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SpaceX unveils next-gen Starlink V2 Mini satellites ahead of Monday launch
SpaceX has released official specifications and photos of its next-generation Starlink V2 Mini satellites, which are set to launch for the first time as early as Monday, February 27th.
The new satellites are the future of SpaceX’s Starlink constellation, and the information the company revealed helps demonstrate why.
The update that's rolling out to the fleet makes full use of the front and rear steering travel to minimize turning circle. In this case a reduction of 1.6 feet just over the air— Wes (@wmorrill3) April 16, 2024
SpaceX’s confusingly-named Starlink 6-1 mission will carry the first 21 Starlink V2 satellites into low Earth orbit (LEO) as early as 1:38 pm EST (18:38 UTC) on Monday, February 27th. The satellites will operate under SpaceX’s Starlink Gen2 FCC license, which currently allows the company to launch up to 7,500 of a nominal 29,998 satellites. At the same time as it continues to fill out its smaller 4,408-satellite Starlink Gen1 constellation with smaller V1.5 satellites, SpaceX has already begun launching the same smaller V1.5 satellites under the Gen2 license.
Eventually, those smaller and less capable satellites will likely be replaced with larger V2 satellites, but SpaceX appears to have decided that quickly adding suboptimal capacity is better than waiting for an optimal solution. In theory, that optimal solution is larger Starlink V2 satellites. As discussed in a previous FCC filing, SpaceX intends to operate up to three different types of Starlink satellites in its Starlink Gen2 constellation. The first variant is likely identical to the roughly 305-kilogram (~673 lb) Starlink V1.5 satellites that make up most of its Starlink Gen1 constellation.

Meanwhile, SpaceX has already built and delivered dozens of full-size Starlink V2 satellites to Starbase, Texas. Those more optimal spacecraft reportedly weigh anywhere from 1.25-2 tons (2750-4400 lb) each, offer almost 10 times more bandwidth than V1.5 satellites, and are so large and ungainly that they can only be launched by SpaceX’s next-generation Starship rocket. Starship is substantially delayed, however, so SpaceX chose to develop a third Starlink satellite variant combining many of the full-size V2 benefits into a package that can be launched by SpaceX’s existing Falcon 9 rocket.
Prior to SpaceX’s February 26th tweets, all that was known about those Starlink “V2 Mini” satellites were a few specifications included in a response to the FCC. The new information provided by SpaceX appears to confirm some of those specifications. For example, knowing that Falcon 9 will carry 21 V2 Mini satellites and that the rocket’s current payload record is 17.4 tons, each V2 Mini satellite likely weighs no more than 830 kilograms (~1830 lb). That’s very close to the 800-kilogram estimate provided in the October 2022 filing.
More importantly, SpaceX revealed that each Starlink V2 Mini satellite will have more powerful antennas and access to a new set of frequencies. Combined, each satellite will have up to “~4x more capacity…than earlier iterations” like Starlink V1. Compared to current V1.5 satellites, that means that Starlink V2 Mini could squeeze approximately 50% more network capacity out of each unit of satellite mass. As a result, even though the larger V2 Mini design has reduced the number of satellites Falcon 9 can launch almost threefold, the 21 V2 Mini satellites it can launch will add ~50% more bandwidth than the ~57 V1.5 satellites it would have otherwise launched.
The larger satellites mean that it will take three times as many Falcon 9 launches to expand Starlink V2 coverage, but the areas that are covered will have the capacity to serve several times more customers or deliver much higher bandwidth to the same number of customers.
SpaceX also announced that it has developed a new argon-fueled Hall effect thruster for Starlink V2 satellites. To avoid the high costs of xenon propellant, the most common choice of fuel for electric propulsion systems, SpaceX already developed a first-of-its-kind krypton Hall effect thruster for Starlink V1 and V1.5 satellites. Spread over the almost 4000 Starlink V1.x satellites SpaceX has launched since May 2019, the relatively low cost of krypton (roughly $500-1500/kg vs. $3000-10,000+/kg for xenon) has likely saved the company hundreds of millions of dollars.
The shift from krypton to argon could be similarly beneficial. Relative to krypton, the argon required to fuel Starlink V2 satellites will be practically free. 99.999%-pure argon can be purchased in low volumes for just $5 to $17 per kilogram, and each Starlink V2 Mini satellite will likely need less than 80 kilograms. SpaceX likely spent around $50 million (+/- $25M) on krypton for the almost 4000 Starlink V1 satellites it’s launched to date. As a result, even if every Starlink V2 satellite needs an excessive 200 kilograms of argon, fueling its next constellation of almost 30,000 V2 satellites could cost SpaceX less than fueling 4000 V1 satellites.
Tune in below around 1:30 pm EST (18:30 UTC) to watch SpaceX’s first Starlink V2 launch live.
Elon Musk
The Boring Company’s newest tunnel vehicle runs on Tesla parts and no one is driving it
The Boring Company’s new tunnel vehicle runs on Tesla Model 3 batteries and drive units.
The Boring Company just introduced a new piece of hardware, and it runs on parts pulled straight from a Tesla showroom. Liner Truck 3, unveiled in a post from the tunneling company’s official X account, is an all electric vehicle built around Tesla Model 3 battery packs and drive units, purpose built to move concrete tunnel segments to the boring machine face without a single person underground.
Introducing Liner Truck 3 — our latest fully electric tunnel vehicle.
– Tesla Model 3 battery and drive units
– Transports 22,000+ lb of concrete segments to the boring machine
– 28 miles of range
– 12 mph max operating speed
– Remotely piloted from Global OCC in Texas, with… pic.twitter.com/XB7FgSXnpy— The Boring Company (@boringcompany) August 7, 2026
The job itself is unglamorous but critical. Each precast segment run weighs more than 22,000 pounds, roughly the load of a full cement mixer, and Liner Truck 3 hauls that weight repeatedly between the surface staging area and wherever the Prufrock machine happens to be cutting.
The Boring Company said Liner Truck 3 is piloted remotely out of its Global Operations Control Center in Texas, extending the Zero-People-In-Tunnel approach the company has spent years building toward. An earlier version of a ZPIT liner truck was already tested at the company’s Bastrop, Texas research tunnels, and a factory tour released last month showed an employee flying a fully loaded liner truck with a PlayStation controller. Liner Truck 3 looks like the production version of that same idea, cleaned up and pushed into daily use.
The timing lines up with a company digging in more places than it ever has before. The Boring Company now has multiple Prufrock machines active or arriving in Nashville, where Music City Loop construction has been accelerating since February, and its Vegas Loop network keeps adding tunnel mileage on a near monthly basis. Every one of those projects depends on getting concrete segments to the cutting face fast enough to keep the boring machine from idling, which is exactly the bottleneck Liner Truck 3 is designed to remove.
It also reinforces something Tesla owners have watched happen gradually across Musk’s companies: passenger car hardware finding a second life in heavy equipment. Model 3 drive units already move people through the Vegas Loop, and now the same components are hauling concrete underground in Nashville and wherever The Boring Company digs next. Whether that kind of component reuse extends further into TBC’s equipment lineup, or into other Musk owned industrial hardware, is the next thing worth watching.
Elon Musk
Elon Musk and SpaceX shrugs off the trading day Wall Street feared most
SpaceX stock did the opposite of what most of Wall Street expected this week, when the day designed to be its most dangerous turned into a rally, and the rally kept going.
Thursday marked the first major lockup expiration since SpaceX’s June IPO, making roughly 911.5 million insider held shares eligible to trade for the first time, more than doubling the company’s public float. Analysts and short sellers had spent weeks bracing for a flood of selling, especially after the stock fell 13 percent following its first earnings report as a public company on Tuesday. Instead, shares rose 6.1 percent Thursday to close at $114.92, and by Friday they were trading near $129, up more than another 12 percent on the day.
SpaceX shorts get warned by Musk ally, echoing Tesla’s early struggles
The setup made the outcome notable. Short interest had climbed to roughly 34 percent of the float heading into earnings, among the highest of any large cap stock, with about 95 percent of available shares to borrow already on loan. CEO Elon Musk warned short sellers twice in the weeks before the lockup, writing on X that “the survival probability of firms who maintain a significant short position in SpaceX over time is very low,” then following up on the morning of earnings with “I try to warn them, but they just double down.”
When the newly unlocked shares hit the market and the selloff never showed up, some of that short position appears to have started unwinding. TipRanks reported that options activity shifted toward bullish strategies like put selling and risk reversals following the rally, with roughly $600 million in options premium trading Thursday alone. Retail buyers also stepped in during the earnings dip, according to Vanda Research.
The fundamentals behind the stock have not changed much in a week. SpaceX’s revenue nearly doubled year over year to $7.8 billion, with Starlink subscribers doubling to 12 million and the company’s AI segment growing 247 percent. What spooked investors on Tuesday was the spending side. Capital expenditures jumped to more than $18 billion for the quarter, up from $2.8 billion a year earlier, with AI investment alone rising from $749 million to $15.8 billion. Wall Street remains split on whether that spending is building infrastructure SpaceX needs or outrunning what the business can currently support, a debate Teslarati has tracked since shares first came under pressure.
None of that resolves the bigger question hanging over the stock. Thursday’s release was only the first of nine staggered lockup tranches, with roughly $800 billion worth of additional shares scheduled to become eligible through October, and Musk’s own stake stays locked until next June. If this week is any indication, the market is treating that supply as something it can absorb rather than something to fear, at least for now.
News
The Boring Company’s newest Vegas Station has a permit quietly waiting behind it
Sahara Las Vegas opened a new Vegas Loop station, joining an exclusive two resort transit club.
Sahara Las Vegas opened a new Vegas Loop station Thursday, giving The Boring Company’s underground transit system its northernmost stop yet on the Strip. The station sits at Sahara’s Paradise Road entrance, on the southeast corner of Las Vegas Boulevard and Sahara Avenue, and connects riders to the Las Vegas Convention Center, other Strip resorts on the network and, eventually, Harry Reid International Airport.
The addition makes Sahara the second resort, after Fontainebleau opened its own station in January, to get a stop built at street level rather than tucked into the property itself. Sahara now joins Westgate as the only two Strip resorts offering both a Vegas Loop station and a stop on the Las Vegas Monorail, giving guests two separate ways to get around without leaving the property.
The Boring Company just doubled its tunneling power in Nashville
The bigger news buried in Thursday’s announcement is what comes next. Boring Company has already secured its first permit to tunnel north of Sahara Avenue, extending the network beyond where it currently ends, even though permits to push the Loop toward downtown Las Vegas still haven’t been granted. Crews are also working on a two mile dual tunnel line running from Westgate to a planned station at 4744 Paradise Road, just north of Tropicana Avenue, that Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority CEO Steve Hill has said the company hopes to open in time for November’s Las Vegas Grand Prix.
Ridership has grown alongside the buildout. The Loop moved roughly 82,000 passengers during CONEXPO in early March, a total the company highlighted on its own X account at the time, and the system has now carried more than 4 million passengers through 11 open stations since it began running in 2021. The airport connector tunnels, meant to give the Loop a direct link to Harry Reid, have slipped past their original first quarter target and remain under construction, with Boring Company director Mike Baier saying that a full opening is still a few months out.
For Sahara, the calculation is straightforward. Convention traffic drives a large share of Loop ridership, and a station at the property’s front door gives conventiongoers one more reason to book rooms on the Strip’s north end instead of closer to the convention center itself.
