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SpaceX is searching for BFR landing sites for early 2020s Mars missions

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7 years ago

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SpaceX Principal Mars Development Engineer Paul Wooster gave a surprise talk at a February 2018 meeting of the Mars Exploration Program Analysis Group, where he provided a brief overview of SpaceX’s plans for the Red Planet, ranging from prospective landing sites for the company’s first missions there to the possibility of including significant secondary payloads on BFR and Falcon Heavy launches.

Wooster reiterated that SpaceX is still targeting the early 2020s for its first true BFR missions to Mars, perhaps less than five years from today. He further discussed prospective landing locations on the planet, emphasizing a need for a smooth landing site, easy access to on or near-surface water ice, and a preference for the warmer and more forgiving mid and low (equatorial) latitudes. A huge amount of work admittedly remains before the company before those missions are even remotely conceivable, especially missions with crew onboard.

A Crew BFS (Big F____ Spaceship) pictured landing on Mars. (SpaceX)

If/when SpaceX successfully debuts its Crew Dragon spacecraft and demonstrates the ability to reliably and safely transport humans to and from orbit, a huge amount of the risk currently innate in any long-term interplanetary transport and colony creation will be definitively retired, transforming several of the major problems at hand from clean-slate tech development to optimizing and scaling up functional first-generation designs and hardware.

Crew Dragon’s official uncrewed demonstration debut (DM-1) and perhaps the crewed demonstration follow-on mission (DM-2) will likely have real launch dates announced later this week in an August 3 NASA press conference. Reliable sources have pegged those dates around October-December for DM-1 and 3-6 months later for DM-2

 

Nevertheless, SpaceX is demonstrably hard at work designing and building BFR‘s booster, spaceship, and tanker and is moving quickly in the direction of full-scale engineering and production. Much of that prototype manufacturing happens to be taking place in a temporary tent installed in a Port of Los Angeles parking lot near the end of 2017. According to one source engaged in the work there, SpaceX technicians and engineers have already begun rolling out preliminary materials and engineering samples of carbon composite structures and propellant tanks with the massive manufacturing tools (one known as a mandrel) temporarily housed inside.

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An overview of SpaceX’s Port of LA tent, April 2018. While not confirmed, SpaceX seems to intend to begin early BFR prototype construction at the temporary facility. (Pauline Acalin)

Just a few miles away, the company is busy preparing a construction site for a permanent BFR factory on a plot of Port of Los Angeles land known as Berth 240. The smaller Phase 1 of that BFR factory is expected to be completed roughly a year after construction begins, placing the inauguration of the dedicated facility sometime around the middle of 2019. Suborbital launches of the massive rocket’s upper stage spaceship are expected in 2019, while orbital launches of BFR are NET 2020.

Read the full summary of Mr. Wooster’s presentation below.

“A walk-on presentation was given by Paul Wooster of SpaceX which highlighted the recent successful test of the Falcon Heavy launch vehicle with its potentially very large payload capacity (100 metric tons). Using the Falcon Heavy and development of an even larger Big Falcon Rocket (BFR) launcher are the basis of their ambitious plans for the future exploration and colonization of Mars, potentially launching missions to Mars within the early 2020s. SpaceX’s current landing site candidates for Mars were shown, having been chosen to provide access to near-surface ice, few landing site hazards (such as large rocks), and enough space for potentially growing a sizeable outpost. The ice sites are in high mid-latitudes and the search for lower latitude candidates, which are preferred, continues. Previously, MEPAG had been told that SpaceX could transport for-fee payloads to the Mars surface. In response to questions, Paul iterated that there is likely to be capacity for secondary payloads on either the Falcon Heavy or BFR launchers, although details remain to be negotiated once the launcher capabilities are firmly established.”

For prompt updates, on-the-ground perspectives, and unique glimpses of SpaceX’s rocket recovery fleet (including fairing catcher Mr Steven) check out our brand new LaunchPad and LandingZone newsletters!

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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 releases cryptic teaser for something massive and it’s coming this week

On Sunday morning, Tesla released a nine-second teaser video of what appears to be either a vehicle wheel, fan, or some sort of propeller, but there are no real clues as to what it could be exactly.

Published

3 hours ago

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October 5, 2025

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Credit: Tesla

Tesla has released a cryptic teaser for something massive, and it will release details on it this week. With many different projects in the works, there is a lot of speculation going on about what it could potentially be, but we have a few ideas.

On Sunday morning, Tesla released a nine-second teaser video of what appears to be either a vehicle wheel, fan, or some sort of propeller, but there are no real clues as to what it could be exactly.

It then ends with “10/7,” meaning it will announce something on October 7, which is this Tuesday:

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Given that Tesla has been working on a handful of pretty notable projects that are set for unveiling at the end of this year, and there are some clues that seem to point in their direction with this short teaser video.

There are two projects that come to mind almost immediately: the Tesla Roadster is one, and the “E41” or affordable model is the other. Here’s what we know about both:

Tesla Roadster Demo Event

Tesla said earlier this year that it would have a demo event for the Roadster to unveil some new technologies and show off what it has been working on over the past few years.

There have been a lot of crazy things in the works for the Roadster, including a SpaceX package that would use cold-gas thrusters for an insane 1.1-second 0-60 MPH acceleration rate. This package was also supposed to help it hover, something CEO Elon Musk has teased for the past few years.

The Roadster was ready for release earlier this year, but after Chief Designer Franz von Holzhausen and VP of Powertrain Lars Moravy showed Musk what they had come up with, he wanted more.

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Moravy said on the Ride the Lightning podcast earlier this year:

“What we had come up with exceeded what we originally planned. So, Elon was like, ‘Wow, great. Let’s do more!’”

The Roadster event was coined as “the most epic demo,” and since it was planned for the end of 2025, it is totally feasible to believe this could be it.

Elon Musk teases Tesla’s “most epic demo” by end of year

Tesla ‘E41’ Affordable Model

Some believe the teaser could be the official launch of Tesla’s affordable model, which Musk said earlier this year is simply a stripped down Model Y.

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There have been some sightings of this vehicle in the past few weeks, including one on Friday that showed the vehicle completely uncovered for the first time:

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The launch of the affordable model makes sense, especially from a timing perspective. With the $7,500 EV tax credit officially coming to a close on September 30, many are wondering how Tesla will spark growth in its deliveries. A more affordable EV would be the perfect response, and it is something that Tesla has been working on for some time.

Other Potential Ideas

There are some pretty interesting ideas as to what the teaser could be apart from the Roadster or affordable model. Some believe it could be a cooling fan for a GPU cluster, which would make sense considering Tesla’s prowess in data.

Grok also made an interesting guess, stating it could be a propeller for a secret air taxi Tesla is developing. This seems sort of our of left field.

We do know Tesla hosted a handful of influencers at Gigafactory Texas this past week, so whatever the company showed them is likely what will be unveiled on Tuesday.

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Tesla Optimus is learning martial arts in new video teasing capabilities

For the past few months, Tesla has been refining its capabilities and making some serious progress on what Optimus is capable of. This morning, Musk released a new video showing Optimus learning Kung Fu, perhaps its most impressive feat yet.

Published

19 hours ago

on

October 4, 2025

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Credit: Elon Musk | X

Tesla Optimus is learning martial arts, a new video released by CEO Elon Musk shows, a crazy development and advancement in the robotics project the company has been working on for a few years.

Optimus has been a major focus of Tesla for the past several years, especially as Musk has said he believes it will be the biggest product of all time and could be the biggest contributor to the company’s valuation.

For the past few months, Tesla has been refining its capabilities and making some serious progress on what Optimus is capable of. This morning, Musk released a new video showing Optimus learning Kung Fu, perhaps its most impressive feat yet:

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The video shows Optimus working with a Kung Fu teacher, known as a Shifu, going through what appears to be some sort of routine of combinations. It’s quite impressive to see the fluidity of the movements and Optimus’s ability to keep up with Shifu.

Tesla has been “working hard” to scale Optimus production, Musk said last week, a project that has obviously confronted both AI and manufacturing teams with a variety of challenges.

The plan is to have an annual production run-rate of one million units by 2030, and there were plans to build 5,000 units this year.

Elon Musk gives update on Tesla Optimus progress

Musk still believes Optimus will make up roughly 80 percent of Tesla’s value. In January, he said it would be “overwhelmingly the value of the company.”

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Tesla plans to launch the Gen 3 version of Optimus soon, and although a video of a new-look prototype was released by Marc Benioff, the CEO of Salesforce, the company’s frontman stated that this was not what the next-generation prototype would look like.

Elon Musk confirms Tesla has never shown Optimus V3 design yet

This video seems to show there is still significant progress being made on the Optimus project, and it will be perhaps one of the most impressive humanoid robots available to consumers in the coming years.

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Tesla Full Self-Driving v14 gets new release date, Elon Musk details

“Last minute bug cropped up with V14. Released is pushed to Monday, but that gives us time to add a few more features.”

Published

1 day ago

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October 4, 2025

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Credit: Tesla

Tesla’s Full Self-Driving version 14 has gotten a new release date after new details from CEO Elon Musk opened up some new perspectives on the suite.

Originally slated for an “early wide release” of v14 this past week, then a launch of v14.1 and v14.2 this week and next week, respectively, delays arose after Tesla’s Autopilot team found some issues within the software.

Tesla FSD V14 set for early wide release next week: Elon Musk

Musk detailed on X this morning that a “last minute bug” appeared before release, which has now pushed FSD v14’s release back to this Monday:

Musk also said the delay would give Tesla the ability to “add a few more features,” which seems like an added advantage, although he did not provide any additional details on what these features could be.

In classic Musk fashion, he has teased the capabilities of this version of the FSD suite since it became public knowledge that Tesla was working on it. He said that it is the second most important update for the AI/Autopilot team since FSD v12.

V14 will have a parameter count that is ten times what previous iterations were, which should provide more accuracy and a more human-like operation.

Musk has said v14 “feels alive” and has used the word “sentient” to describe its performance. The goal with the new FSD rollouts is to eliminate as many interventions as possible, making it as close to human driving as possible.

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