News
SpaceX wants to land its BFR spaceships “like a skydiver” on Earth and Mars
Speaking at the company’s Hawthorne factory, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk announced a new strategy for efficiently recovering its next-gen BFR’s upper stage, describing a process where the spaceship would rely on a number of unintuitive techniques to reliably land on planets or moons with appreciable atmospheres (i.e. Mars, Earth, Titan). In essence, BFS would end up gliding towards the surface in free-fall, controlling its orientation much like an Earthly skydiver.
True physics sim: Very high angle of attack during landing. pic.twitter.com/J0HouiUfPg
— NSF – NASASpaceflight.com (@NASASpaceflight) September 18, 2018
Several times throughout the BFR update and private lunar tourism announcement, Musk emphasized just how unintuitive the new procedures would be, stating that “it’s not like anything that people are familiar with – it’s not like an airplane.” His comparison with skydivers is actually rather apt for conveying why this approach is so unusual for a large, flying vehicle like BFR’s spaceship (BFS). Just like skydivers, BFS will have five main control surfaces to control its orientation, pitch, and general dynamics when operating in an atmosphere – two forward fins (like a skydiver’s arms), two rear fins (legs), and a body.
Also like a skydiver, those forward and aft controls are not aerodynamic in the sense of an airplane’s wing or tail fins – in the case of the skydiver and spaceship, they do not generate lift – in pilot and aerospace parlance, a surface that generates no lift is “stalled”. This is likely the main reason that Musk was so intent on conveying his feeling that the spaceship’s new flight regime was unintuitive – in the world of aerospace engineering, particularly for aerodynamicists, intentionally designed stalled control surfaces is almost oxymoronic, akin to an automotive engineer designing a car with square wheels. For all but fighter pilots, stalled aerodynamic surfaces are traditionally avoided like the plague, and can be frequently blamed for aviation-related fatalities.
BFS Update: Thinks they can get to 1100 m3 volume. Actuated fins/flaps. Control surfaces. pic.twitter.com/XNw3Yg0Fcq
— NSF – NASASpaceflight.com (@NASASpaceflight) September 18, 2018
Even to a layperson, the spaceship landing animation shown might look more like a rock uncontrollably plummeting to the ground than an advanced spaceship meant to land humans on Earth, Mars, and beyond. In essence, the proposal Musk laid out on September 17th takes the high-speed reentry characteristics of NASA’s retired Space Shuttle (aerobraking, S-turns, nose-up reentry), adopts a skydiver’s intuitive and efficient aerodynamic control scheme in free-fall, and replaces said skydiver’s parachutes with a group of high-performance rocket engines, as if a skydiver somehow managed to strap rockets to their feet to gently land on the ground.
SpaceX should have little trouble with the latter task thanks to 15 successful vertical landings of Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy boosters (and many more to come), while the spaceship’s Shuttle-style orbital reentry profile may be new for SpaceX but has been tackled successfully in the past by other companies/agencies. Free-falling to a successful landing with permanently stalled control surfaces, however, will undoubtedly demand an extensive test campaign in Earth’s atmosphere before SpaceX even thinks of placing humans on the craft, something that Musk foreshadowed in a 2017 Reddit AMA focused on BFR.
“Will be starting with a full-scale Ship doing short hops of a few hundred kilometers altitude and lateral distance. Those are fairly easy on the vehicle as no heat shield is needed.” – Elon Musk, October 2017
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- (SpaceX)
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- BFS seen standing vertically on the pads of its tripod fins. (SpaceX)
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- BFR’s spaceship and booster (now Starship and Super Heavy) separate in a mid-2018 render of the vehicle. (SpaceX)
BFR’s design and the spaceship’s recovery profile may change further over the next 6-12 months, given that the team’s unintuitive freefall realization seems to be a fresh addition to the Mars rocket. Nevertheless, Musk and COO Gwynne Shotwell have publicly stated that they believe Grasshopper-style spaceship hop tests could commence as early as late 2019 or early 2020, with the first orbital BFR launches starting soon after in the 2020/2021 timeframe.
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Elon Musk
Elon Musk’s xAI celebrates nearly 3,000 headcount at Memphis site
The update came in a post from the xAI Memphis account on social media platform X.
xAI has announced that it now employs nearly 3,000 people in Memphis, marking more than two years of local presence in the city amid the company’s supercomputing efforts.
The update came in a post from the xAI Memphis account on social media platform X.
In a post on X, xAI’s Memphis branch stated it has been part of the community for over two years and now employs “almost 3,000 locally to help power Grok.” The post was accompanied by a photo of the xAI Memphis team posing for a rather fun selfie.
“xAI is proud to be a member of the Memphis community for over two years. We now employ almost 3,000 locally to help power @Grok. From electricians to engineers, cooks to construction — we’re grateful for everyone on our team!” the xAI Memphis’ official X account wrote.
xAI’s Memphis facilities are home to Grok’s foundational supercomputing infrastructure, including Colossus, a large-scale AI training cluster designed to support the company’s advanced models. The site, located in South Memphis, was announced in 2024 as the home of one of the world’s largest AI compute facilities.
The first phase of Colossus was built out in record time, reaching its initial 100,000 GPU operational status in just 122 days. Industry experts such as Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang noted that this was significantly faster than the typical 2-to-4-year timeline for similar projects.
xAI chose Memphis for its supercomputing operations because of the city’s central location, skilled workforce, and existing industrial infrastructure, as per the company’s statements about its commitment to the region. The initiative aims to create hundreds of permanent jobs, partner with local businesses, and contribute to economic and educational efforts across the area.
Colossus is intended to support a full training pipeline for Grok and future models, with xAI planning to scale the site to millions of GPUs.
News
Ford embraces Tesla-style gigacastings and Cybertruck’s 48V architecture
Ford Motor Company’s next-generation electric vehicles will adopt technologies that were first commercialized by the Tesla Cybertruck.
Ford Motor Company’s next-generation electric vehicles will adopt technologies that were first commercialized by the Tesla Cybertruck, such as the brutalist all-electric pickup’s 48-volt electrical architecture and its gigacastings.
The shift is expected to start with a roughly $30,000 small electric pickup that is expected to be released in 2027, which is part of Ford’s $5 billion investment in its new Universal EV platform, as noted in a CNBC report.
Ford confirmed that its upcoming EV platform will move away from the traditional 12-volt system long used across the auto industry. Instead, it will implement a 48-volt electrical architecture that draws power directly from the vehicle’s high-voltage battery.
Tesla was the first automaker to bring a 48-volt system to U.S. consumers with the Cybertruck in 2023. The architecture reduces wiring bulk, lowers weight, and improves electrical efficiency. It also allows power to be stepped down to 12 volts through new electronic control units when needed.
Alan Clarke, Ford’s executive director of advanced EV development and a former Tesla engineer, called 48-volt systems “the future of automotive” due to their lower costs and smaller wiring requirements. Ford stated that the wiring harness in its new pickup will be more than 4,000 feet shorter and 22 pounds lighter than that of its first-generation electric SUV.
Apart from the Cybertruck’s 48-volt architecture, Ford is also embracing Tesla-style gigacastings for its next-generation EVs. Ford stated that its upcoming electric vehicle will use just two major structural front and rear castings, compared with 146 comparable components in the current gas-powered Maverick.
Ford CEO Jim Farley has described the effort as a “bet” and a “Model T moment” for the company, arguing that system-level innovation is necessary to lower costs and compete globally. “At Ford, we took on the challenge many others have stopped doing. We’re taking the fight to our competition, including the Chinese,” Farley previously stated.
Energy
Tesla meets Giga New York’s Buffalo job target amid political pressures
Giga New York reported more than 3,460 statewide jobs at the end of 2025, meeting the benchmark tied to its dollar-a-year lease.
Tesla has surpassed its job commitments at Giga New York in Buffalo, easing pressure from lawmakers who threatened the company with fines, subsidy clawbacks, and dealership license revocations last year.
The company reported more than 3,460 statewide jobs at the end of 2025, meeting the benchmark tied to its dollar-a-year lease at the state-built facility.
As per an employment report reviewed by local media, Tesla employed 2,399 full-time workers at Gigafactory New York and 1,060 additional employees across the state at the end of 2025. Part-time roles pushed the total headcount of Tesla’s New York staff above the 3,460-job target.
The gains stemmed in part from a new Long Island service center, a Buffalo warehouse, and additional showrooms in White Plains and Staten Island. Tesla also said it has invested $350 million in supercomputing infrastructure at the site and has begun manufacturing solar panels.
Empire State Development CEO Hope Knight said the agency was “very happy” with Giga New York’s progress, as noted in a WXXI report. The current lease runs through 2029, and negotiations over updated terms have included potential adjustments to job requirements and future rent payments.
Some lawmakers remain skeptical, however. Assemblymember Pat Burke questioned whether the reported job figures have been fully verified. State Sen. Patricia Fahy has also continued to sponsor legislation that would revoke Tesla’s company-owned dealership licenses in New York. John Kaehny of Reinvent Albany has argued that the project has not delivered the manufacturing impact originally promised as well.
Knight, for her part, maintained that Empire State Development has been making the best of a difficult situation.
“(Empire State Development) has tried to make the best of a very difficult situation. There hasn’t been another use that has come forward that would replace this one, and so to the extent that we’re in this place, the fact that 2,000 families at (Giga New York) are being supported through the activity of this employer. It’s the best that we can have happen,” the CEO noted.
Elon Musk’s xAI celebrates nearly 3,000 headcount at Memphis site
Ford embraces Tesla-style gigacastings and Cybertruck’s 48V architecture
