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SpaceX drone ship departs for upgraded Cargo Dragon launch debut
SpaceX drone ship Of Course I Still Love You (OCISLY) has departed Port Canaveral ahead of an upgraded Cargo Dragon spacecraft’s Falcon 9 launch debut.
Scheduled to lift off no earlier than (NET) 11:39 am EST (16:39 UTC) on Saturday, December 5th, SpaceX’s 21st NASA Commercial Resupply Services (CRS) launch will mark several major firsts.
First and foremost, CRS-21 will debut an upgraded Cargo Dragon spacecraft. Derived from Crew Dragon (also known as Dragon 2), Cargo Dragon 2 will also dock with the ISS, utilizing a smaller docking (versus berthing) port that unfortunately limits the width of cargo Dragon will be able to deliver. Aside from improved reusability, SpaceX’s newest cargo spacecraft will otherwise be largely the same as Dragon 1 as far as cargo delivery goes.
Compared to SpaceX’s 20 CRS1 space station resupply missions, Cargo Dragon 2’s CRS2 launches will also be substantially more expensive, on average, though still NASA’s most affordable option. SpaceX executives have explained that cost increase as a result of the company’s growing confidence and greater awareness of its competition. NASA has only guaranteed six CRS2 contracts for three selected providers, leaving the space agency a great deal of leverage to analyze the playing field and issue at least as many new contracts to cover International Space Station (ISS) operations from at least 2023 to 2025.
Thanks to experience gained through joint NASA-SpaceX CRS1 contract modifications that allowed multiple Falcon 9 booster and Cargo Dragon capsule reuses, reusability – while again not built in to SpaceX’s CRS2 contract – will assuredly play a central role for most of the company’s future space station cargo missions. Unlike Dragon 1, which was only modified for reuse with an upgrade that debuted several launches into CRS1, the Dragon 2 capsule is designed from the start to fly at least five orbital missions.
NASA has already given SpaceX permission to reuse a more complex Crew Dragon spacecraft to launch astronauts as early as March 2021, so it’s all but guaranteed that the space agency will allow SpaceX to extensively reuse Cargo Dragon 2 capsules to complete its CRS2 contract. If so, it will likely save NASA a significant amount of money when it comes time to award additional CRS2 contracts.
Equally significant, NASA also appears to be upgrading its confidence in SpaceX’s reusable Falcon 9 rockets with CRS-21, permitting the company to reuse Falcon 9 booster B1058 on Cargo Dragon 2’s launch debut. While B1058 did support SpaceX’s Crew Dragon astronaut launch debut back in May 2020, the booster has since flown two more commercial missions, carrying a South Korean communications satellite and a batch of SpaceX’s own Starlink spacecraft in July and October. CRS-21 will be the first time NASA has allowed SpaceX to fly a space agency mission with a booster that’s supported non-NASA missions, implying a new level of trust in SpaceX.
It will also be the first time in history that a new spacecraft has debuted on a flight-proven rocket, as well as NASA’s first flight on both a twice-flown and thrice-flown Falcon 9 booster. If CRS-21 is a sign of things to come, life will be made much easier for SpaceX, reducing or eliminating the need to operate separate booster fleets for commercial and institutional customers.
Finally, CRS-21 will also mark the first time in history that two SpaceX Dragon spacecraft have been in orbit – or at the ISS – at the same time. A senior SpaceX Dragon manager recently noted that after Crew-1’s successful November 15th launch, all future Dragon launches would leave the company with two Dragons in orbit.
In Pennsylvania, we got between 10 and 12 inches of snow over the weekend as a nasty Winter storm ripped through a large portion of the country, bringing snow to some areas and nasty ice storms to others.
I have had a Model Y Performance for the week courtesy of Tesla, which got the car to me last Monday. Today was my last full day with it before I take it back to my local showroom, and with all the accumulation on it, I decided to run a cool little experiment: How long would it take for Tesla’s Defrost feature to melt 8 inches of snow?
Tesla’s Defrost feature is one of the best and most underrated that the car has in its arsenal. While every car out there has a defrost setting, Tesla’s can be activated through the Smartphone App and is one of the better-performing systems in my opinion.
It has come in handy a lot through the Fall and Winter, helping clear up my windshield more efficiently while also clearing up more of the front glass than other cars I’ve owned.
The test was simple: don’t touch any of the ice or snow with my ice scraper, and let the car do all the work, no matter how long it took. Of course, it would be quicker to just clear the ice off manually, but I really wanted to see how long it would take.
Tesla Model Y heat pump takes on Model S resistive heating in defrosting showdown
Observations
I started this test at around 10:30 a.m. It was still pretty cloudy and cold out, and I knew the latter portion of the test would get some help from the Sun as it was expected to come out around noon, maybe a little bit after.
I cranked it up and set my iPhone up on a tripod, and activated the Time Lapse feature in the Camera settings.
The rest of the test was sitting and waiting.
It didn’t take long to see some difference. In fact, by the 20-minute mark, there was some notable melting of snow and ice along the sides of the windshield near the A Pillar.
However, this test was not one that was “efficient” in any manner; it took about three hours and 40 minutes to get the snow to a point where I would feel comfortable driving out in public. In no way would I do this normally; I simply wanted to see how it would do with a massive accumulation of snow.
It did well, but in the future, I’ll stick to clearing it off manually and using the Defrost setting for clearing up some ice before the gym in the morning.
Check out the video of the test below:
❄️ How long will it take for the Tesla Model Y Performance to defrost and melt ONE FOOT of snow after a blizzard?
Let’s find out: pic.twitter.com/Zmfeveap1x
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) January 26, 2026
Tesla Robotaxi ride-hailing without a Safety Monitor is proving to be a difficult task, according to some riders who made the journey to Austin to attempt to ride in one of its vehicles that has zero supervision.
Last week, Tesla officially removed Safety Monitors from some — not all — of its Robotaxi vehicles in Austin, Texas, answering skeptics who said the vehicles still needed supervision to operate safely and efficiently.
BREAKING: Tesla launches public Robotaxi rides in Austin with no Safety Monitor
Tesla aimed to remove Safety Monitors before the end of 2025, and it did, but only to company employees. It made the move last week to open the rides to the public, just a couple of weeks late to its original goal, but the accomplishment was impressive, nonetheless.
However, the small number of Robotaxis that are operating without Safety Monitors has proven difficult to hail for a ride. David Moss, who has gained notoriety recently as the person who has traveled over 10,000 miles in his Tesla on Full Self-Driving v14 without any interventions, made it to Austin last week.
He has tried to get a ride in a Safety Monitor-less Robotaxi for the better part of four days, and after 38 attempts, he still has yet to grab one:
Wow just wow!
It’s 8:30PM, 29° out ice storm hailing & Tesla Robotaxi service has turned back on!
Waymo is offline & vast majority of humans are home in the storm
Ride 38 was still supervised but by far most impressive yet pic.twitter.com/1aUnJkcYm8
— David Moss (@DavidMoss) January 25, 2026
Tesla said last week that it was rolling out a controlled test of the Safety Monitor-less Robotaxis. Ashok Elluswamy, who heads the AI program at Tesla, confirmed that the company was “starting with a few unsupervised vehicles mixed in with the broader Robotaxi fleet with Safety Monitors,” and that “the ratio will increase over time.”
This is a good strategy that prioritizes safety and keeps the company’s controlled rollout at the forefront of the Robotaxi rollout.
However, it will be interesting to see how quickly the company can scale these completely monitor-less rides. It has proven to be extremely difficult to get one, but that is understandable considering only a handful of the cars in the entire Austin fleet are operating with no supervision within the vehicle.
Tesla has given its biggest hint that Full Self-Driving in Europe is imminent, as a new feature seems to show that the company is preparing for frequent border crossings.
Tesla owner and influencer BLKMDL3, also known as Zack, recently took his Tesla to the border of California and Mexico at Tijuana, and at the international crossing, Full Self-Driving showed an interesting message: “Upcoming country border — FSD (Supervised) will become unavailable.”
FSD now shows a new message when approaching an international border crossing.
Stayed engaged the whole way as we crossed the border and worked great in Mexico! pic.twitter.com/bDzyLnyq0g
— Zack (@BLKMDL3) January 26, 2026
Due to regulatory approvals, once a Tesla operating on Full Self-Driving enters a new country, it is required to comply with the laws and regulations that are applicable to that territory. Even if legal, it seems Tesla will shut off FSD temporarily, confirming it is in a location where operation is approved.
This is something that will be extremely important in Europe, as crossing borders there is like crossing states in the U.S.; it’s pretty frequent compared to life in America, Canada, and Mexico.
Tesla has been working to get FSD approved in Europe for several years, and it has been getting close to being able to offer it to owners on the continent. However, it is still working through a lot of the red tape that is necessary for European regulators to approve use of the system on their continent.
This feature seems to be one that would be extremely useful in Europe, considering the fact that crossing borders into other countries is much more frequent than here in the U.S., and would cater to an area where approvals would differ.
Tesla has been testing FSD in Spain, France, England, and other European countries, and plans to continue expanding this effort. European owners have been fighting for a very long time to utilize the functionality, but the red tape has been the biggest bottleneck in the process.
Tesla Europe builds momentum with expanding FSD demos and regional launches
Tesla operates Full Self-Driving in the United States, China, Canada, Mexico, Puerto Rico, Australia, New Zealand, and South Korea.
Tesla winter weather test: How long does it take to melt 8 inches of snow?
Tesla Robotaxi ride-hailing without a Safety Monitor proves to be difficult
