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iRobot is going outdoors with an autonomous Roomba lawn mower with smart mapping tech
Mowing the lawn can quickly get in the way of summer fun, just like vacuuming and mopping interfere with just about anything else you might rather be doing. Never fear, iRobot, the company that brought you the Roomba robotic vacuum cleaner and Braava electronic mop, has been listening. Yesterday, the robotic chore solution company announced its launch of Terra, an intelligent lawn mower ready to do your outdoor bidding. According to iRobot’s press release, it will be on sale in Germany and the US, the latter being through a beta program only; however, no exact release date has been provided.
To accomplish its yard travels, iRobot’s Imprint Smart Mapping technology, which is arguably one of the features that made Roomba so popular, has been incorporated into Terra’s functionality. The new grass buster also has some other convenience features in common with its indoor cousins: It recharges on its own by returning to a docking base and can be controlled via an app on either a smartphone or digital assistant. For its more unique features, Terra’s designers relied on the current masters of lawn care for inspiration: humans.
Rather than follow any sort of random get-it-done movement path a Roomba might follow to clean a floor, Terra has a preprogrammed pattern modeled after the straight, back-and-forth lines typically used for mowing. If the battery is running low, the robot returns to its base to recharge, picking up where it left off until its task is complete. The grass cut length is also programmable for heights of about 1″ to about 2.5″, but it should be noted that Terra’s function focus being on maintenance over heavy cut jobs.
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- The new iRobot Terra robotic lawn mower. | Credit: iRobot Corp.
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- The new iRobot Terra robotic lawn mower during install. | Credit: iRobot Corp.
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- Beacons used when installing iRobot’s Terra robot lawn mower. | Credit: iRobot Corp.
The weather isn’t lost on this outdoor helper, either. Terra has been designed with rugged features so that rainy conditions – and by extension, tough terrain – will not prevent it from doing its job. As for grass clippings? There aren’t any or at least any that need to be hauled off to the trash like classic lawn mowers. Sliced blades of grass are refined into tiny mulch bits that double as fertilizer.
Of course, iRobot isn’t the first company to venture into automated lawn maintenance solutions. Swedish manufacturer Husqvarna’s Automower robotically maintains lawns using frequent trips around a programmed area, naturally fertilizes soil with miniscule clippings, mows any time of day and in inclement weather, resists theft with a built-in alarm, and is controlled via app using smartphone or digital assistant. It uses an installed boundary line for yard area detection, however, making set-up more complicated than regular operation. German outdoor product manufacturer GARDENA and Wisconsin-based McCullough Motors have their own lawn robots as well – the SILENO and ROB R1000, respectively, with similar features as well as a required boundary line.
After a survey of the lawn robot market, iRobot took aim to eliminate costly and labor-intensive ground wiring which is required to operate other auto mowers. For Terra, the company developed a wireless communications system incorporating standalone beacons, enabling users to simply program their lawn’s boundary line after placing the beacons around their yard. The intelligent detection software developed by iRobot for its other robotic household helpers combined with a simpler installation process may just give the company an edge over its established competitors in the lawn bot arena.
Read iRobot’s full Terra Press Release.
SpaceX has announced a new target date for the thirteenth test flight of Starship: Monday, July 20, with the launch window opening at 6:45 p.m ET/5:45 p.m. CT.
This is the first rescheduling attempt of Starship’s 13th test flight. It was set to launch last night, but SpaceX scrubbed the launch attempt.
🚨 SpaceX is now looking at Monday, July 20th at 6:45 p.m ET/5:45 p.m. CT for the 13th test flight of Starship pic.twitter.com/7s8aMJV5Ge
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) July 17, 2026
CEO Elon Musk revealed that some of the engines on Starship did not start, which automatically triggers a launch abort. Two of the Raptor engines will be removed and replaced.
To be confident of a good flight, 2 Raptors will be removed & replaced. Most probable launch timing is early next week.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 17, 2026
SpaceX officially announced the new launch window this morning.
Starship’s 13th test launch comes with a few new objectives, but SpaceX does not plan to attempt a catch of the booster, which it has done several times in the past.
For Starship’s Upper Stage, there are some adjustments to ensure engine reusability that will be assessed during the ascent, and 20 operational Starlink V3 satellites are also set to make their way into space. SpaceX also plans to attempt an in-space relight of a single Raptor engine, which is a critical demonstration for future orbital deorbit, refueling, and deep space maneuvers.
Ultimately, it will splash down in the Indian Ocean.
The continuous tests help SpaceX advance the Starship program toward eventual full reusability, operational Starlink V3 deployment, and future missions, which include NASA’s Artemis program.
Elon Musk
SpaceX Starship Flight 13 aborted at Zero and Musk just told us what broke
Four Raptor engines failed to ignite at T-zero, forcing SpaceX to scrub Starship Flight 13 Thursday.
SpaceX scrubbed the Starship Flight 13 launch attempt Thursday evening at the last possible moment, after four of the Super Heavy booster’s 33 Raptor 3 engines failed to ignite during the startup sequence. The 90-minute window had opened at 6:45 p.m. EDT from Starbase in Boca Chica, Texas, and the countdown had proceeded without issue all day, with more than 11.5 million pounds of liquid methane and liquid oxygen being fully loaded into the rocket before the automated abort triggered. SpaceX’s launch directors posted on X, “Standing down from today’s flight test attempt,” and shut down the livestream shortly after.
Musk confirmed the root cause within hours. “Some of the engines didn’t start, triggering an automatic launch abort,” he wrote on X. “To be confident of a good flight, 2 Raptors will be removed and replaced. Most probable launch timing is early next week.” SpaceX engineers began draining propellant tanks immediately and Booster 20 was rolled back to its hangar for inspection.
The timing adds a layer of significance that did not exist during any of the previous 12 Starship flights. This is the first time SpaceX has attempted to launch Starship since the company made its stock market debut in June, listing under ticker SPCX at $135 per share. Public investors are now watching every Starship outcome in real time, and a last-second abort carries more visibility than it would have six months ago.
Flight 13 was designed to be one of the most consequential tests in the program’s history. It was set to carry 20 Starlink V3 satellites, the first operational payload Starship has ever attempted to deploy. Six of those satellites carried external cameras to photograph Starship’s heat shield from the outside during flight, which would act as a self-inspection approach SpaceX has never attempted before. The mission also needed to complete a Raptor engine relight in space, a step SpaceX skipped on Flight 12 in May after losing an engine during ascent. That Flight 12 booster also flipped 90 degrees off course during its boostback burn when five engines failed to reignite.
SpaceX has not announced an official next launch date. Musk’s “early next week” window points to July 21 or 22 at the earliest, pending the engine swap and a return to the pad.
Elon Musk flew under the radar with his recent purchase of a $1 billion energy company, according to Federal Trade Commission (FTC) documents.
Transaction number 202612350 listed Tesla and SpaceX frontman Elon Musk as the acquiring party and CF APR Super Holdings LLC as the seller, with New APR Energy, LLC as the acquired entity. The deal, which closed without public announcement, came to light on May 14.
BREAKING: Elon Musk acquires Jacksonville power company APR Energy in a deal valued at more than $1,000,000,000.00.
— Polymarket Money (@PolymarketMoney) July 15, 2026
Analysts inferred the deal’s scale from minority stakeholder disclosures, including one report of a 5 percent interest sold for approximately $50.4 million. Fortress Investment Group had purchased APR’s assets in late 2024, rebranded the operation as New APR Energy, and subsequently transferred ownership to Musk.
APR Energy specializes in rapidly deployable power infrastructure. The company maintains one of the world’s largest fleets of mobile gas and diesel turbines, with more than 1.1 gigawatts of generation capacity. Its modular units, which are often trailer-mounted, enable turnkey installations ranging from 20 MW to over 500 MW.
APR provides full engineering, procurement, construction, operation, and maintenance services for behind-the-meter power plants, serving everything from data centers, utilities, and industrial clients.
The firm has expanded aggressively to meet surging demand, recently adding turbines and deploying over 100 MW for a major AI hyperscaler. Its solutions bridge critical gaps where grid interconnections face delays of two to five years, according to Yahoo.
The acquisition means something more for Musk. As he continues to expand projects in artificial intelligence, especially xAI, his AI venture, there is a greater need to supply energy-intensive supercomputing clusters, including the Colossus project, with what they need: reliable and high-capacity power.
Ownership of APR provides immediate access to flexible generation assets that can be deployed adjacent to data centers, reducing dependence on a strained infrastructure. It also complements Tesla’s energy storage business, so Musk will be able to pull from his own entities to address the rapid scaling demands of AI training and compute.
SpaceX announces new Starship 13 test flight target date
SpaceX Starship Flight 13 aborted at Zero and Musk just told us what broke
