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Tesla Roadster and ‘friends’ make history in newly-published log of 57k+ human objects in space

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6 years ago

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When the Tesla Roadster and its Starman occupant entered space aboard Falcon Heavy’s maiden voyage in 2018, it joined the ranks of one astronomer’s impressive database of human-made objects that have left Earth: The General Catalog of Artificial Space Objects (GCAT). It’s the most comprehensive collection of space object data available to the public, and its author recently published it in full for open-source use.

Jonathan McDowell, currently with the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, created GCAT as an endeavor that began about 40 years go during his Apollo-inspired childhood.

“It was hard for me growing up in England to get details about space because the media there weren’t as interested in it as the U.S. media, so in a slightly obsessive way I started making a list of rocket launches… Now I have the best list,” McDowell told VICE in recently published comments. Lack of information in his younger days seems to have only been the beginning of the challenges the astronomer was willing to take on for his project. As detailed to VICE, McDowell also traveled to international space agency locations to obtain their old rocket lists and even learned Russian to translate that country’s space object data.

Although McDowell has been collecting his Catalog data for decades, the push to finally put all of his work online was inspired by more recent events. The risks of COVID-19 and “imminent death” threatened the database’s purpose. “There’s no point if it dies with me,” he told VICE. Publishing the GCAT had been in his plans, however, the pandemic pushed its priority to the top of McDowell’s personal bucket list.

So, what exactly might one use the GCAT for? McDowell had his own suggestions, including the determination of how many working satellites are currently in space. Since the data is easy to export into software that allows sorting of tab-delimited files, one could perhaps also look at the amount of debris produced over the years to get a general picture for how active spaceflight operations were in the past or how they may be progressing. Plenty of information about each object’s origin and owner is included for this kind of research.

One of the GCAT data sets tracks failed objects that would have otherwise made it to orbit. As an example, looking at the number of items from failed launch attempts in 1958 (52) gives a hint as to how intense the space race between the US and the Soviet Union was at the time. Data browsing could be used for general historical inquiry as well. For instance, Sputnik 1, launched by the Soviet Union on October 4, 1957, is object 00001; the Eagle lander still on the Moon from Apollo 11’s mission is object #04041; and the Tesla Roadster is object #43205.

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Some of the data can inspire more historical awareness such as the listing of tools lost during on-orbit construction of the Soviets’ Mir Space Station in 1986. Of course, reminders of significant spaceflight misfortunes are also included like the Challenger Space Shuttle explosion in 1986 and SpaceX’s CRS-7 ISS resupply mission failure in 2015.

Since GCAT is inclusive of both functional items and notorious bits of space junk logged from decades of data digging, the Tesla Roadster and its 57,000+ “friends” are poised to help with some serious research now and in the far future.

“My audience is the historian 1,000 years from now,” McDowell explained. “I’m imagining that 1,000 years from now there will be more people living off Earth than on, and that they will look back to this moment in history as critically important.” For fans of Star Trek, this type of record keeping certainly seems to be relevant to future humans more often than not (away mission, anyone?). Perhaps that type of science fiction storyline will transpire into reality, just as so many of SpaceX’s achievements have done already.

Interestingly enough, McDowell is working on another project to track deep space objects beyond Earth’s orbit. Will space debris take center stage around Mars and beyond like it does around our own planet? Seeing the progress in one comprehensive database will certainly be an interesting way to show just how far humans have come since object #00001.

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Accidental computer geek, fascinated by most history and the multiplanetary future on its way. Quite keen on the democratization of space. | It's pronounced day-sha, but I answer to almost any variation thereof.

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Elon Musk

Elon Musk just confirmed the Tesla and SpaceX merger step everyone was waiting for

Tesla and SpaceX formed special committees to weigh a merger, and Elon Musk supports it.

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3 hours ago

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October 20, 2026

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Elon Musk confirmed Tuesday that Tesla and SpaceX have each formed special committees of independent directors to study a possible merger, the first formal step toward combining the two companies after months of speculation.

Musk made the disclosure during SpaceX’s third quarter earnings call. “Both SpaceX and Tesla have formed special committees to discuss this idea at the request of shareholders,” he said. “Because I’m a conflicted party, I can’t actually be in the discussions of the special committees.” He described the setup as “an odd kabuki dance where two groups of people are talking and I can’t be in the conversation.”

Musk did not hide where he stands. “Do I think it would be a good idea? Yes,” he said, pointing to shared work on super intelligence software, chip design, the Terafab facility in Austin, robotics, mass to orbit and connectivity. “I do think there’s a lot of merit to combining the companies as we are pretty much in the super intelligence singularity.”

He also tried to cool expectations. The committees have not agreed on terms for any transaction, and Musk said assuming a merger is a certainty “would be overstating it.” Any deal would go to shareholders, and on the Tesla side it would need approval from 50 percent of all outstanding shares, not just the shares that are voted. Musk called that “quite a high hurdle.”

That bar has tripped Tesla up before. The company’s 2025 attempt to declassify its board won support from only 39.4 percent of outstanding shares and failed. Musk’s own voting stake sits near 20 percent after he exercised his 2018 options in June, so a deal would need broad backing from institutions and a retail base that often leaves votes uncast.

Timing is another open question. Tesla filed its proxy statement Monday for its December 3 annual meeting, and the ballot has only three items: director elections for Musk, Robyn Denholm and JB Straubel, a say on pay vote and auditor ratification. Barclays analyst Dan Levy had argued that an announcement would need to land by late October or early November to make the annual meeting, as Teslarati noted in its SpaceX earnings preview. With no terms agreed, any vote would likely require its own special meeting.

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Elon Musk gives his most telling Tesla-SpaceX merger conversation yet

Musk has been edging toward this for weeks. At the All-In Summit in September, he asked “who can imagine what action one might take when there’s so much close collaboration,” Teslarati reported. Last week’s Roadster unveil, built around SpaceX derived cold gas thrusters, pushed the talk further. The two companies already share the Terafab chip project, and Tesla holds a small SpaceX stake that came from its earlier investment in xAI.

SpaceX brought strong numbers to the conversation. It reported Q3 revenue of $14.58 billion, up 161 percent year over year, with its Super Intelligence segment now its largest at $7.56 billion. A higher SpaceX valuation would shape any exchange ratio Tesla holders are offered.

Tesla reports its own third quarter results after the close on Wednesday, October 21. Investors had already ranked merger timing among the top retail questions for SpaceX’s call, and the committees will almost certainly come up again on Tesla’s.

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Investor's Corner

SpaceX delivers blockbuster Q3 results as Super Intelligence segment booms

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6 hours ago

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October 20, 2026

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Credit: SpaceX

SpaceX reported its third-quarter 2026 financial results on October 20, posting the company’s first solidly profitable quarter since going public earlier in the year under the ticker $SPCX.

Revenue reached $14.58 billion, up 161 percent year-over-year from $5.6 billion, and well ahead of consensus estimates in the $12.7 to $12.9 billion range. The results highlight a rapid shift in SpaceX’s center of gravity toward artificial intelligence/super intelligence, while Starlink and traditional space operations continue to show robust progress.

Here are the key financial results for the quarter:

  • Revenue of $14.58 billion (+161% YoY)
  • Adjusted EBITDA of $8.8 billion (+306% YoY)
  • GAAP net income of $4.4 billion (versus a $1.1 billion net loss in the prior-year quarter)
  • Adjusted EPS of approximately $0.35 (versus roughly $0.13–0.16 expected)
  • Income from operations of $2.8 billion

The AI/SI segment generated $7.56 billion in revenue, an 830 percent year-over-year increase, making it the company’s largest segment for the first time. Growth was primarily driven by the activation of major cloud services agreements, the integration of Cursor (acquired earlier in 2026), and rising usage of Grok models and the newly introduced Grok Bot personal agent.

SI adjusted EBITDA reached $5 billion, and nameplate compute capacity stood at 1.7 GW at quarter-end, up from 1.4 GW in June and 0.6 GW a year earlier. Capital expenditures totaled $19.6 billion, with the majority allocated to AI infrastructure, including continued expansion of the Colossus facilities.

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The Connectivity segment, which primarily surrounds Starlink, produced $5.25 billion in revenue, a 69 percent year-over-year and 22 percent sequentially. These are pleasant results to see and expected, considering how many airlines have adopted Starlink over the past year.

Starlink consumer subscribers reached 13.6 million, an 89 percent increase from the prior year, and a sequential gain of 1.6 million. Consumer average revenue per user improved to $69. Meanwhile, Enterprise and Government revenue also grew strongly, and Starlink is now installed on more than 3,800 aircraft, making internet more accessible and better performing than previous options.

The Space segment also performed well and contributed $1.77 billion in revenue, up 6 percent year-over-year and 84 percent sequentially. A major milestone was the successful first revenue-generating Starship mission (Flight 14), which deployed 26 V3 Starlink satellites. Those satellites added roughly 10 times the downlink capacity of a typical Falcon 9 Starlink launch.

SpaceX completed 12 customer launches during the quarter, including NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope mission, and continued to grow its backlog of crewed, national security, and commercial flights.

CFO commentary noted that the combination of launch leadership, recurring Starlink revenue, and rapid SI expansion is producing meaningful operating leverage.

The company ended the quarter with roughly $90 billion in cash and marketable securities, providing substantial resources for ongoing investment while targeting an investment-grade balance sheet. Sequential revenue nearly doubled from the $7.81 billion reported in the second quarter, illustrating the pace of the AI-driven acceleration. Things are looking strong for SpaceX.

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What’s incredibly striking is the fact that SI has grown to be larger than the rest of the company in such a short amount of time. CEO Elon Musk said on the earnings call that Grok Bot is the “fastest-growing product I’ve ever seen,” so it seems that it could be a true keystone of SpaceXSI over the next few years.

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Investor's Corner

SpaceX reports its second earnings today: here’s what to expect

Published

9 hours ago

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October 20, 2026

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Credit: SpaceX

SpaceX (NASDAQ: SPCX) will report its second public earnings call today since its IPO earlier this year, and there are a few things we expect to hear about, as well as Wall Street analysts, who have already outlined their expectations for the call.

Wall Street analysts have a consensus of $12.72 billion in revenue and an earnings per share (EPS) of $0.13. These are broken down into three sectors: Space, Connectivity, and AI/SI, which are perceived in this way:

  • Space: $1.41 billion
  • Connectivity: $4.84 billion
  • AI/SI: $6.47 billion

Other outlets cluster near $12.8 or $12.9 billion in revenue and $0.14 – $0.15 EPS. This implies a roughly 65 percent sequential growth from Q2’s $7.81 billion, driven mostly by AI/SI, with the first post-IPO positive EPS expected.

SpaceX just launched its secret Starfall saucer again

Here are the three things to watch for on the call:

AI Revenue Ramp and the $100B+ ARR target

AI is truly the swing factor for SpaceX, and analysts expect it to roughly double from Q2’s $2.56 billion and become about half of total revenue. Management previously guided to a $100 billion+ annualized run rate by December, including the Cursor acquisition, which was $60 billion, to close the quarter.

SpaceX makes first acquisition post-IPO

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Listen for updates on SpaceX’s compute capacity, especially pertaining to its contracts with Google, Anthropic, and others, revenue per watt, any new deals, and Cursor’s early contribution.

Starlink/Connectivity Metrics and Mobile Expansion

Connectivity remains a main profit engine for SpaceX. Subscriber additions will be something to pay attention to, as Q2 ended at 12 million and previews are looking at 14 million for this quarter. Additionally, ARPU trends, enterprise and government growth, and any commentary on Starlink Mobile will be something to pay attention to, especially following the recent low-band spectrum deal and FCC-related constellation approvals.

Capex Trajectory, Cash Burn/FCF, and Starship/Operational Updates

Q2 capex of roughly $18.4 billion weighed on the stock. Investors will look to scrutinize Q3 spending levels, any guidance on the pace into Q4/2027, free cash flow, backlog, and liquidity. Operational color on Starship (Flight 14 milestones and Flight 15 timing/reusability progress), Falcon cadence, and government/NASA contracts are also in focus.

Of course, there will also be some speculation on the potential Tesla-SpaceX merger, but there was nothing mentioned in the company’s proxy it sent earlier this week.

SpaceX will report earnings after market close today and will stream the call on X.

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