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Virgin Galactic completes their first all civilian flight

VSS Unity rockets towards space (Credit Virgin Galactic)

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Virgin Galactic has successfully completed its first all-civilian flight this morning, carrying three civilians and three crew members to space aboard their spaceplane VSS Unity.

Taking off at 8:30 a.m. Mountain Time (15:30 UTC), the mothership, VMS Eve, with VSS Unity attached, began its journey to its drop point over Spaceport America in New Mexico.

VSS Unity released from VMS Eve (Credit Virgin Galactic)

VMS Eve climbed in a looping racetrack pattern over the Spaceport to an altitude of 44,300 feet before releasing VSS Unity at 9:17 am MT. Unity then dropped for a few seconds before igniting its rocket engine and beginning its climb to the edge of space. The hybrid rocket, fueled by hydroxyl-terminated polybutadiene (HTPB) and nitrous oxide, burned for around 1 minute as it climbed to its apogee of 55 miles (88.5 km) and a top speed of Mach 3.

Shortly after the engine cut off, the crew released their harnesses and began floating around the cabin, taking in the views of Earth and space. The crew was able to float around the cabin of Unity for a few minutes before returning to their seats and beginning the trip back down to Earth to Spaceport America.

The three civilians making their first flights today were:

  • Jon Goodwin: The first Olympian to go to space, 2nd person with Parkinson’s, Goodwin, who hails from the United Kingdom, bought his ticket in 2005.
  • Keisha Schahaff: Won trip through draw benefitting Space for Humanity and chose her daughter to fly with her, becoming the first Mother and Daughter to go to space together.
  • Anastasia Mayers: 2nd youngest person to go to space, along with her Mother, became the first two astronauts from Antigua and Barbuda.

The Crew:

  • CJ Sturckow: Commander, former NASA astronaut, flew on the first VSS Unity mission
  • Beth Moses: Virgin Galactic Chief Astronaut Instructor, this was her fourth flight to space and
  • Kelly Latimer: Pilot, first female commercial space pilot, first flight to space. This mission also marked the most women to fly on a single mission to space.

A view of the Earth from the tail cone of VSS Unity (Credit Virgin Galactic)

While the crew members were floating through the cabin, VSS Unity performed a back flip while the wings transitioned into its feathering position, which helps stabilize the spaceplane at high altitudes as it descends back to Earth. Once Unity is below 53,000 ft, the wings are transitioned to their glide mode, and the pilot brought the spaceplane back for a smooth landing.

For reference, international space starts at the Kármán line, which is 62 miles (100 km) above the mean Sea level, and the United States boundary for space is 50 miles (80 km). It should also be noted that the U.S. no longer gives astronauts wings unless the mission “demonstrated activities during flight that were essential to public safety, or contributed to human space flight safety”.

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This rule took effect in 2022.

This was the 3rd mission for VSS Unity in just over three months, with its next flight scheduled for September.

Questions or comments? Shoot me an email at rangle@teslarati.com, or Tweet me @RDAnglePhoto.

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Tesla is preparing to take on autonomy’s final boss

India’s city streets are notorious for their complexity and congestion.

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Credit: Whole Mars Catalog/YouTube

If there is any sign that Tesla is now confident about its self-driving program, it would be this. As could be seen on Tesla’s Careers page, the company is now hiring Autopilot Vehicle Operators in Delhi and Mumbai, India. 

As far as real-world traffic is concerned, one could argue that India’s city streets are the final boss of autonomous driving systems due to their complexity and congestion.

Tesla job openings

As per Tesla in its recent job openings, Prototype Vehicle Operators will be responsible for driving an engineering vehicle for extended periods and conducting dynamic audio and camera data collection for testing and training purposes. In both its job listings for Mumbai and Delhi, Tesla noted that successful applicants will be gathering real-world data on the weekends and around the clock. 

Considering the job openings in India, Tesla seems to be intent on rolling out its advanced driver-assist systems like FSD in the country. This is quite interesting, as Tesla is not hiring Prototype Vehicle Operators in other territories that recently launched, such as the Philippines. Perhaps Tesla intends to tackle FSD’s final boss of sorts before rolling out FSD in other territories.

FSD’s rollout

Tesla’s autonomous driving program uses the company’s Full Self-Driving system, which is currently available on vehicles in North America and China. Tesla, however, has a more advanced version of FSD called Unsupervised FSD, which is currently being used in vehicles that are part of the Robotaxi pilot in Austin and the Bay Area.

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Elon Musk has also recently announced on X that Tesla will be releasing FSD V14 in the coming weeks. He also shared a number of improvements that can be expected from FSD V14. “The FSD release in about 6 weeks will be a dramatic gain with a 10X higher parameter count and many other improvements. It’s going through training & testing now. Once we confirm real-world safety of FSD 14, which we think will be amazing, the car will nag you much less,” Musk wrote in his post. 

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Tesla Sweden finally makes IF Metall union give up 600-day strike

Tesla and the union have opened the door to resolutions that do not involve a collective agreement.

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Tesla-sweden-expansion-if-metall-strike
(Credit: NicklasNilsso14)

After nearly two years of industrial action and sympathy strikes, Swedish labor union IF Metall has stated that it is softening its stance in its dispute with Tesla. With this, Tesla and the union have opened the door to resolutions that do not involve a collective agreement. 

Union chair Marie Nilsson told Sveriges Radio’s Ekot that while the preferred outcome remains a signed agreement, “other alternative solutions” are now on the table.

Union reconsiders rigid demands

The strike, which began over 600 days ago, has been marked by a series of strategic moves from both sides. IF Metall blocked Tesla’s access to license plates by targeting mail delivery, while Tesla bypassed the restrictions by importing vehicles in bulk through German ferries to Trelleborg, among other strategies. 

Despite the high-profile tactics, the number of active strikers has been relatively small, just about 60 in total, as noted in a CarUp report. Tesla Sweden has also maintained that it does not intend to bow down to the union’s demands. Over the 600-day strike, Tesla Sweden has adapted its operations to get around the union and its allies’ strikes.

Possible paths to ultimate resolution

Nilsson, for her part, noted that IF Metall is now willing to explore alternatives, such as embedding industry-standard terms directly into Tesla’s employment contracts or shifting Tesla’s Swedish operations to a company that already has a collective agreement.

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“You can do it in different ways. The easiest thing would be to sign a collective agreement. But when that is not possible, we have to find other alternative solutions as well, so we are open to discussion,” Nilsson stated.

IF Metall, if any, has acknowledged that Tesla has already improved working conditions in Sweden since the dispute began. Tesla Sweden has argued that its working conditions are already better than union standards, which is reportedly one of the reasons why very few company employees actually participated in IF Metall’s strike.

“There have been conversations throughout the journey where we compared our conditions. Tesla has adjusted details without going into details, they want to be a good employer, it’s about wages and conditions,” Nilsson stated.

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Cybertruck

Tesla Cybertruck is getting a big security upgrade

“Cybertruck was not 100% carryover in execution like S3XY, so it required work.”

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Credit: Tesla

Tesla confirmed today that a massive Cybertruck security feature is on the way soon, and it is one that owners have been asking about for a long time.

Like all Teslas, Cybertruck has the excellent security feature known as “Sentry Mode.” The feature essentially turns your Tesla into a moving security camera, recording any event that happens nearby.

It has been used to solve crimes such as vandalism and burglary, and even used by police departments to solve other, high-profile crimes.

Tesla quietly added this extra Sentry Mode feature to deter vandals

However, Cybertruck has been missing one key feature of Sentry Mode: the use of the B-Pillar camera has not been enabled, leaving one of the most vandalized and targeted vehicles in the United States with a weakness.

One person who has been vocal about it is Tesla Cybertruck enthusiast Greggertruck, who has been pushing for answers for months. He finally got his answer from Cybertruck Vehicle Program Manager Siddhant Awasthi:

“It will come soon! Cybertruck was not 100% carryover in execution like SX3Y so it required work. Team has finished work on this and just need to make sure it’s validated and runs reliably (which it should for its feature).”

It sounds as if Tesla’s issue was something they similarly experienced when deploying Full Self-Driving to Cybertruck. The other four Tesla vehicles were able to use FSD because they’re all relatively similar in ride height and overall functionality. They share tons of similarities.

Cybertruck did not get FSD right away because Tesla still had to work on the differences between it and the other cars in the lineup. As Awasthi said, “Cybertruck was not 100% carryover in execution like S3XY, so it required work.”

Tesla Cybertruck FSD release expected for Sept, Park Assist to come first

It sounds as if Tesla is close to resolving some of the more intricate details of adding the functionality, and it was just a matter of time before it figured out the issue.

The release of the B-Pillar camera being active during Sentry Mode events on Cybertruck will likely come in a software update in the coming weeks.

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