Jon Edwards

@LifeLexicon @XFreeze Starship V4 aims to achieve 10k metric tons of thrust at liftoff or ~22M pounds of force, which is ~3 times the power of the Saturn V Moon rocket

Deployment of the CAS500-2 satellite confirmed

Grok 4.3 - excellent intelligence per unit cost

xAI has launched Grok 4.3, achieving 53 on the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index with improved agentic performance, ~40% lower input price, and ~60% lower output price than Grok 4.20 The release of Grok 4.3 places @xAI just above Muse Spark and Claude Sonnet 4.6 on the Intelligence Index, and a 4 points ahead of the latest version of Grok 4.20. Grok 4.3 improves its Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index score while reducing cost to run the benchmark suite. Key Takeaways: ➤ Grok 4.3 improves on cost-per-intelligence relative to Grok 4.20 0309 v2: it scores higher on the Intelligence Index while costing less to run the full benchmark suite. Grok 4.3 costs $395 to run the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index, around 20% lower than Grok 4.20 0309 v2, despite using more output tokens. This makes it one of the lower-cost models at its intelligence level ➤ Large increase in real world agentic task performance: The largest single benchmark improvement is on GDPval-AA, where Grok 4.3 scores an ELO of 1500, up 321 points from Grok 4.20 0309 v2’s score of 1179 Grok 4.3, surpassing Gemini 3.1 Pro Preview, Muse Spark, Gpt-5.4 mini (xhigh), and Kimi K2.5. Grok 4.3 narrows the gap to the leading model on GDPval-AA, but still trails GPT-5.5 (xhigh) by 276 Elo points, with an expected win rate of ~17% against GPT-5.5 (xhigh) under the standard Elo formula ➤ Grok 4.3’s performs strongly on instruction following and agentic customer support tasks. It gains 5 points on 𝜏²-Bench Telecom to reach 98%, in line with GLM-5.1. Grok 4.3 maintains an 81% IFBench score from Grok 4.20 0309 v2 ➤ Gains 8 points on AA-Omniscience Accuracy, but at the cost of lower AA-Omniscience Non-Hallucination Rate of 8 points, so Grok 4.20 0309 v2 still leads AA-Omniscience Non-Hallucination Rate, followed by MiMo-V2.5-Pro, in line with Grok 4.3 Congratulations to @xAI and @elonmusk on the impressive release!

This was before Starlink had a name

Falcon 9 @SpaceX launch across Earth's twilight horizon, seen from the ISS near South Africa.

😂

Congratulations to the @SpaceX Falcon team on an incredible day: another successful Falcon Heavy launch from the East Coast, followed by a sunset @Starlink launch from the West Coast. I was lucky enough to catch both launches in person. Long day, but absolutely worth it.

View of today’s SpaceX Falcon Heavy side boosters returning to Earth and landing

Timing is everything. Check out these images, taken today, of Launch Complex 39A at Kennedy Space Center. At 07:29 local time, Gen-3 captured an extreme off-nadir twilight shot of a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket on the pad before again catching the vehicle in flight at 10:13, 38 seconds after launch, as it was traveling more than 400 miles per hour. With time-diverse imaging capabilities and flexible imaging modes, Gen-3 sees relevant activity at all hours of the day.

Falcon Heavy casts a shadow on the clouds

Deployment of @viasat-3 F3 confirmed

Both @SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket boosters landing today. Always a thing of beauty. The candles have returned!

Falcon Heavy landing

Deployment of 25 @Starlink satellites confirmed

Grok Build is very close now. Release is expected next week unless something major causes a delay. Grok Build is @xAI’s answer to Claude Code and Codex. It consists of a suite of specialized coding models, variants of Grok 4.3, along with full tooling in the form of a web app and CLI. Grok Build is very important for both xAI and its users. Strong alternatives to the big two in AI coding are sorely needed.

@GrantObi They are truly incredible.

I know it's not the same, but SpaceX's internal application software team is pretty incredible. Multiple software startups have been created simply trying to replicate that software.

Falcon flies every few days. You can see launches in person from Florida or California.

Early this morning, @SpaceX launched the final GPS III satellite in our constellation, the most advanced GPS satellites ever built. This video aired at T-9:25, marking the achievement for the Space Force as we celebrate 250 years of American strength and innovation. 🇺🇸

David Byrne created a rare moment at the Santa Barbara Bowl Tuesday April 14 when he pointed to the sky as a flaming Falcon 9 Rocket launch burst from the darkness from Vandenberg Space Force Base. The crowd turned and cheered for both. (Video: Richard Weston Smith)