News
Watch Live: SpaceX, NASA are ‘go’ for third operational astronaut launch
With less than three hours to go before liftoff, SpaceX and NASA remain on track – with the vehicle, crew, and weather conditions all in great shape – for Falcon 9 and Crew Dragon’s third operational astronaut launch.
Originally scheduled for late October, a minor crew health issue, a small hardware qualification delay, and – primarily – a variety of good and bad weather conditions ultimately pushed Crew-3 into the second week of November. As a result, SpaceX and NASA chose to return Dragon and four Crew-2 astronauts to Earth before launching Crew-3, and that process was flawlessly completed on the evening of November 8th. During Dragon’s fourth crewed reentry descent and landing, though, one of the spacecraft’s four main parachutes ran into a minor but well-understood issue.
Designed to safely splash down with one parachute out, the safety of the Crew-2 astronauts was never in question but the apparent parachute issue was easily visible to anyone watching NASA and SpaceX’s live coverage. In reality, the behavior observed had been seen – and even intentionally created – many times before in the dozens upon dozens of Dragon parachute tests SpaceX completed to qualify the system for human spaceflight. Specifically, one or more of Dragon’s four huge chutes occasionally lags behind and takes longer to fully inflate. In the case of Crew-2, the problem chute behaved exactly as expected based on that testing and ultimately wasn’t a problem at all, properly inflating to slow Dragon to the exact desired descent speed well before splashdown.
Nevertheless, out of an abundance of caution, virtually everyone familiar with NASA and the Commercial Crew Program expected the agency to closely examine the behavior and make absolutely sure that all is well. Indeed, in a prelaunch briefing late last night, SpaceX VP Bill Gerstenmaier confirmed as much, revealing that the company rapidly completed reviews of Crew-2 and Crew-3 parachute build data and even airlifted the problem chute – recovered from the Atlantic – back to Florida facilities. Less than 24 hours after that parachute was in Earth orbit, SpaceX managed to dry it out and complete thorough inspections – all with NASA officials in the loop – to confirm that the chute itself was healthy (undamaged, no missed design/build errors, etc).
Ultimately, in an impressive display of professionalism and expertise, SpaceX and NASA were able to verify in a matter of hours that Crew-2’s reentry, descent, and landing was fully nominal and posed no problem for Crew-3’s launch just two days later. Crew-3 remains on track to lift off no earlier 9:03pm EST Wednesday, November 10th (02:03 UTC 11 Nov) with NASA astronauts Raja Chari, Thomas Marshburn, and Kayla Barron and ESA astronaut Matthias Maurer.
Falcon 9 booster B1067 will attempt to land on drone ship A Shortfall Of Gravitas around nine and a half minutes after liftoff following its second Dragon and first astronaut launch. Crew-3 will reach orbit shortly before and Dragon will begin a 22-hour journey to the ISS with plans to dock around 7pm EST Thursday, November 11th.
Cybertruck
Tesla drops latest hint that new Cybertruck trim is selling like hotcakes
According to Tesla’s Online Design Studio, the new All-Wheel-Drive Cybertruck will now be delivered in April 2027. Earlier orders are still slated for early this Summer, but orders from here on forward are now officially pushed into next year:
Tesla’s new Cybertruck offering has had its delivery date pushed back once again. This is now the second time, and deliveries for the newest orders are now pushed well into 2027.
According to Tesla’s Online Design Studio, the new All-Wheel-Drive Cybertruck will now be delivered in April 2027. Earlier orders are still slated for early this Summer, but orders from here on forward are now officially pushed into next year:
🚨 Tesla has updated the $59,990 Cybertruck Dual Motor AWD’s estimated delivery date to April 2027.
First deliveries are still slated for June, but if you order it now, you’ll be waiting over a year.
Demand appears to be off the charts for the new Cybertruck and consumers are… pic.twitter.com/raDCCeC0zP
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) February 26, 2026
Just three days ago, the initial delivery date of June 2026 was pushed back to early Fall, and now, that date has officially moved to April 2027.
The fact that Tesla has had to push back deliveries once again proves one of two things: either Tesla has slow production plans for the new Cybertruck trim, or demand is off the charts.
Judging by how Tesla is already planning to raise the price based on demand in just a few days, it seems like the company knows it is giving a tremendous deal on this spec of Cybertruck, and units are moving quickly.
That points more toward demand and not necessarily to slower production plans, but it is not confirmed.
Tesla Cybertruck’s newest trim will undergo massive change in ten days, Musk says
Tesla is set to hike the price on March 1, so tomorrow will be the final day to grab the new Cybertruck trim for just $59,990.
It features:
- Dual Motor AWD w/ est. 325 mi of range
- Powered tonneau cover
- Bed outlets (2x 120V + 1x 240V) & Powershare capability
- Coil springs w/ adaptive damping
- Heated first-row seats w/ textile material that is easy to clean
- Steer-by-wire & Four Wheel Steering
- 6’ x 4’ composite bed
- Towing capacity of up to 7,500 lbs
- Powered frunk
Interestingly, the price offering is fairly close to what Tesla unveiled back in late 2019.
Elon Musk
Elon Musk outlines plan for first Starship tower catch attempt
Musk confirmed that Starship V3 Ship 1 (SN1) is headed for ground tests and expressed strong confidence in the updated vehicle design.
Elon Musk has clarified when SpaceX will first attempt to catch Starship’s upper stage with its launch tower. The CEO’s update provides the clearest teaser yet for the spacecraft’s recovery roadmap.
Musk shared the details in recent posts on X. In his initial post, Musk confirmed that Starship V3 Ship 1 (SN1) is headed for ground tests and expressed strong confidence in the updated vehicle design.
“Starship V3 SN1 headed for ground tests. I am highly confident that the V3 design will achieve full reusability,” Musk wrote.
In a follow-up post, Musk addressed when SpaceX would attempt to catch the upper stage using the launch tower’s robotic arms.
“Should note that SpaceX will only try to catch the ship with the tower after two perfect soft landings in the ocean. The risk of the ship breaking up over land needs to be very low,” Musk clarified.
His remarks suggest that SpaceX is deliberately reducing risk before attempting a tower catch of Starship’s upper stage. Such a milestone would mark a major step towards the full reuse of the Starship system.
SpaceX is currently targeting the first Starship V3 flight of 2026 this coming March. The spacecraft’s V3 iteration is widely viewed as a key milestone in SpaceX’s long-term strategy to make Starship fully reusable.Â
Starship V3 features a number of key upgrades over its previous iterations. The vehicle is equipped with SpaceX’s Raptor V3 engines, which are designed to deliver significantly higher thrust than earlier versions while reducing cost and weight.
The V3 design is also expected to be optimized for manufacturability, a critical step if SpaceX intends to scale the spacecraft’s production toward frequent launches for Starlink, lunar missions, and eventually Mars.
News
Tesla FSD (Supervised) could be approved in the Netherlands next month: Musk
Musk shared the update during a recent interview at Giga Berlin.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk shared that Full Self-Driving (FSD) could receive regulatory approval in the Netherlands as soon as March 20, potentially marking a major step forward for Tesla’s advanced driver-assistance rollout in Europe.
Musk shared the update during a recent interview at Giga Berlin, noting that the date was provided by local authorities.
“Tesla has the most advanced real-world AI, and hopefully, it will be approved soon in Europe. We’re told by the authorities that March 20th, it’ll be approved in the Netherlands,’ what I was told,” Musk stated.Â
“Hopefully, that date remains the same. But I think people in Europe are going to be pretty blown away by how good the Tesla car AI is in being able to drive.”
Tesla’s FSD system relies on vision-based neural networks trained on real-world driving data, allowing vehicles to navigate using cameras and AI rather than traditional sensor-heavy solutions.
The performance of FSD Supervised has so far been impressive. As per Tesla’s safety report, Full Self-Driving Supervised has already traveled 8.3 billion miles. So far, vehicles operating with FSD Supervised engaged recorded one major collision every 5,300,676 miles.
In comparison, Teslas driven manually with Active Safety systems recorded one major collision every 2,175,763 miles, while Teslas driven manually without Active Safety recorded one major collision every 855,132 miles. The U.S. average during the same period was one major collision every 660,164 miles.
If approval is granted on March 20, the Netherlands could become the first European market to greenlight Tesla’s latest supervised FSD (Supervised) software under updated regulatory frameworks. Tesla has been working to secure expanded FSD access across Europe, where regulatory standards differ significantly from those in the United States. Approval in the Netherlands would likely serve as a foundation for broader EU adoption, though additional country-level clearances may still be required.
Tesla drops latest hint that new Cybertruck trim is selling like hotcakes
Elon Musk outlines plan for first Starship tower catch attempt
