S.E. Robinson, Jr.

Want to Know: Your Daily Musk Companies Update (Patreon)

Published:

2024-10-15 20:19:01

Imported:

2026-06

Content

15th of October, 2024

"It is important in this often difficult and troubled world for there to be things that also inspire and make you feel great to be part of humanity..." - Elon

■ TESLA $TSLA ($219.57, +0.19%):

- Tesla Semi's on display at Giga Berlin.

- Today the local environment ministry granted Giga Berlin approval for the first of three stages of the Phase 2 expansion; construction of infrastructure for storage facilities, a battery cell test laboratory, and logistics areas.

- The 53 Megapack Ville-sur-Haine site in Wallonia, Belgium, is fully powered and operational. This is a 200 MWh/50 MW battery energy storage site ran by Eneco, a subsidiary of Japan’s Mitsubishi Corp.

- Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi told the Financial Times that competing with Elon is not easy and he would "love" to get Tesla's robotaxis on the Uber platform when it's ready to roll out. He said they will either partner, compete, or combine the two, but it's up to Tesla.

- Tesla has Cybertruck and Optimus at the Expand North Star event in Dubai.

- Co-founder of Waymo, Anthony Levandowski, on Tesla FSD, "I'd rather be in Tesla's shoes than in Waymo's shoes; Tesla already has cars on the road, some of which use semi-autonomous features for tasks such as parking and lane-switching — and learning all the while. Musk has the greatest fleet to do this. I would say the Tesla has examples of maybe 10,000 or maybe a million times more data than Waymo does in terms of all other scenarios of driving."

- Tesla is looking for a someone to fill the position of Virtual Reality Teleoperation of its Optimus Humanoid Robot. n the job description, Tesla says, "We are building a state-of-the-art VR rig that can be used by our Bot Operators. This will allow them to seamlessly experience the world as the Tesla Bot does, and remotely operate the robot to perform complex and intricate tasks."

FLYOVERS (flyover links in the sources section):

Giga Texas: Jeff Roberts (@peterdog15), 14th of October, '24.

■ SPACEX:

- Double header early this morning. First was launch 100 of Falcon 9 Starlink 10-10 from Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40) at Cape Canaveral, Florida. This was the 11th flight for the booster. It previously launched Euclid, Axiom-2, Axiom-3, Cygnus NG-21, SES 24, CRS-30 and four Starlink missions. The booster landed on drone ship A Shortfall of Gravitas in the Atlantic Ocean. 23 Starlinks were deployed.

- Second, was launch 101 of Falcon 9 Starlink 9-7 from Space Launch Complex 4E (SLC-4E) at Vandenberg Space Force Base, California. This was the 19th flight for the stag booster. It previously launched NROL-87, NROL-85, SARah-1, SWOT, Transporter-8, Transporter-9, NROL-146, and 11 Starlink missions. The booster landed on drone ship Of Course I Still Love You in the Pacific Ocean. 20 Starlinks were deployed, including 13 with Direct to Cell.

- Booster 12 was taken off the OLM today, placed on the transport stand, and shipped to the production site. As stated yesterday, some (if not all) of the raptors will be sent to the McGregor Test Facility. Pic by @StarshipGazer.

- Per Elon, "Hopefully early next year, we will catch the ship too."

- Yesterday's launch of the Europa Clipper set a new Falcon speed record of 12,680 m/s.

- California Rep. Kevin Kiley (@RepKiley) posted that he sent a bipartisan letter supporting more SpaceX launches at Vandenberg Space Force to support national security, broadband connectivity, and wildfire response. Per Kevin, "The Coastal Commission just rejected the plan, citing unrelated political posts by Elon Musk. This illegal action needs to be reversed immediately."

- Great shot of the Starfactory at Starbase by Larry Goldberg (@TeslaLarry). "The Starbase Rocket Factory is YUUUGE..." Landscaping looks good!

- The Fram2 flight of the first humans to explore Earth from a polar orbit is now targeting spring 2025. The new timing allows SpaceX to take advantage of more favorable weather conditions required for a safe launch and return to Earth.

- NASA and SpaceX mission managers are watching unfavorable weather conditions off the Florida coast. As of now, Dragon Endeavour is looking to undock from the ISS on the Friday, the 18th of October, at 3:05 a.m. ET.

- On Thursday, 17th of October, there will be a Public Hearing at 7:00 p.m. CST in the Brownsville Sports Park Gymnasium (1000 Sports Park Blvd) on the SpaceX application for wastewater permit. Groups are actively trying to gather protesters to give public comments at the event and online. To fight this, I suggest everyone submit a comment here in favor of Permit No. WQ0005462000's authorization.

Countdown to 144 (96 - Falcon 9, 2 - Falcon Heavy, and 3 - Starship):

Launch 102! Thursday, 16th of October, at 3:55 p.m. ET, Falcon 9 Starlink 8-19 will launch from Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40) at Cape Canaveral, Florida. The booster will land on a drone ship in the Atlantic Ocean.
Launch 103! Saturday, 19th of October, at 7:52 p.m. ET, Falcon 9 Starlink 6-61 will launch from Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40) at Cape Canaveral, Florida. The booster will land on a drone ship in the Atlantic Ocean.

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■ THE BORING COMPANY:

- The above pics were posted by Jack Farrington (@jackfarrington) at LVCC LOOP Central Station. Great pics, Jack!

- Per the Boring Company's Operations Manager, Matthew Weber, "A station at Westgate Las Vegas Resort & Casino plans to open within weeks, and another station at the Encore Las Vegas is slated to open in the coming months..." They plan to open a station near the Harry Reid International Airport "hopefully sometime early next year."

- The Bored Tunnelers from Bangladesh announced they been invited to the Boring Company headquarters in Bastrop, Texas, to trial their micro tunnel boring machine (MTBM) for next years Not-a-Boring Competition. This team ranked third in this year's competition earning the "Rookie Award."

■ NEURALINK:

- Per Neuralink's Sam Schmitz (@samschmitz), "Over lunch today we decided that the next gen Neuralink robot aesthetic should be as ‘neo-Atomic Age’ as Elon lets us make it. “The future should look like the future!” One art deco van release and now everything I sketch looks like a Kitchenaid stand mixer. Also thrown around in the same conversation were brilliant ideas such as ‘Lisa Frank core’ and ‘let’s just chrome plate everything’ so don’t hold your breath." 😆

■ STARLINK:

- According to John Walters, Unmanned Aircraft Systems Division Chief at U.S. Coast Guard (USCG), in Puerto Rico the USCG Research and Development Center recently completed Operation Demonstration COQUI, a rapid technology 'sprint' to demonstrate and explore the use of low-cost unmanned systems (UxS) and associated technologies. Via the Starlink network, a cloud relay, and TAK servers, the demonstration deployed land and water launched unmanned aircraft. COQUI demonstrated the use of UxS as a force multiplier to detect and identify maritime contacts, enabling more effective employment of limited manned Coast Guard assets.

- Jackery, a renewable energy equipment manufacture out of Fremont, California, is in the Sahara using Starlink and a Jackery Power Station.

- Italy's Under Secretary to the Prime Minister's Office, Alessio ButtiItaly, has stated Italy will soon test Starlink as a viable internet service in remote areas of the country. This was said ahead of a Group of Seven ministerial meeting on technology and digital on Lake Como.

- Baleària of Dénia, Spain, announced they are integrating Wi-Fi on their fleet via Starlink. Per Francisco Abril, IT Infrastructure Manager, "This technology opens the doors to things that were unthinkable a short time ago. Now you can participate in online meetings, make full use of social media or be able to consume content from your own streaming services while traveling by ferry." Starlink is already active on the ships 'Eleanor Roosevelt', 'Margarita Salas', 'Sicilia' and 'Marie Curie.'

■ X:

- The X original reality show Off Season FC (@OffseasonFC) starts this Friday. 11 National Women Soccer League Players. 1 House.

- X Data show the catch of SpaceX's Super Heavy Booster 12 generated 8 billion impressions, 1 billion video views, and 1 million total posts.

- X Data also shows the Harris Town Hall generated 76 million impressions, 455 thousand posts, and 14 million video views.

- Danica Patrick (@DanicaPatrick) has stated she will now be using X more because of "what Elon has done with it." She said, "I used to avoid opinions as an athlete. I did my job and promoted what was asked and I was fine with that for that phase of my life. However now, I am ready to promote my beliefs, questions, curiosities, hobbies, and most definitely my dogs."

■ xAI:

- The xAI Hackathon last Saturday pic by Ayush Jaiswal (@aayushjaiswal07). "The xAI team is cooking something special. Incredible energy at the hackathon, ironically at the old OpenAI HQ."

- Per Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang on Elon and xAI building Colossus in 19 days, "As far as I know, there's only one person in the world who could do that; Elon is singular in his understanding of engineering and construction and large systems and marshaling resources; it's just unbelievable. A supercomputer that you would build would take normally three years to plan and then they deliver the equipment and it takes one year to get it all working. Colossus has become easily the fastest supercomputer on the planet as one cluster."

■ ELON NEWS:

- Elon said he will do a Starlink streaming test of Diablo while in flight today.

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Have a great day!

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SOURCES:

FLYOVERS:

Giga Texas: Jeff Roberts https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eZuF9MxPuRI

Tesla:

The Boring Company:

https://www.costar.com/article/700678548/elon-musks-tunnel-transportation-system-set-to-open-more-stations-in-las-vegas

Starlink: