We’ve covered a few Elon Musk stories for you in the past –both about the Hyperloop and also the Tesla fires from a few months ago. Musk, entrepreneur and co-founder of PayPal and Tesla, is certainly not one to stay out of the headlines for very long and he’s been making quite a few lately so we thought we’d stop in and share what he’s been up to for the past month or so.
His company SpaceX launched a rocket –and a lawsuit:
On April 18th, 2014 SpaceX launched their capsule “Dragon”. It was the first commercial craft to travel safely to and from the International Space Station. After such a success, Musk plans on winning a NASA contract to have the “Dragon” bring humans back and forth to low Earth orbit.
Meanwhile, according to Mint Press News:
“Musk is taking on the military-industrial complex, alleging in a lawsuit that the federal government unfairly awarded a $9.5 billion contract for rocket launch services to a joint venture of aerospace giants Boeing and Lockheed Martin. […]
According to the filing, the Air Force must, on average, budget $400 million for a ULA rocket launch while SpaceX could provide the same service for around $100 million.”
He’s building not one, but two Tesla ‘Gigafactory’ sites
Tesla plans to build a ‘Gigafactory’. What is that you might want to know? A ‘Gigafactory’ is a massive $5 billion lithium-ion battery factory that will be used to manufacture the mass-market third-generation electric car that Tesla plans on unveiling. They are looking for two sites to build two of these factories that will take up to 1,000 acres each and will include their own on-site wind and solar energy plants.
Musk decided to drop the Model E trademark for his third-generation car and is thus giving up with model S/E/X line-up
We’re not sure now what Tesla plans to call their mass-market third-generation car, but we’re kind of glad that Musk has decided to drop the Model E trademark which would have rounded out models S and X with E. Reporters, writers, and marketers all over the world are sad to see the potential headlines go.
His SpaceX Falcon 9 launch is set for Saturday
The Falcon 9 is set to take its second test flight on Saturday May 10th, 2014 between 9:39am and 10:33am from the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. The Falcon 9 quadrupled its height from its previous test to rise to 1,000m. Sunday, May 11 is the backup date for the launch.
Knowing Musk, there’s probably much more to come…
While Musk is certainly not one to sit out of the limelight for very long –we’re always excited to see what he has planned next. We’ll be interested to see where these Tesla ‘Gigafactories’ end up landing and how the gen-3 car develops. Any guesses about what’s next on the plate for Musk?
