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Weekly Space Recap: August 21 – August 27

A collage of the last week in space! (Credit Richard Angle, SpaceX, ISRO, and Rocket Lab)

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Here are some of the stories you may have missed in the past week. The fourth week of August 2023 featured SpaceX hitting a Starlink milestone, India landing on the Moon, Rocket Lab moving forward with reusability, and more Starship testing.

SpaceX launches 100th dedicated Starlink mission – Starlink Group 7-1 launched from California and deployed 21 V2 mini-satellites into orbit following a short delay caused by Hurricane Hilary. This mission also featured the 15th flight of Booster 1061.

India lands Chandrayaan-3 on the Moon – India became the 4th country to successfully land on the Moon and landed the closest to the Southern pole of any country. After landing, The Pragyan rover was deployed and has begun roaming the surface of the Moon conducting experiments, and the Vikram lander has also begun its own set of experiments during the ~12-day mission.

Rocket Lab launches 40th mission – After issues on the original Electron assigned to this mission, Rocket Lab switched it out for a booster intended for recovery, and it featured the reuse of a Rutherford engine. CEO Peter Beck said the first stage and re-used engine performed perfectly, and the booster was recovered from the ocean for analysis as the company moves closer to reusing the entire first-stage rocket.

Starship performs 2nd static fire test – After a trip to the production site to add a hot stage ring, Booster 9 rolled back to the launch site for a series of tests culminating in a static fire. SpaceX confirmed all 33 engines ignited, but 2 shut down early during the ~5-second test fire. This is an improvement over the last static fire, which shut down early. Elon Musk has said they expect the next Starship test flight to happen “soon.”

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Crew 7 launches and docks to the ISS – Crew 7 successfully launched from LC-39A on August 26th, and after a day of catching up to the Space Station, Crew Dragon Endurance autonomously docked. Crew 7 will now spend the next 6 months aboard the ISS, and sometime next week, Crew 6 will make its return to Earth.

Crew 7 continuing to orbit while the Falcon 9 first stage performs a boostback burn (Credit: Richard Angle)

5,000th Starlink launched into space – 22 V2 mini Starlinks launched from LC-40 in Florida the evening of the 26th, hours after the Crew 7 launch. This mission brought the total number of Starlink satellites launched to 5,005. This flight featured the 3rd flight, Booster 1081, which successfully landed on the droneship. However, that booster has still not arrived back in Port Canaveral, the port is closed due to high winds from Hurricane Idalia passing to the North.

ULA readies for the first Atlas V launch of the year – The Atlas V was rolled to the LC-41 in Florida and prepped for launch, but due to Hurricane Idalia, ULA rolled the Atlas V back to the Vertical Integration Facility to keep the rocket and secretive NRO payload safe until the storm passes. ULA will confirm a new launch date soon.

What do you think of last week’s news? Rocket Lab made big strides for reusability, India became the 4th country to soft-land on the Moon, and as always, SpaceX was non-stop with Starship testing and Falcon 9 launches!

Thanks for reading the Weekly Space Recap!

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

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Launch journalist, specializing in launch photography. Based on the Space Coast, a short drive from Cape Canaveral and the SpaceX launch pads.

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Tesla dominates in Norway with 213% sales jump from ’24

Tesla dominated in Norway, and although it lags behind other OEMs for the year, the Model Y is the best-selling model in the country by a long shot.

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Credit: Tesla

Tesla has recorded a dominating performance in the Norwegian market as the company outpaced other automakers for the month of May.

The company walked away with 19 percent of the total EV sales for the month, with a vast majority of those coming from the Model Y, which accounted for 2,344 of the 2,598 sales Tesla had for the month.

Tesla Model Y has become the most common vehicle in Norway

As a whole, Tesla outpaced Volkswagen by just over 300 units as the German company continues to have a tremendous year across Europe in terms of EVs.

For Tesla, however, it was a tremendous month, especially compared to past years, and as it continues to experience a reduction in sales in the European market, this was an outlier.

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A Strong Month

Tesla’s performance in Norway in May was incredibly strong, including growth from the same month last year and quarter-over-quarter improvements.

Tesla sold just 830 units in Norway last May, meaning last month was a 213 percent increase compared to the same month last year.

For the year so far, Tesla has sold 7,600 units in Norway, trailing only Volkswagen, which has had a very strong year in Europe thus far. VW holds 19.5 percent of the total market share for the year in terms of EVs; Tesla has 13.7 percent.

However, the Model Y is still the best-selling EV in the country, and it is not particularly close. With 6,201 sales, it leads the Toyota BZ4X and the Volkswagen ID.4, which have 3,703 and 3,073 sales, respectively.

Tesla has combated weak sales figures in Europe this year, some of which are due to the Model Y changeover across all of the company’s global production facilities. CEO Elon Musk has said that he does not believe demand is an issue for Tesla at all, but instead, Europe is just a weak market.

Figures via EU-EVs

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Elon Musk responds to Tesla Supercharger shutdown on NJ Turnpike

Elon Musk says the New Jersey Turnpike Authority’s decision to decommission 64 Tesla Superchargers ” sounds like corruption.”

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MINISTÉRIO DAS COMUNICAÇÕES, CC BY 2.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

Tesla CEO Elon Musk has responded to Tesla being required to decommission and shut down over 60 Superchargers on the New Jersey Turnpike, a move that was announced late last week.

We reported late last week that Tesla was being required to decommission 64 Superchargers on the New Jersey Turnpike as the governing body of the toll road had chosen a sole, third-party company to provide EV charging solutions. This decision requires Tesla to eliminate its current Superchargers on the Turnpike, one of the country’s heaviest-traveled roads.

Tesla to lose 64 Superchargers on New Jersey Turnpike in controversial decision

The New Jersey Turnpike Authority (NJTA) requested that Tesla shut down the 64 charging stalls as a result of its new partnership, something that many are confused by, considering the company’s Superchargers are accessible to many different car companies and not only Teslas.

Additionally, Tesla’s Supercharger Network has gained a reputation for being one of the most reliable, with an incredibly high rate of upkeep.

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With these details being known, the NJTA is still choosing to go with another supplier, not even allowing Tesla to keep its already-built Superchargers active, something that would be widely beneficial to EV drivers as a whole.

Musk believes the move is a sign of corruption:

While there is no explicit evidence that this is being done as a retaliatory response to Musk or Tesla specifically, it does seem extremely odd that the NJTA is not allowing the company to keep already-built and active Superchargers available to EV drivers.

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Tesla has prepared for this decision for several years already, as it knew this was a possibility. It built 116 other charging piles near the Turnpike, giving drivers access to reliable charging piles.

It would not be a surprise if there was some sort of political motivation behind the removal of Tesla Superchargers on the Turnpike. Politicians have already shown that they are willing to be very vocal about their distaste for Musk and Tesla.

Minnesota Governor and former Vice Presidential Candidate Tim Walz has been very up front about his disdain for the company and its CEO, especially as Musk took a stab at the Federal level with the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).

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Tesla bails on crucial piece of India production, aims to rely on imports

Tesla is not keen on establishing an entire production facility in India, and will instead focus on importing.

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elon musk and narendra modi
Credit: Narendra Modi | Twitter

Tesla is bailing on a crucial piece of the puzzle that would likely enable the production of its vehicles in India, and will instead rely on imports, a bold strategy in the broader scheme, as the country has prioritized local manufacturing in an effort to bolster its economy.

The automaker has dragged its feet to commit to a localized production strategy in India, something that seemed to be the only pathway to a mass market presence in what is the most populous country in the world.

However, Tesla has evidently made a decision on what its plans for the market will be. It seems apparent that it still wants to sell vehicles in India and establish a presence there, but it will not do it in what many would consider a more traditional sense: building vehicles domestically. This is something the company has sparred with the Indian government on for several years.

Now, it’s made up its mind.

During a press conference earlier today, India’s Heavy Industry Minister, Shri Kumaraswamy, confirmed Tesla’s plans for how it will penetrate the massive Indian market, and it will not be doing so through domestic manufacturing:

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Kumaraswamy indicated that Tesla has no interest in building cars in India, but it wants to establish some presence there, especially with showrooms, allowing citizens to see and drive the cars they could buy from the company.

The move comes as India has made major progress in reducing the import duties that have frightened many automakers from doing business as importers. India’s massive import duties on vehicles built in other countries doubled prices, which is a significant reason for Tesla’s delay in entering the market.

India is considering a reduction to just 10 percent from 100 percent, which would be significant for companies like Tesla, which are doing whatever they can to enter the market without feeling the impact of the duties.

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Electric vehicles made up just 2.5 percent of sales in 2024. There were 4.3 million vehicle purchases in India last year.

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