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Elon Musk teases an update to SpaceX’s Mars architecture later this year

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Elon Musk and SpaceX are aiming to provide a second update on the company’s Mars architecture plans in late September of this year, likely at the 2017 International Astronautical Congress (IAC) in Adelaide, Australia.

While 2017 has been extraordinarily busy and successful for SpaceX thus far, it has also been a somewhat quiet year for Mars and the technology being developed to colonize it affordably. There was a brief flurry of social media information focused on the testing of the ITS carbon composite test tank revealed at the 2016 IAC, with a few pictures and a video of its transport. This activity, as well as Elon Musk’s Ask Me Anything on /r/SpaceX, occurred a month or two after the 2016 IAC, in October and November.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BM4P6b_g2N9/?taken-by=spacex&hl=en

The only concrete information revealed about SpaceX’s Mars ambitions in 2017 have so far been distributed by Musk over Twitter and in an interview of SpaceX President and COO Gwynne Shotwell a few weeks ago. Musk offered tentative time frames for a possible update of the Mars architecture, stating that he believed it dealt with the far more crucial challenge of how to finance such a large endeavor’s significant R&D costs.

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During his 2016 reveal, Musk estimated that something like $10 billion would be required to complete development and initial construction of the Raptor engine and ITS test articles. While it is believed that SpaceX has at least several hundred million dollars of liquid capital available, growing several billion dollars of capital is a much greater challenge that will likely require a different methodology than those typically employed by Musk.

Shotewell also discussed SpaceX’s Mars ambitions off and on during an hour-long interview on The Space Show. Of general interest, she mentioned that the current team working on Mars-related research and development was “tiny”, but that it would become a drastically more resource-intensive priority as the company completes work on the fifth and somewhat final “Block” of Falcon 9 and finishes the work necessary to begin routinely conducting Commercial Crew missions. Shotwell gave a timeline of “soon” for the beginning of Block 4 flights and “end of year” for the introduction of Block 5, which is intended to significantly increase the reusability of Falcon 9 (titanium grid fins are a feature of this strategy). Barring delays or setbacks for SpaceX, this implies that SpaceX will begin aggressively pursuing the concrete development of their Mars architecture as soon as the latter months of 2018 or sometime in 2019.

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SpaceX revealed this stunning photo of Raptor’s first (partial) hot-fire test the night before Musk’s talk at Guadalajara. (SpaceX)

More specifically, however, Shotwell said that the Raptor test article revealed at the Guadalajara IAC has since conducted “dozens” of tests and is now more seriously considering the engine’s potential utility aboard Falcon 9. The current subscale Raptor components are approximately half the size of the final, operational design, and the need to scale up by as little as a factor of 2 should make the realization of the final design considerably less difficult, and make the testing of the current Raptor far more demonstrative of the operational engine. The exploration of vacuum Raptor as the engine of an upgraded second stage for Falcon 9 would further allow for true on-orbit testing of Raptor, and increasing the performance of S2 would allow for greater flexibility in exploring second stage reuse. Musk and Shotwell have expressed interest in this, particularly given that the second stage is approximately 30% of the cost of every Falcon 9, thus capping any potential cost savings first stage (and fairing) reuse may bring. If SpaceX wishes to lower the cost of launches by a factor of 10 to 100 and bring to life any form of the Mars architecture revealed in Guadalajara, they will have to develop second stage reusability that it is both as rapid, functional, and complete as they soon hope to make first stage reuse.

A fully reusable Falcon 9 would offer the company more cost-effective ways to launch their own profit-driving internet constellation, and could also simply provide deeper profit margins for their main business of commercial launches. However, with Musk having already publicly acknowledged that reusability cost SpaceX approximately $1 billion to develop, SpaceX is certainly already considering the plausibly diminishing returns of diverting more funds and human resources into the continued development of Falcon 9. The most likely outcome is almost certainly some combination of the above goals, whereby SpaceX would delay their Mars exploration timeline by several years and concurrently pursue Falcon 9 second stage reuse and the initial test article development for their Mars architecture, as well as exploring the challenges and intricacies of human spaceflight and deep space exploration with Dragon v2.

 

Of note, the only known major testing event in 2017 related to SpaceX’s Mars program was observed by a SpaceX fan in February of this year. After successful November 2016 tests of the carbon composite tank in northern Washington state, fans noted that the tank had made an outdoors appearance once more in early February 2017. SpaceX mentioned on Instagram that the following test, the one SpaceX was preparing for in February, was a full cryo test of the tank, meaning that it involved actual high-pressure, supercooled liquid oxygen. Another fan noted several days later that the barge SpaceX was testing the tank aboard returned to port empty, and later observed what looked like several large pieces of the tank test article that reportedly had to be recovered from the sound by divers. The logical conclusion is that the tank was destroyed during its second phase of testing, but the crucial and currently unknown fact of the matter is whether the failure was a result of intentionally destructive testing or defects in what was effectively an experimental engineering article. Further SpaceX talks later this year will likely reveal some level of detail as to what transpired in the testing of that prototype carbon composite tank.

Reasoned speculation aside, the latter months of 2017 have multiple talks, speeches, and hearings planned by SpaceX members like Elon Musk and Tim Hughes, and information on SpaceX’s Mars ambitions and other future prospects will almost certainly be offered. Hughes is to attend a hearing at 9am EST on July 13th for the U.S. Senate on commercial space and will be testifying on the subject as a representative and employee of SpaceX. Just under a week later, Elon Musk is scheduled to be the main keynote speaker at the 2017 ISS R&D Conference. His talk is set to begin at 12:30pm EST on July 19th. A handful of months after that, as mentioned above, Musk may also provide a detailed update on SpaceX’s Mars architecture at the 2017 International Astronautical Congress.

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In other words, on top of an aggressive 12 possible launches between August and the end of December, SpaceX fans also can look forward to details, photos, and possibly even more about the company’s Mars efforts over the next several months.

Eric Ralph is Teslarati's senior spaceflight reporter and has been covering the industry in some capacity for almost half a decade, largely spurred in 2016 by a trip to Mexico to watch Elon Musk reveal SpaceX's plans for Mars in person. Aside from spreading interest and excitement about spaceflight far and wide, his primary goal is to cover humanity's ongoing efforts to expand beyond Earth to the Moon, Mars, and elsewhere.

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Tesla gathers 93,000 FSD miles in a country where FSD isn’t approved – here’s how

Tesla has quietly logged an impressive 93,000 miles (roughly 150,000 km) of autonomous driving at its Giga Berlin factory—using Full Self-Driving (FSD) in a country where the technology remains unavailable to consumers on public roads.

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Credit: Tesla AI | X

Tesla has gathered 93,000 Full Self-Driving miles in a country where Full Self-Driving is not even approved. Here’s how.

Tesla has quietly logged an impressive 93,000 miles (roughly 150,000 km) of autonomous driving at its Giga Berlin factory—using Full Self-Driving (FSD) in a country where the technology remains unavailable to consumers on public roads.

The milestone, revealed alongside news that Giga Berlin has now built 750,000 Model Y vehicles, highlights how Tesla is putting its AI to work in one of the most controlled environments imaginable: it’s own factory floor.

Every Model Y that rolls off the final assembly line at Giga Berlin doesn’t need a human driver to reach the outbound lot. Instead, the freshly built vehicles engage FSD and navigate themselves across the factory campus.

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The route—from the end of the production line through marked internal pathways to the staging area where cars await delivery or export—is entirely on private property. No public roads, no mixed traffic, and no regulatory hurdles for on-road autonomous operation.

It’s a closed-loop system: wide lanes, predictable layouts, minimal pedestrians, and consistent conditions that make it one of the simplest proving grounds for the software.

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A short factory tour video shared by Tesla Manufacturing shows General Assembly team member Jan explaining the process. Gesturing beside a glossy black Model Y still wearing its protective wrap, he notes the cumulative distance the fleet has covered autonomously.

Tesla Giga Berlin seems to be using FSD Unsupervised to move Model Y units

The cars handle the short drive flawlessly, freeing up workers who would otherwise spend hours shuttling vehicles manually. For a high-volume plant like Giga Berlin, the time and labor savings add up quickly. Even small gains in cycle time per car can reclaim valuable space in the outbound lot and streamline logistics.

This internal deployment serves multiple purposes. First, it delivers zero-cost validation data. Each factory run exposes FSD to real-world physics—acceleration, steering precision, obstacle avoidance—in a repeatable setting far safer than public testing.

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Second, it demonstrates the system’s readiness at scale. If FSD can reliably move thousands of brand-new cars without intervention inside a busy factory, it underscores the robustness of the vision-based, end-to-end neural network Tesla has been refining.

Critics often point to Europe’s cautious regulatory stance on unsupervised autonomy, yet Tesla has turned that limitation into an advantage. While owners in Germany still cannot activate consumer FSD on highways or city streets, the software is already proving its worth behind the factory gates.

The 93,000 miles represent not just internal efficiency gains but a subtle flex: the cars are manufactured ready to navigate autonomously, at least in the bounds of the factory. It’s a big feather in the cap of FSD, even if regulators have yet to green-light broader use.

As Giga Berlin continues ramping output, expect this autonomous logistics loop to grow. What began as a practical workaround for moving finished vehicles has quietly become one of the most compelling real-world showcases of FSD’s potential—right in the heart of regulated Europe. Tesla isn’t waiting for approval to perfect its autonomy; it’s already driving the future, one factory mile at a time.

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Elon Musk reveals how SpaceX is always on board Air Force One

Musk confirmed Tuesday that Starlink internet is live and kicking on Air Force One. Responding with a simple “Yup!” to a post showing him and Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang aboard the presidential jet en route to Beijing with President Trump, Musk proved the point: America’s most important aircraft now has seamless, high-speed satellite connectivity—even over the middle of the Pacific.

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elon musk and donald trump in front of a tesla cybertruck at the white house
President Donald J. Trump purchases a Tesla on the South Lawn, Tuesday, March 11, 2025. (Official White House Photo by Molly Riley)

Air Force One, the official call sign for a U.S. Air Force aircraft carrying the President, now runs on SpaceX Starlink, CEO Elon Musk revealed.

Musk confirmed Tuesday that Starlink internet is live and kicking on Air Force One. Responding with a simple “Yup!” to a post showing him and Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang aboard the presidential jet en route to Beijing with President Trump, Musk proved the point: America’s most important aircraft now has seamless, high-speed satellite connectivity—even over the middle of the Pacific.

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The timing couldn’t be more symbolic. With trillion-dollar CEOs and the President sharing the cabin, Starlink wasn’t just a nice-to-have—it was mission-critical. No more spotty signals or dropped calls. Instead, real-time video conferences, secure data transfers, and global coordination at Mach speed.

Starlink’s aviation push has already transformed commercial and private flying. Dozens of major airlines have signed on or begun rollouts.

Hawaiian Airlines, United Airlines, Qatar Airways, Air France, SAS, WestJet, airBaltic, and Emirates (now equipping its Boeing 777 and A380 fleets) offer Starlink Wi-Fi to passengers. Lufthansa plans to follow in late 2026.

On private jets, the upgrade is even hotter: owners and charter companies report skyrocketing demand because Starlink turns cabins into flying boardrooms.

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Starlink gets its latest airline adoptee for stable and reliable internet access

The advantages are massive. Traditional in-flight Wi-Fi relied on slow, high-latency geostationary satellites or ground-based systems that cut out over oceans and remote areas. Starlink’s low-Earth-orbit constellation delivers blazing speeds—often exceeding 200 Mbps download with latency as low as 25-60 milliseconds—gate-to-gate, from takeoff to landing.

Passengers stream 4K video, join Zoom calls, or work in the cloud without buffering. Pilots get real-time weather, NOTAM updates, and live ATC data. Even private-jet travelers get the benefits, as it means productivity that rivals the office.

On Air Force One, those benefits become strategic superpowers. The presidential aircraft demands unbreakable communications for national security, diplomacy, and crisis response. Starlink provides global coverage with no dead zones, offering redundancy against traditional systems that could fail in contested airspace or during long-haul flights.

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It enables the President and staff to maintain secure links with the Pentagon, allies, or business leaders anywhere on Earth. During the Beijing trip, it likely facilitated direct coordination on trade, tech, and AI—proving the system’s reliability for the highest-stakes missions.

Critics once dismissed Starlink as a rich-person toy or military experiment. Now, it’s the backbone of commercial fleets, private aviation, and the world’s most visible symbol of American power, and it is providing stable internet to travelers.

With over 2,000 commercial aircraft committed and private-jet installations booming, Starlink is rewriting the rules of connected flight, and it seems like each week, a new airline is choosing to use it for on-flight connectivity.

For Air Force One, it’s more than faster Wi-Fi. It’s uninterrupted command-and-control in an increasingly connected world—ensuring the President never has to go dark at altitude. Elon Musk just made sure of it.

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SpaceX unveils sweeping Starship V3 upgrades ahead of May 19 launch

SpaceX has released a detailed list of changes for Starship Version 3, the next iteration of its fully reusable super-heavy-lift vehicle. Scheduled for its maiden flight as early as May 19 from Starbase in Texas, Starship V3 incorporates dozens of redesigns across the Super Heavy booster, Starship upper stage, Raptor 3 engines, and Launch Pad 2.

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SpaceX Starship V3 from Starbase, Texas on April 14, 2026
SpaceX Starship V3 from Starbase, Texas on April 14, 2026

SpaceX has unveiled sweeping upgrades to its Starship v3 rocket ahead of the upcoming May 19 launch.

SpaceX has released a detailed list of changes for Starship Version 3, the next iteration of its fully reusable super-heavy-lift vehicle. Scheduled for its maiden flight as early as May 19 from Starbase in Texas, Starship V3 incorporates dozens of redesigns across the Super Heavy booster, Starship upper stage, Raptor 3 engines, and Launch Pad 2.

Elon Musk reveals date of SpaceX Starship v3’s maiden voyage

The updates focus on simplification, mass reduction, reliability, and enabling core capabilities like rapid reusability, in-orbit refueling, Starlink deployment, and crewed missions to the Moon and Mars.

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Collectively, these modifications mark a major step-change. By reducing dry mass, improving thermal protection, and integrating systems for orbital operations, Starship V3 aims to transition from test vehicle to operational infrastructure.

Here is an explicit, broken-down list of the key changes, first starting with the changes to Super Heavy V3:

  • Grid Fin Redesign: Reduced from four fins to three. Each fin is now 50% larger and stronger, repositioned for better catching and lifting performance. Fins are lowered on the booster to reduce heat exposure during hot staging, with hardware moved inside the fuel tank for protection.
  • Integrated Hot Staging: Eliminates the old disposable interstage shield. The booster dome is now directly exposed to upper-stage engine ignition, protected by tank pressure and steel shielding. Interstage actuators retract after separation.
  • New Fuel Transfer System: Massive redesign of the fuel transfer tube—roughly the size of a Falcon 9 first stage—enables simultaneous startup of all 33 Raptors for faster, more reliable flip maneuvers.
  • Engine Bay / Thermal Protection: Engine shrouds removed entirely; new shielding added between engines. Propulsion and avionics are more tightly integrated. CO₂ fire suppression system deleted for a simpler, lighter aft section.
  • Propellant Loading Improvements: Switched from one quick disconnect to two separate systems for added redundancy and reduced pad complexity.

Next, we have the changes to Starship V3:

  • Completely Redesigned Propulsion System: Clean-sheet redesign supports new Raptor startup, larger propellant volume, and an improved reaction control system while reducing trapped or leaked propellant risk.
  • Aft Section Simplification: Fluid and electrical systems rerouted; engine shrouds and large aft cavity deleted.
  • Flap Actuation Upgrade: Changed from two actuators per flap to one actuator with three motors for better redundancy, mass efficiency, and lower cost.
  • Faster Starlink Deployment: Upgraded PEZ dispenser enables quicker satellite release.
  • Long-Duration Spaceflight Capability: New systems for long orbital coasts, orbital refueling, cryogenic fluid management, vacuum-insulated header tanks, and high-voltage cryogenic recirculation.
  • Ship-to-Ship Docking + Refueling: Four docking drogues and dedicated propellant transfer connections added to support in-space refueling architecture.
  • Avionics Upgrades: 60 custom avionics units with integrated batteries, inverters, and high-voltage systems (9 MW peak power). New multi-sensor navigation for precision autonomous flight. RF sensors measure propellant in microgravity. ~50 onboard camera views and 480 Mbps Starlink connectivity for low-latency communications.

Next are the changes to the Raptor 3 Engine:

  • Higher Thrust: Sea-level Raptors increased from 230 tf (507k lbf) to 250 tf (551k lbf); vacuum Raptors from 258 tf (568k lbf) to 275 tf (606k lbf).
  • Lower Mass: Sea-level engine mass reduced from 1630 kg to 1525 kg.
  • Simpler Design: Sensors and controllers integrated into the engine body; shrouds eliminated; new ignition system for all variants. Results in ~1 ton of vehicle-level weight savings per engine.

Finally, the upgrades to Launch Pad 2 are as follows:

  • Faster propellant loading via larger farm and more pumps.
  • Chopstick improvements: shorter arms, electromechanical actuators (replacing hydraulic) for reliability.
  • Stronger quick-disconnect arm that swings farther away.
  • Redesigned launch mount for better load handling and protection.
  • New bidirectional flame diverter eliminates post-launch ablation and refurbishment.
  • Hardened propellant systems with separated methane/oxygen lines and protected valves/filters.

SpaceX states these elements “are designed to enable a step-change in Starship capabilities and aim to unlock the vehicle’s core functions, including full and rapid reuse, in-space propellant transfer, deployment of Starlink satellites and orbital data centers, and the ability to send people and cargo to the Moon and Mars.”

With these upgrades, Starship V3 is poised for an epic test flight that could accelerate humanity’s multiplanetary future. The rapid pace of iteration underscores SpaceX’s relentless drive toward making life multiplanetary. Launch watchers are in for a spectacular show.

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