SpaceX
What SpaceX’s successful reuse of Dragon Spacecraft really means
Following Saturday’s auspicious launch and and first stage recovery, SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft has successfully rendezvoused and docked with the International Space Station. Bringing with it more than 5,000 pounds of food, water, scientific experiments, and technology demonstrations, the company’s eleventh mission under their first Commercial Resupply Services contract is exceptional for a very unique and specific reason: the vehicle has flown before, bringing cargo to the ISS on SpaceX’s fourth CRS mission to the ISS. This accomplishment makes the Dragon currently docked at the ISS the only commercial spacecraft in human history to be launched into orbit more than once, continuing a tradition of auspicious firsts.
CRS-11 just after liftoff. Note the core designation “35” under the landing leg. (SpaceX)
Slightly more than two months after the first ever successful reuse of an orbital-class rocket, SpaceX now has two extraordinary demonstrations of success in favor of the company’s pursuit of democratizing affordable access to space. Reusability is and has been SpaceX’s method of pursuing that goal for at least a decade, with Musk publicly exhorting the potential benefits of rapid and complete reusability as early as 2007. It is almost a running joke within the community of aerospace and SpaceX fans that Musk will compare commercial airlines to orbital launch services at least once every time he is interviewed, but his point is and has long been clear. If all one has to do to run a transportation service is refuel after every trip, the price of a ticket or cargo transport drastically decreases. While many have slyly laughed or dismissed this goal in the past, often using the Space Shuttle as an example of the futility of reusability as a tool for cost reduction, it is quite hard to deny what SpaceX has accomplished so far.
The reuse of a Cargo Dragon is also arguably far more significant than it may initially appear. SpaceX has not provided any concrete information on the process of refurbishing the capsule, and it is entirely unclear if the “reuse” entailed much more than furnishing the CRS-4 pressure vessel and Draco thrusters with a new trunk, solar array, external shell. It is possible that, just like SES-10, the process of refurbishing a spacecraft for the first time resulted in little to no cost savings, and that this refurbishment took anywhere from several months to more than a year, with the CRS-4 capsule returning from orbit in late 2014. However, given the absolute rarity of reused capsule-type spacecraft, the data that engineers likely gathered throughout the process of refurbishing the Dragon would arguably make the whole process worthwhile even in the worst case scenarios described above. Hans Koenigsmann, Vice President of Mission Assurance at SpaceX, also noted in a press conference following CRS-11’s launch that the refurbishment of the capsule was somewhat uneventful, stating that the CRS-4 capsule had no unanticipated damage from the rigors of reentry and ocean landing and that SpaceX was already ready to consider using the capsule a third time. It’s likely that SpaceX will begin to rely more heavily on Cargo Dragon reuse as they refocus a majority of their manufacturing efforts on Dragon 2.
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- The CRS-4 Dragon just before capture. (NASA)
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- CRS-4 reentered in late 2014 and was recovered in the Pacific Ocean. (SpaceX)
SpaceX and Musk’s (in)famous ultimate ambitions are to make humanity a multiplanterary species, partly as a way to combat the extinction risks that an asteroid or comet strike pose, and partly because it is simply a staggering challenge that has the potential to make many humans “excited to wake up in the morning”. In order to make this happen, Musk saw that access to orbit was far too expensive for a colony on another planet to ever be sustainable, and that resuability was the only immediately obvious and accessible method through which the price to orbit could be decreased by several magnitudes. SpaceX is now almost routinely recovering Falcon 9 first stages when the mass of the payload allows it, and with a fifth and final version or “Block” of the vehicle optimized for rapid reuse set to debut later this year, Musk and others at the company have begun ruminating once more about the possibility of recovering and reusing the second stage of the Falcon 9. Benchmarked somewhere around 30% of the price of the vehicle, routine loss of the second stage effectively prevents the price of the Falcon 9 from dropping much below $20-30 million US dollars. While a nearly 50% or greater reduction in price would be an exceptional accomplishment, it is still far from from the multiple orders of magnitude reduction Musk hoped for when he set out to develop reusable rocketry.
A prototype of Dragon 2 being tested in an anechoic chamber. (SpaceX)
This is where the reuse of Dragon pops its head up. With second stage recovery now being considered theoretically and Dragon 2 (Crew Dragon) preparing to begin regular launches in either Q4 2017 or Q1 2018, SpaceX has a good deal of experience to gain from learning how to safely and rapidly recover and reuse vehicles reentering the atmosphere at orbital velocity. Compared to recovering the first stage, this is another endeavor entirely. The fastest speed at which a recoverable first stage can ever realistically reenter the atmosphere is currently capped at around 5200 mph (2300 m/s), and is usually much closer to 3000 mph. An orbital capsule like Dragon, however, enters the atmosphere from Low Earth Orbit (LEO) at around five times that speed, typically close to 16,000 mph. In the context of recovering the second stage of Falcon 9, one must consider that most of SpaceX’s commercial manifest is made up of geostationary satellites, which require more energy to reach a higher orbit, and consequently would require the second stage to survive even higher reentry velocities in order to be recovered.
Returning from Mars, as SpaceX’s Interplanetary Transport System would have to, results in even higher reentry velocities of at least 25,000 mph for a reasonably quick journey. This is the most important detail in explaining the true value of simply reusing a Dragon capsule as SpaceX has just now done. By taking its first steps towards routinely reusing truly orbital spacecraft, SpaceX is advancing their knowledge reusability in practice and consequently taking concrete steps to prepare themselves for the difficult challenges that lie ahead in their pursuance of enabling sustainable colonization of Mars. Dragon 2 (Crew Dragon) promises to eventually rid the refurbishment process of the many headaches that salt water intrusion undoubtedly creates by returning via supersonic retropropulsion to a landing pad, much like Core 35 did this past Saturday.
Looking slightly further into the future, SpaceX has already announced plans to launch two unnamed private customers in a Dragon 2 on what would likely be a circumlunar free return trajectory, or around the Moon and back. The reentry velocity would be very similar to the velocity required to return to Earth from Mars, and certainly much faster than any reentry from geostationary orbits of Earth. If SpaceX manages to successfully and reliably recover and reuse orbital vehicles reentering at such high velocities, then the company will have made extraordinarily promising progress towards achieving their central goal of drastically lowering cost to orbit and thus enabling humanity to gain footholds on other planets.
So, take this Dragon reuse as you will. It may well be a major step along the way to colonizing Mars, or it may simply be an exciting practical implementation of SpaceX’s philosophy of reuse. Either way, this is a Dragon that is certainly worth celebrating.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Elon Musk
Space finally faced the people living next to its next Terafab mega-project
SpaceX confirmed Terafab’s Grimes County site is locked in, with construction starting within months.
SpaceX and Terafab representatives sat across from Grimes County residents for the first time on Wednesday, telling a packed Commissioners Court room that the $55 billion chip manufacturing project is now a done deal at the Gibbons Creek Reservoir site.
The meeting followed a $10 million check SpaceX sent the county earlier this week, satisfying a payment deadline built into the tax abatement agreement both sides signed in June. Elon Musk shared a post on X confirming the payment, and County Judge Joe Fauth told the San Antonio Express-News his office deposited the check after it beat its deadline.
Wednesday’s session, first reported by KBTX, moved the project from paperwork to construction. Terafab representative Riley Trennell told residents the JETI tax break agreements with Iola ISD and Anderson-Shiro CISD are signed and active, and that civil work and foundation prep are starting almost immediately. Renderings of the facility could be released within days, he said, with construction beginning within months.
The foundations for an exciting future are being built in Texas. Next up: Terafab → https://t.co/jGg52Zhn5I pic.twitter.com/SNfSXNr2tb
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) August 6, 2026
Elon Musk launches TERAFAB: The $25B Tesla-SpaceXAI chip factory that will rewire the AI industry
Musk first announced Terafab in March as a joint venture between Tesla, SpaceX and xAI aimed at producing over a terawatt of AI compute annually, an amount that dwarfs the roughly 20 gigawatts the entire global chip industry produces today. Intel joined as a manufacturing partner in April. Musk has said the project needed its own day in the spotlight rather than being squeezed into an earnings call, and for months the Grimes County site remained unconfirmed even as reporting pointed there.
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SpaceX attorney Buck Brannon used Wednesday’s meeting to note that the company’s abatement is roughly 78 percent, not the 100 percent some earlier reports suggested. In exchange, SpaceX will pay Grimes County a fixed $20 million a year for 35 years, a total of $710 million, which Brannon said exceeds the $14 million Tesla paid Travis County in 2025.
SpaceX also addressed environmental concerns that have followed the project since Musk’s Terafab partnership with Intel was announced. Representatives said Terafab will not raise electric bills for other ratepayers, will not deplete local water supplies and will not draw down the Navasota River. SpaceX confirmed it owns the Navasota River pumping station, which it plans to use to divert stormwater into the Gibbons Creek Reservoir, and said it will build its own natural gas plants to power the facility rather than pulling from the ERCOT grid.
Grimes County commissioners also approved an addendum letting county employees use ten approved AI chatbots for work, including Grok.
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