robotaxi service across US cities, and the industrial scale production of the humanoid Optimus.
The fact that Musk specifically framed the Roadster as the last manually driven Tesla is significant on its own. As the rest of the lineup moves toward full autonomy, the Roadster becomes something rare in the Tesla-sphere by keeping the driver in control. Driving enthusiasts who buy a $200,000 supercar are not doing so to be passengers. They want the physical connection to the road, the feel of acceleration under their own input, and the experience of controlling something with that level of performance. FSD, however capable it becomes, removes that entirely. The Roadster signals that Tesla understands this distinction and is building a car specifically for the people who consider driving itself the point.
Tesla isn’t joking about building Optimus at an industrial scale: Here we go
The specs for the Roadster Musk has teased over the years are genuinely unlike anything in production. The base model targets 0 to 60 mph in 1.9 seconds, a top speed above 250 mph, and up to 620 miles of range from a 200 kWh battery. The optional SpaceX package takes it further, rumored to add roughly ten cold gas thrusters operating at 10,000 psi, borrowed directly from Falcon 9 rocket technology. With thrusters, Musk has claimed 0 to 60 mph in as little as 1.1 seconds. In a 2021 Joe Rogan interview he went further, stating “I want it to hover. We got to figure out how to make it hover without killing people.” Tesla filed a patent for ground effect technology in August 2025, suggesting the hover concept has not been abandoned. The starting price remains $200,000, with the Founders Series requiring a $250,000 full deposit. Some reservation holders placed those deposits in 2017 and are approaching a full decade of waiting.
With production now targeted for 2027 or 2028 at the earliest, the Roadster remains Tesla’s most audacious promise and its longest-running delay. But if what Musk is testing lives up to even half of what he has described, the demo alone should be worth waiting for.
Elon Musk says the Tesla Roadster unveiling could be done “maybe in a month or so.”
He said it should be an extraordinary unveiling event. pic.twitter.com/6V9P7zmvEm
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) April 22, 2026
Elon Musk
Tesla confirmed HW3 can’t do Unsupervised FSD but there’s more to the story
Tesla confirmed HW3 vehicles cannot run unsupervised FSD, replacing its free upgrade promise with a discounted trade-in.
Tesla has officially confirmed that early vehicles with its Autopilot Hardware 3 (HW3) will not be capable of unsupervised Full Self-Driving, while extending a path forward for legacy owners through a discounted trade-in program. The announcement came by way of Elon Musk in today’s Tesla Q1 2026 earnings call.
🚨 Our LIVE updates on the Tesla Earnings Call will take place here in a thread 🧵
Follow along below: pic.twitter.com/hzJeBitzJU
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) April 22, 2026
The history here matters. HW3 launched in April 2019, and Tesla sold Full Self-Driving packages to owners on the understanding that the hardware was sufficient for full autonomy. Some owners paid between $8,000 and $15,000 for FSD during that period. For years, as FSD’s AI models grew more demanding, HW3 vehicles fell progressively further behind, eventually landing on FSD v12.6 in January 2025 while AI4 vehicles moved to v13 and then v14. When Musk acknowledged in January 2025 that HW3 simply could not reach unsupervised operation, and alluded to a difficult hardware retrofit.
The near-term offering is more concrete. Tesla’s head of Autopilot Ashok Elluswamy confirmed on today’s call that a V14-lite will be coming to HW3 vehicles in late June, bringing all the V14 features currently running on AI4 hardware. That is a meaningful software update for owners who have been frozen at v12.6 for over a year, and it represents genuine effort to keep older hardware relevant. Unsupervised FSD for vehicles is now targeted for Q4 2026 at the earliest, with Musk describing it as a gradual, geography-limited rollout.
For HW3 owners, the over-the-air V14-lite update is welcomed, and the discounted trade-in path at least acknowledges an old obligation. What happens next with the trade-in pricing will define how this chapter ultimately gets written. If Tesla prices the hardware path fairly, acknowledges what early adopters are owed, and delivers V14-lite on the June timeline it committed to today, it has a real opportunity to convert one of the longest-running sore subjects among early adopters into a loyalty story.
Tesla pulls back the curtain on Cybercab mass production
Elon Musk talks Tesla Roadster’s future
