Connect with us

News

Elon Musk to attend “Starship Career Day” in Texas as SpaceX seeks FCC approval ahead of test flight

Published

on

Elon Musk will be headed to a SpaceX “Starship Career Day” event at its Boca Chica facility in Texas on Thursday, as the company prepares its next-generation Starship spacecraft for its first high-altitude test flight.

The California-based aerospace company is looking to shore up its production staff to allow for four shifts for 24/7 operations. Engineers, supervisors, and support staff are also welcome, but the focus is on reinforcing the production crew. The company is looking for people with “super hardcore work ethic, talent for building things, common sense, and trustworthiness” and will provide training. Interested applicants can send their resumes to buildstarship@spacex.com, notes Musk via Twitter.

The call for new staff follows a recent document filed with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) that reveals SpaceX is seeking permission to use communications for a test flight that will take the Starship SN1 prototype to an altitude of 20 kilometers (12.4 miles) as early as March 16. The FCC will be responsible for approving SpaceX for the use of radio frequencies in communicating with the Starship prototype during the experimental flight.

The test flight will launch from SpaceX’s launch pad in Boca Chica, with an attempt to land the vehicle safely on the ground using its Raptor engines. It’s worth noting that such applications filed with the FCC can take some time before approval, which means the actual date of the test flight could go as far as September 16.

Starship production hasn’t always gone according to schedule. Musk previously announced that a Starship prototype would be ready to go on a test flight or even into orbit as early as 2019. SpaceX missed the mark on those targets, but in July 2019, the company successfully flew a sub-scale prototype called Starhopper to a 500-feet altitude before landing it safely back on the ground.

Later in the year, another prototype, Starship Mk1, blew its top off during an explosive tank test, prompting SpaceX to use another vehicle altogether instead of restoring the former ship. Earlier this year, SpaceX successfully completed two more pressure tests conducted on the steel Starship tank prototypes, proving that Starship’s tanks are now structurally sound and ready to launch into orbit.

Advertisement

I write about science and technology that changes the world.

Advertisement
Comments

Elon Musk

Tesla owners surpass 8 billion miles driven on FSD Supervised

Tesla shared the milestone as adoption of the system accelerates across several markets.

Published

on

Credit: Tesla

Tesla owners have now driven more than 8 billion miles using Full Self-Driving Supervised, as per a new update from the electric vehicle maker’s official X account. 

Tesla shared the milestone as adoption of the system accelerates across several markets.

“Tesla owners have now driven >8 billion miles on FSD Supervised,” the company wrote in its post on X. Tesla also included a graphic showing FSD Supervised’s miles driven before a collision, which far exceeds that of the United States average. 

The growth curve of FSD Supervised’s cumulative miles over the past five years has been notable. As noted in data shared by Tesla watcher Sawyer Merritt, annual FSD (Supervised) miles have increased from roughly 6 million in 2021 to 80 million in 2022, 670 million in 2023, 2.25 billion in 2024, and 4.25 billion in 2025. In just the first 50 days of 2026, Tesla owners logged another 1 billion miles.

Advertisement

At the current pace, the fleet is trending towards hitting about 10 billion FSD Supervised miles this year. The increase has been driven by Tesla’s growing vehicle fleet, periodic free trials, and expanding Robotaxi operations, among others.

Tesla also recently updated the safety data for FSD Supervised on its website, covering North America across all road types over the latest 12-month period.

As per Tesla’s figures, vehicles operating with FSD Supervised engaged recorded one major collision every 5,300,676 miles. In comparison, Teslas driven manually with Active Safety systems recorded one major collision every 2,175,763 miles, while Teslas driven manually without Active Safety recorded one major collision every 855,132 miles. The U.S. average during the same period was one major collision every 660,164 miles.

During the measured period, Tesla reported 830 total major collisions with FSD (Supervised) engaged, compared to 16,131 collisions for Teslas driven manually with Active Safety and 250 collisions for Teslas driven manually without Active Safety. Total miles logged exceeded 4.39 billion miles for FSD (Supervised) during the same timeframe.

Advertisement
Continue Reading

Elon Musk

The Boring Company’s Music City Loop gains unanimous approval

After eight months of negotiations, MNAA board members voted unanimously on Feb. 18 to move forward with the project.

Published

on

The-boring-company-vegas-loop-chinatown
(Credit: The Boring Company)

The Metro Nashville Airport Authority (MNAA) has approved a 40-year agreement with Elon Musk’s The Boring Company to build the Music City Loop, a tunnel system linking Nashville International Airport to downtown. 

After eight months of negotiations, MNAA board members voted unanimously on Feb. 18 to move forward with the project. Under the terms, The Boring Company will pay the airport authority an annual $300,000 licensing fee for the use of roughly 933,000 square feet of airport property, with a 3% annual increase.

Over 40 years, that totals to approximately $34 million, with two optional five-year extensions that could extend the term to 50 years, as per a report from The Tennesean.

The Boring Company celebrated the Music City Loop’s approval in a post on its official X account. “The Metropolitan Nashville Airport Authority has unanimously (7-0) approved a Music City Loop connection/station. Thanks so much to @Fly_Nashville for the great partnership,” the tunneling startup wrote in its post. 

Advertisement

Once operational, the Music City Loop is expected to generate a $5 fee per airport pickup and drop-off, similar to rideshare charges. Airport officials estimate more than $300 million in operational revenue over the agreement’s duration, though this projection is deemed conservative.

“This is a significant benefit to the airport authority because we’re receiving a new way for our passengers to arrive downtown at zero capital investment from us. We don’t have to fund the operations and maintenance of that. TBC, The Boring Co., will do that for us,” MNAA President and CEO Doug Kreulen said. 

The project has drawn both backing and criticism. Business leaders cited economic benefits and improved mobility between downtown and the airport. “Hospitality isn’t just an amenity. It’s an economic engine,” Strategic Hospitality’s Max Goldberg said.

Opponents, including state lawmakers, raised questions about environmental impacts, worker safety, and long-term risks. Sen. Heidi Campbell said, “Safety depends on rules applied evenly without exception… You’re not just evaluating a tunnel. You’re evaluating a risk, structural risk, legal risk, reputational risk and financial risk.”

Advertisement
Continue Reading

Elon Musk

Tesla announces crazy new Full Self-Driving milestone

The number of miles traveled has contextual significance for two reasons: one being the milestone itself, and another being Tesla’s continuing progress toward 10 billion miles of training data to achieve what CEO Elon Musk says will be the threshold needed to achieve unsupervised self-driving.

Published

on

Credit: Tesla

Tesla has announced a crazy new Full Self-Driving milestone, as it has officially confirmed drivers have surpassed over 8 billion miles traveled using the Full Self-Driving (Supervised) suite for semi-autonomous travel.

The FSD (Supervised) suite is one of the most robust on the market, and is among the safest from a data perspective available to the public.

On Wednesday, Tesla confirmed in a post on X that it has officially surpassed the 8 billion-mile mark, just a few months after reaching 7 billion cumulative miles, which was announced on December 27, 2025.

The number of miles traveled has contextual significance for two reasons: one being the milestone itself, and another being Tesla’s continuing progress toward 10 billion miles of training data to achieve what CEO Elon Musk says will be the threshold needed to achieve unsupervised self-driving.

The milestone itself is significant, especially considering Tesla has continued to gain valuable data from every mile traveled. However, the pace at which it is gathering these miles is getting faster.

Secondly, in January, Musk said the company would need “roughly 10 billion miles of training data” to achieve safe and unsupervised self-driving. “Reality has a super long tail of complexity,” Musk said.

Training data primarily means the fleet’s accumulated real-world miles that Tesla uses to train and improve its end-to-end AI models. This data captures the “long tail” — extremely rare, complex, or unpredictable situations that simulations alone cannot fully replicate at scale.

This is not the same as the total miles driven on Full Self-Driving, which is the 8 billion miles milestone that is being celebrated here.

The FSD-supervised miles contribute heavily to the training data, but the 10 billion figure is an estimate of the cumulative real-world exposure needed overall to push the system to human-level reliability.

Continue Reading