News
SpaceX wins Sentinel 6B radar satellite launch contract
SpaceX has won a contract to launch the joint US-European Sentinel 6B radar satellite as early as November 2025.
Five years ago, NASA also chose SpaceX to launch Sentinel 6A, the first of two identical satellites designed to use radar altimeters to determine global sea levels more accurately than ever before. In October 2017, just half a year after SpaceX’s first Falcon 9 rocket booster reuse and well before the cost savings that followed were fully factored in, NASA awarded SpaceX $94 million to launch the 1.1-ton (~2500 lb) to a relatively low 1300-kilometer (~810 mi) orbit.
Five years and two months later, NASA has awarded SpaceX $97 million to launch a virtually identical satellite to the same orbit, from the same launch pad, with the same rocket. SpaceX, however, is far from the same company it was in 2017, and has effectively mastered Falcon booster and payload fairing reuse in the half-decade since.
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
Beginning in March 2017, SpaceX has reused Falcon boosters on 130 launches, including sensitive US military missions and even NASA astronaut launches. SpaceX has launched almost 70 internal Starlink missions (carrying more than 3600 SpaceX-built satellites) without bankrupting the company. CEO Elon Musk has stated that the marginal cost of a barebones Falcon 9 launch is just $15 million, while another executive once pegged the total cost of a Falcon 9 launch with flight-proven hardware at $28 million.
Perhaps most significantly, SpaceX won a contract in 2019 to launch NASA’s tiny IXPE X-ray telescope on Falcon 9 for only $50 million. SpaceX completed the mission in December 2021, launching the 330-kilogram (~730 lb) spacecraft into a roughly 600-kilometer (~370 mi) orbit. IXPE was initially expected to launch on Aerojet Rocketdyne’s troubled air-launched Pegasus XL rocket, which last launched a small NASA spacecraft for about $55 million.
Writ large, that may be the best explanation for why SpaceX and its executives – both of which have relentlessly reiterated that the company’s purpose is to radically reduce the cost of orbital launches – don’t feel pressure to translate those major cost decreases into major price cuts. Put simply, despite the fact that SpaceX has openly discussed its intentions for more than a decade, there isn’t a rocket on Earth that can beat Falcon 9’s combination of performance, cadence, reliability, and affordability.
In lieu of even a hint of competitive pressure from the rest of the industry, particularly for contracts limited to US industry, SpaceX appears to have decided that the profits from charging as much as possible outweigh the cynicism those actions could convey. To SpaceX’s credit, the reality is also more gray than some of the limited data might imply. Over the last three years, SpaceX’s prices for smallsat rideshare customers have repeatedly decreased and become more flexible. Additionally, accounting for five years of inflation, SpaceX’s $94 million Sentinel 6A contract would be worth about $114 million today, meaning that its $97 million Sentinel 6B launch contract technically represents a modest 15% discount.
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It’s also likely that SpaceX’s main competitors, ULA and Arianespace, would have charged tens of millions of dollars more to launch Sentinel 6A or 6B on their current or next-generation rockets. But their existing rockets have no spare capacity for new contracts and their new Vulcan and Ariane 6 rockets have yet to fly, leaving SpaceX without any real competition.
For better or worse, it appears that Falcon 9 rideshare customers and SpaceX’s own Starlink constellation are the only major beneficiaries of Falcon 9’s extraordinary newfound affordability. With potential competitors like Rocket Lab’s Neutron, Relativity’s Terran-R, Blue Origin’s New Glenn, and ULA’s semi-reusable Vulcan variant all years from market entrance, that’s unlikely to change until the mid-to-late 2020s. Until then, even though SpaceX’s pricing is unlikely to revolutionize others’ access to space, Falcon 9 will remain an exceptionally affordable and available option for all launch customers – including NASA and ESA.
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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.
Elon Musk
Tesla’s mysterious Robovan makes a sneak peek with Optimus in Terafab video
Elon Musk shared a new Terafab video showing Optimus, Robovans, and a stunningly futuristic campus.
Elon Musk posted a new video of Terafab on X Thursday morning, and the most eye-catching details in it were not the building itself, but two products still awaiting production: Optimus and the Robovan.
The concept render, credited to SpaceX, shows Optimus robots working the grounds of the roughly 2.5-mile-long facility planned for the Gibbons Creek site in Grimes County, while a Robovan glides along an elevated roadway cutting through the building itself, sharing the frame with a Tesla Semi and a Cybercab.
Robovan is the boxy, driverless people and cargo mover Musk unveiled alongside Cybercab at Tesla’s “We, Robot” event in October 2024. He pitched it as a way to move up to 20 passengers at once, or handle freight instead, at a target cost he claimed could fall under a dollar a mile, with no steering wheel or pedals, the same layout as Cybercab. Nearly two years later, Robovan still has no confirmed production timeline and has not shown up in any factory footage, which makes Thursday’s render one of the only recent looks at the vehicle in any form.
Terafab Texas will be the largest and most valuable building on Earth by far.
And it will be stunningly beautiful. pic.twitter.com/4NweOqTL7y
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 6, 2026
Optimus has moved further along. Tesla began converting Fremont’s old Model S and Model X assembly line into a Gen 3 Optimus production line earlier this year, and Musk visited the site on July 1 to mark the changeover. A second, larger Optimus plant is under construction at Giga Texas, targeting volume production in summer 2027 and eventual capacity of 10 million units a year. Tesla AI lead Ashok Elluswamy said this month the robot has “big shoes to fill” in replacing the S and X line, while Musk has repeatedly called Optimus the company’s biggest product of any kind, with a long-term price he has pegged between $20,000 and $30,000.
Check out the “Robovan” from @Tesla
📸: @Teslarati pic.twitter.com/D4es2i9NUe
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) October 11, 2024
“Terafab Texas will be the largest and most valuable building on Earth by far,” Musk wrote alongside the clip. “And it will be stunningly beautiful.”
One quote post summed up the reaction: “Futuristic scene with RoboVan + Cybercab + Tesla Semi + Optimus.”
Beyond the vehicles, the architecture wrapped around them stands out too. The building’s facade is canted at sharp angles, with illuminated horizontal bands running through what appears to be a multi level interior visible from outside. Below the elevated roadway, pedestrians walk along a plaza next to a reflecting pool, and the skyline behind the campus is dotted with angular spires that read more like sculpture than infrastructure, a departure from the strictly utilitarian look of Gigafactory Texas or Starbase.
The timing tracks with what Terafab representative Riley Trennell told Grimes County residents on Wednesday, when he said renderings of the facility would be released “within days.” Musk’s post followed less than 24 hours later, and Texas Governor Greg Abbott’s office sent out its own release Thursday confirming the project. As Teslarati reported this morning, Terafab’s tax abatement agreements with Grimes County are now signed and active, and SpaceX has sent the county its first $10 million payment under that deal. The dollar figure tied to this phase of construction, per Reuters, is $16.8 billion, one of the first hard capital expenditure numbers attached to Terafab since Musk unveiled the joint Tesla-SpaceX-xAI venture in March.Reaction on X ranged from enthusiastic to skeptical. “God Bless Texas! Everything is bigger and better in Texas!” one reply read. Another was more measured: “Terafab in a decade…..”
Whether the finished building matches the render is a separate question from whether Musk wanted people talking about the render itself. Less than a day after posting, the video had already crossed 5.5 million views.
Cybertruck
Tesla Cybertruck production snaps back after ugly supplier fight
Cybertrucks are piling up again at Giga Texas after Tesla’s court win against a parts supplier.
Cybertruck production at Giga Texas is showing its first visible recovery since Tesla sued a supplier last month over withheld manufacturing tooling.
Aerial observer Joe Tegtmeyer flew over the Austin factory Wednesday morning and counted roughly 100 or more Cybertrucks filling the outbound lot, a sharp jump from the thin numbers seen in recent weeks. The flyover came a day after a judge granted Tesla a temporary restraining order against Angstrom Automotive Group, the parts supplier at the center of the dispute.
Tesla filed an emergency lawsuit in late July after Angstrom told the automaker it planned to close the Troy, Texas facility where Tesla’s die-cast tools, trim dies and other Cybertruck stamping equipment were housed. According to Tesla’s complaint, a shipment of 700 finished parts never left the building, and when Tesla sent representatives to retrieve its equipment, accompanied by law enforcement, they were turned away. Angstrom allegedly then asked for an extra $250,000 a week to keep operating, which Tesla’s filing described as holding its own property for ransom.
TESLA: U.S. District Judge Christopher R. Wolfe of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas, Waco Division granted Tesla a Temporary Restraining Order and Writ of Replevin in its dispute with Angstrom Automotive (Case No. 6:26-cv-00477).
The order authorizes… https://t.co/E1DKcQSxMn pic.twitter.com/LR8aAiV2Og
— S.E. Robinson, Jr. (@SERobinsonJr) August 5, 2026
The restraining order gives Tesla immediate right of entry to Angstrom’s facility to recover the tooling. It is temporary, with a fuller hearing still to come, but the speed of Wednesday’s rebound suggests the Angstrom shortage was indeed the main bottleneck limiting Cybertruck output. Outbound lot counts are an imperfect measure of actual production, since finished trucks can sit for days before shipping, but a lot that full after a lean stretch is a meaningful signal.
Cybertruck output at Giga Texas has fluctuated all year as Tesla worked through supply issues and introduced new trims, including a cheaper Dual Motor AWD version that drew strong early demand.
The Boring Company’s newest Vegas Station has a permit quietly waiting behind it
Tesla’s mysterious Robovan makes a sneak peek with Optimus in Terafab video
