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SpaceX’s first Cargo Dragon 2 recovery delayed by Atlantic Ocean weather
Update: The first undocking, orbital reentry, and splashdown of SpaceX’s upgraded Dragon 2 cargo spacecraft was aborted by NASA ground controllers minutes before the process was scheduled to begin. According to NASA, weather in the preferred recovery zone – off the coast of Daytona Beach, Florida – was to blame.
“As a result of adverse weather conditions at the targeted splashdown zone off the coast of Daytona Beach, Florida, SpaceX has waved off today’s planned departure of an upgraded SpaceX Dragon resupply spacecraft. Teams are currently assessing weather conditions to determine the next opportunity for undocking.”
NASA – January 11th, 2021
SpaceX’s upgraded Cargo Dragon spacecraft is just a day or two away from its first International Space Station (ISS) departure, Earth reentry, and ocean splashdown.
The uncrewed Dragon capsule (known as C208) and its expendable trunk section are currently scheduled to depart from the ISS no earlier than the morning (EST) of January 12th – set to be the first time an uncrewed US cargo spacecraft autonomously undocks from the orbital outpost. Previous US cargo vehicles – including SpaceX’s own Cargo Dragon – have relied on berthing, rendezvousing with the ISS and hovering close by while a giant robotic arm was used to capture and secure each spacecraft.
Cargo Dragon 2 wont be the first outright to do so: the uncrewed European ATV and Russian Progress vehicles both used the Russian Docking System (RDS) to deliver cargo to the ISS over the last two decades. However, Dragon’s CRS-21 departure will be the first time an uncrewed cargo spacecraft completes a full mission with the help of NASA’s new International Docking Adapter (IDA), as well as an IDA’s third round-trip use ever.
In fact, SpaceX is solely responsible for the four total uses of the Space Station’s twin IDA ports – both fittingly delivered by Cargo Dragons in 2016 and 2019. In March 2019, Crew Dragon – flying without astronauts on its Demo-1 mission – became the first spacecraft ever to autonomously dock with and undock from an IDA port. In May and August 2020, a separate Crew Dragon spacecraft repeated the feat, autonomously docking and undocking with two NASA astronauts onboard.
In November 2020, SpaceX launched Crew Dragon on its first operational ferry mission with four astronauts. The spacecraft safely docked to the ISS and is scheduled to remain there until at least March or April 2021. Most recently, SpaceX launched its first Cargo Dragon 2 on December 6th, 2020, and the spacecraft docked without issue a day later. Now scheduled to undock as early as January 12th, a successful departure, reentry, and splashdown will truly mark the start of a new era of autonomous SpaceX spacecraft.
Unlike the largely manual berthing method used by Japanese HTV, Orbital ATK Cygnus, and SpaceX Cargo Dragon spacecraft, SpaceX’s Crew Dragon and Cargo Dragon 2 vehicles took advantage of IDA’s mechanical differences to heavily automate the cargo and crew delivery process. Using LiDAR, cameras, complex software, SpaceX’s new Dragons effectively dock themselves, ultimately requiring less training and work for the station astronauts that would otherwise need to manually support berthing operations.
Used to support refrigerated or otherwise power-intensive cargo, Cargo Dragon 2 features twice as many “powered lockers” as its predecessor and is scheduled to return an impressive ~2360 kg (5200 lb) of cargo – including dozens of science experiments – to Earth. More than a decade after Dragon became the first private spacecraft to successfully reenter Earth’s atmosphere, Cargo Dragon is still the only spacecraft in the world capable of delivering substantial cargo from Earth to orbit and from orbit to Earth.
After detaching from its expendable trunk section and reentering Earth’s atmosphere, Cargo Dragon C208 will also become the first cargo spacecraft to splash down in the Atlantic Ocean or Gulf of Mexico thanks to SpaceX’s decision to consolidate its California and Florida Dragon recovery operations on the East Coast.
Also used to recover Crew Dragons, SpaceX ship GO Searcher departed Port Canaveral for its central role in CRS-21’s imminent splashdown. Once Cargo Dragon C208 splashes down at one of four available recovery zones, SpaceX recovery teams will grab and secure the spacecraft and open its hatch. Uniquely time-sensitive cargo can then be transferred to a waiting helicopter for an unprecedentedly rapid return to researchers back on land,
Stay tuned for SpaceX and NASA’s live coverage of Cargo Dragon 2’s first ISS departure and recovery on January 12th or 13th.
The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) has awarded the 2025-2026 Tesla Cybertruck crew cab pickup its highest honor: Top Safety Pick+. This marks the Cybertruck as the only full-size pickup to achieve this distinction in recent evaluations.
The award applies specifically to vehicles built after April 2025, following structural upgrades including front underbody reinforcements and footwell modifications.
These changes enabled strong performance in updated crash tests. The Cybertruck earned “Good” ratings in the small overlap front (driver and passenger sides), updated moderate overlap front, and updated side tests—core requirements for the Top Safety Pick+ designation.
It also secured acceptable or good headlights across trims and a “Good” rating for its standard front crash prevention system in pedestrian scenarios, along with acceptable or good performance in vehicle-to-vehicle testing.
The Cybertruck avoided every single pedestrian collision, including:
- Daytime child crossing
- Nightitime adult crossing
- Night parallel adult
In IIHS pedestrian front crash prevention tests, @Cybertruck avoided every single collision – daytime, nighttime & different angles
It was also the only pickup to earn Top Safety Pick+ (highest award) in 2026https://t.co/BNPqT9TbsW pic.twitter.com/M6nwDisBFK
— Tesla (@Tesla) June 24, 2026
In the large pickup category, competitors such as the Toyota Tundra received only a standard Top Safety Pick, while the Ford F-150 and Ram 1500 did not qualify for either award. This positions the Cybertruck as a standout in occupant protection and crash avoidance among its peers.
Credit: IIHS
Ironically, the same vehicle celebrated for superior U.S. safety performance remains banned from public roads in the United Kingdom and much of Europe. Regulators there cite the Cybertruck’s sharp external edges and highly rigid stainless-steel construction as failing pedestrian-protection standards. European and UK rules require rounded surfaces on protruding parts to minimize injury risk in collisions with vulnerable road users.
Critics also point to the truck’s substantial weight and unyielding body structure, which some argue could transfer more force to other vehicles or pedestrians rather than absorbing it.
Tesla’s engineering philosophy underpins the Cybertruck’s strong IIHS results. The vehicle features a distinctive stainless-steel exoskeleton made from ultra-hard 30X cold-rolled stainless steel. This provides exceptional structural rigidity and a robust safety cage that resists deformation in side impacts and rollovers.
Engineers designed integrated load paths to channel crash forces away from the occupant compartment while allowing controlled energy absorption in key zones. Post-April 2025 refinements to the front underbody further optimized performance in overlap crashes.
Complementing the passive structure is Tesla’s advanced active safety suite, including the standard Collision Avoidance Assist system with automatic emergency braking. This contributed directly to the vehicle’s strong front crash prevention scores. The skateboard platform and low center of gravity also enhance stability and handling, reducing the likelihood of certain crashes.
The IIHS recognition highlights how Tesla’s combination of high-strength materials, structural innovation, and software-driven safety systems can deliver top-tier protection in rigorous testing. While global regulatory differences on design and pedestrian interaction continue to limit the Cybertruck’s availability outside North America, its U.S. safety credentials set a new benchmark for full-size pickups.
Elon Musk
SpaceX’s newest Starmind will make earth data centers obsolete
Elon Musk confirmed Starmind as SpaceX’s AI satellite constellation name, targeting one million orbital compute nodes.
Elon Musk confirmed that Starmind will be the official name of SpaceX’s planned AI satellite constellation, following a trademark filing by xAI that surfaced earlier this week. Starmind is what’s being described to the FCC as a constellation of up to one million AI satellites
It’s worth noting that SpaceX’s Starlink communication satellite and Starmind are built on the same orbital infrastructure concept but serve entirely different purposes. Starlink is a connectivity network, with satellites receiving and relaying data between points on Earth, and functioning as a high-speed internet backbone in space. The satellites themselves do not process or think, and move information from one place to another, the same function a fiber cable performs underground.
SpaceX just forced Verizon, AT&T and T-Mobile to team up for the first time in history
Starmind, on the other hand, is something completely different, and tather than moving data, its satellites would compute data through artificial intelligence and directly in orbit using onboard processors powered by large solar arrays. Where a Starlink satellite is essentially a very fast pipe, a Starmind satellite is a server. The practical implication is that Starmind would allow AI models to run inference, process queries, and generate outputs from space, then beam results down to users anywhere on Earth within milliseconds, and without the data ever needing to travel to a terrestrial data center.
Starship will be able to carry 30 to 50 AI1 satellites per launch, delivering the equivalent of dozens of server racks per flight, with no land acquisition, no power grid approval, and no cooling infrastructure required on the ground.
SpaceX is pursuing this new technology as terrestrial data centers are running into hard limits such as lack of physical space, community opposition, and power and water consumption at a scale that is increasingly difficult to permit. Space has unlimited solar power, natural vacuum cooling, and no zoning boards. Musk said in a June 8 video presentation that he expects space to become the lowest-cost location to deploy AI compute within two to three years. Two AI1 prototypes are scheduled to launch in early 2027, with volume production targeted for the end of that year at a new facility called Gigasat.
The real world applications Starmind enables extend well beyond powering Grok. A constellation of orbiting AI processors could run inference workloads for any paying customer, anywhere on Earth, with latency measured in milliseconds rather than the seconds associated with ground-based cloud routing across continents. Starmind, if it scales as described, would make SpaceX the landlord of AI compute the same way Starlink made it the landlord of satellite internet.
Tesla is pushing back against the unfair reporting of accidents involving its vehicles. Many media outlets were quick to jump to conclusions about a fatal accident involving a Tesla in Katy, Texas, that happened recently.
The driver of the vehicle, which slammed into a brick house and killed a woman inside, stated the car was operating on Autopilot. Tesla CEO Elon Musk and Head of AI Ashok Elluswamy both challenged that claim, with Elluswamy revealing last night that the system was overridden by the driver, who pressed the accelerator pedal “all the way to 100%.”
Tesla finally clarifies fatal Texas crash, confirms driver manually overrode acceleration
The car reached a speed of 73 MPH during the crash, Elluswamy detailed, and stated that the accelerator pedal was even pressed after the crash.
The story has been spread throughout the media with either incomplete or incorrect reporting, with some stories still not updated nearly 24 hours after Musk and Elluswamy posted answers about the crash on X.
The reporting has been a thorn in the side of Tesla for several years. Vehicle accidents involving Teslas are usually reported with the manufacturer’s name in the headline, while other companies are free of criticism when their cars are involved in accidents.
Here’s an example of that:
So you don’t report the vehicle’s make when it isn’t a Tesla, but you do report it when it is a Tesla?
The vehicle in your post above is a Hyundai Ioniq 5 EV. pic.twitter.com/4WT3sZ2DHm— Sawyer Merritt (@SawyerMerritt) February 17, 2026
Many media outlets stated the car was in “self-driving mode” or “Autopilot mode” when the car crashed. The truth is, now that Tesla has chimed in, that the driver had manually overriden the system by pressing the accelerator. Elluswamy commented on the unfair reporting:
“This blatantly irresponsible reporting does more harm to people than they realize.
Using Tesla self-driving is far safer than manual driving, and this was measured over 10B miles.
Planting such FUD in the minds of general public, who might not know the all the facts, might prevent them from using this technology that makes them safer.”
This blatantly irresponsible reporting does more harm to people than they realize.
Using Tesla self-driving is far safer than manual driving, and this was measured over 10B miles.
Planting such FUD in the minds of general public, who might not know the all the facts, might…
— Ashok Elluswamy (@aelluswamy) June 22, 2026
The damage these headlines do to Tesla and the self-driving car movement is unexplainable. Most people do not realize the safeguards that are in place with Tesla’s self-driving functions; many people who have used it know the car would never travel at that speed in a residential area, not even on the most aggressive “Mad Max” setting.
It is important to remember that Tesla Full Self-Driving is not autonomous, and the company never claimed it was. Drivers are still responsible for paying attention and remaining vigilant. They must be able to take over at all times.
Tesla Cybertruck is officially the safest pickup, IIHS says
SpaceX’s newest Starmind will make earth data centers obsolete
