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SpaceX success prompts ULA to create ‘RocketBuilder’ design studio for commercial flights

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Competition from SpaceX is forcing United Launch Alliance to start beating the bushes for new customers. ULA is a partnership between Lockheed Martin and Boeing and was the “go to” team for transporting supplies to the International Space Station and putting communications satellites into orbit before SpaceX came along and slashed the price of rocket launches in half.

ULA has good reason to go in search of new business. SpaceX says it has $10 billion in future business on its books. ULA had eight launches in 2016 and has ten lined up so far for 2017.

ULA uses the Atlas rocket. In the past two decades, not a single Atlas has failed. That contrasts with two failures suffered by the Falcon 9 favored by SpaceX, one in 2015 and one last September. That gives ULA bragging rights when it comes to reliability.

ula-lockheed-martin-rocketbuilder

ULA has just rolled out an online configurator similar to the Design Studio Tesla buyers can use when ordering a new car. Dubbed ‘RocketBuilder‘, the configurator is designed to provision businesses looking to deploy satellites and space cargo into orbit with a shopping cart type experience. “When it comes to evaluating and purchasing launch services, there’s more to it than meets the eye. Reliability, schedule certainty and orbit optimization are considerations that bring real value. Begin your build and discover how Atlas V can minimize time to orbit and maximize satellite lifetime.”, reads the description on the RocketBuilder website. “It will be easier to buy a ride in space than to get a plane ticket home for the holidays,” says ULA CEO Tory Bruno.

When Bruno became the head of ULA in 2014, his mission was clear — make it competitive with SpaceX. According to the RocketBuilder, the base cost of a space launch is $109 million. The starting price for a SpaceX launch is a mere $62 million. But ULA says its superior reliability and accuracy make the cost of insuring its flights much lower.

Factor in the money saved by not building satellites that get blown up while sitting on top of SpaceX rockets and ULA says its services are worth $65 million in intangible savings per launch, more than wiping out the difference between it and SpaceX. Naturally, SpaceX disputes ULA’s reliability, accuracy and insurance cost claims.

“Nobody chooses to have low reliability or blow their rocket up or be late; it takes a great deal of experience, process discipline and know-how to achieve this,” Bruno tells Quartz. “Some day, I expect the rest of the industry will become as reliable as we are.”

A little fiddling with the RocketBuilder also reveals that the cost of a launch can rise precipitously depending on the orbit desired and the size of the payload.

SpaceX says it will launch its next Falcon 9 rocket on December 16, but it is still awaiting final launch approval from NASA. One advantage SpaceX enjoys over all other companies is its ability to recover and reuse its rockets. That capability alone is said to save $30 million per launch.

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Swedish unions consider police report over Tesla Megapack Supercharger

The Tesla Megapack Supercharger opened shortly before Christmas in Arlandastad, outside Stockholm.

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Credit: Tesla Charging/X

Swedish labor unions are considering whether to file a police report related to a newly opened Tesla Megapack Supercharger near Stockholm, citing questions about how electricity is supplied to the site. The matter has also been referred to Sweden’s energy regulator.

Tesla Megapack Supercharger

The Tesla Megapack Supercharger opened shortly before Christmas in Arlandastad, outside Stockholm. Unlike traditional charging stations, the site is powered by an on-site Megapack battery rather than a direct grid connection. Typical grid connections for Tesla charging sites in Sweden have seen challenges for nearly two years due to union blockades.

Swedish labor union IF Metall has submitted a report to the Energy Market Inspectorate, asking the authority to assess whether electricity supplied to the battery system meets regulatory requirements, as noted in a report from Dagens Arbete (DA). The Tesla Megapack on the site is charged using electricity supplied by a local company, though the specific provider has not been publicly identified.

Peter Lydell, an ombudsman at IF Metall, issued a comment about the Tesla Megapack Supercharger. “The legislation states that only companies that engage in electricity trading may supply electricity to other parties. You may not supply electricity without a permit, then you are engaging in illegal electricity trading. That is why we have reported this… This is about a company that helps Tesla circumvent the conflict measures that exist. It is clear that it is troublesome and it can also have consequences,” Lydell said.

Police report under consideration

The Swedish Electricians’ Association has also examined the Tesla Megapack Supercharger and documented its power setup. As per materials submitted to the Energy Market Inspectorate, electrical cables were reportedly routed from a property located approximately 500 meters from the charging site.

Tomas Jansson, ombudsman and deputy head of negotiations at the Swedish Electricians’ Association, stated that the union was assessing whether to file a police report related to the Tesla Megapack Supercharger. He also confirmed that the electricians’ union was coordinating with IF Metall about the matter. “We have a close collaboration with IF Metall, and we are currently investigating this. We support IF Metall in their fight for fair conditions at Tesla,” Jansson said.

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Tesla HW4.5 spotted in new Model Y, triggers speculation

Owners taking delivery of recent Model Y builds have identified components labeled “AP45.”

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Credit: Tesla

Tesla’s Hardware 4.5 computer appears to have surfaced in newly delivered Model Y vehicles, prompting fresh speculation about an interim upgrade ahead of the company’s upcoming AI5 chip.

Owners taking delivery of recent Model Y builds have identified components labeled “AP45,” suggesting Tesla may have quietly started rolling out revised autonomy hardware.

Hardware 4.5 appears in new Model Y units

The potential Hardware 4.5 sighting was first reported by Model Y owner @Eric5un, who shared details of a Fremont-built 2026 Model Y AWD Premium delivered this January. As per the Model Y owner, the vehicle includes a new front camera housing and a 16-inch center display, along with an Autopilot computer labeled “AP45” and part number 2261336-02-A.

The Tesla owner later explained that he confirmed the part number by briefly pulling down the upper carpet liner below the Model Y’s glovebox. Other owners soon reported similar findings. One Model Y Performance owner noted that their December build also appeared to include Hardware 4.5, while another owner of an Austin-built Model Y Performance reported spotting the same “AP45” hardware.

These sightings suggest that Tesla may already be installing revised FSD computers in its new Model Y batches, despite the company not yet making any formal announcements about Hardware 4.5.

What Hardware 4.5 could represent

Clues about Hardware 4.5 have surfaced previously in Tesla’s Electronic Parts Catalog. As reported by NotATeslaApp, the catalog has listed a component described as “CAR COMPUTER – LEFT HAND DRIVE – PROVISIONED – HARDWARE 4.5.” The component, which features the part number 2261336-S2-A, is priced at $2,300.00.

Longtime Tesla hacker @greentheonly has noted that Tesla software has contained references to a possible three-SoC architecture for some time. Previous generations of Tesla’s FSD computer, including Hardware 3 and Hardware 4, use a dual-SoC design for redundancy. A three-SoC layout could allow for higher inference throughput and improved fault tolerance.

Such an architecture could also serve as a bridge to AI5, Tesla’s next-generation autonomy chip expected to enter production later in 2026. As Tesla’s neural networks grow larger and more computationally demanding, Hardware 4.5 may provide additional headroom for vehicles built before AI5 becomes widely available.

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Elon Musk’s Grokipedia is getting cited by OpenAI’s ChatGPT

Some responses generated by OpenAI’s ChatGPT have recently referenced information from Grokipedia.

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UK Government, CC BY 2.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

Some responses generated by OpenAI’s ChatGPT have recently referenced information from Grokipedia, an AI-generated encyclopedia developed by rival xAI, which was founded by Elon Musk. The citations appeared across a limited set of queries.

Reports about the matter were initially reported by The Guardian

Grokipedia references in ChatGPT

Grokipedia launched in October as part of xAI’s effort to build an alternative to Wikipedia, which has become less centrist over the years. Unlike Wikipedia, which is moderated and edited by humans, Grokipedia is purely AI-powered, allowing it to approach topics with as little bias as possible, at least in theory. This model has also allowed Grokipedia to grow its article base quickly, with recent reports indicating that it has created over 6 million articles, more than 80% of English Wikipedia. 

The Guardian reported that ChatGPT cited Grokipedia nine times across responses to more than a dozen user questions during its tests. As per the publication, the Grokipedia citations did not appear when ChatGPT was asked about high-profile or widely documented topics. Instead, Grokipedia was referenced in responses to more obscure historical or biographical claims. The pattern suggested selective use rather than broad reliance on the source, at least for now.

Broader Grokipedia use

The Guardian also noted that Grokipedia citations were not exclusive to ChatGPT. Anthropic’s AI assistant Claude reportedly showed similar references to Grokipedia in some responses, highlighting a broader issue around how large language models identify and weigh publicly available information.

In a statement to The Guardian, an OpenAI spokesperson stated that ChatGPT “aims to draw from a broad range of publicly available sources and viewpoints.” “We apply safety filters to reduce the risk of surfacing links associated with high-severity harms, and ChatGPT clearly shows which sources informed a response through citations,” the spokesperson stated.

Anthropic, for its part, did not respond to a request for comment on the matter. As for xAI, the artificial intelligence startup simply responded with a short comment that stated, “Legacy media lies.”

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