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SpaceX debuts Starship’s new Super Heavy booster design

Starship lifts off atop a massive Super Heavy booster, featuring six landing legs and up to 37 Raptor engines. (SpaceX)

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7 years ago

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Speaking on Saturday night (Sept. 28th) at the base of the SpaceX’s Starship Mk1 prototype in Boca Chica, Texas, CEO Elon Musk delivered an update on the progress the company is making with Starship and its Super Heavy booster, including the first renders of the massive first stage’s new steel design.

In the 2019 design update Musk stated that the booster will match Starship in diameter at 9m (~29.5ft) and will feature a multi-engine design, colossal grid fins, and six landing legs. Super Heavy will stand 68m (223 ft) tall and weigh up to 3300 tons when fully loaded with liquid oxygen and methane propellant.

While Super Heavy is designed to support up to 37 Raptor engines, it is meant to be reconfigurable and ideally will only require 24 – 31 Raptor engines. According to Musk, the booster is actually designed to add or subtract engines as necessary based on payload demands and launching conditions, while also adding the benefit of massive redundancy in the event of mid-flight engine failure(s).

The most critical component for the booster, according to Musk, is that there is “a lot of force pushing up.” He states that to launch Starship, the Super Heavy booster would ideally produce roughly 7500 tons of thrust – about twice the thrust of that of a Saturn V rocket. For a reusable rocket design – such as with the Super Heavy booster – a high thrust to weight ratio (about 1.5 : 1) is a necessity for efficient operation.

Additionally, Musk briefly spotlighted other design adjustments including a change in grid fin design and the configuration of the landing legs. Many of the principles that have been flight-proven with Falcon 9 boosters – such as the use of grid fins and landing legs – will be carried over and scaled up with the Super Heavy booster.

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Currently, the titanium grid fins used Falcon 9/Heavy boosters are square, whereas Super Heavy – requiring far larger control surfaces – will instead feature diamond-shaped grid fins that Musk said “works better.”

As seen in the animation of the Super Heavy – Starship launch, the booster is expected to perform a flip after first stage separation to return back to land at (or close to) the launch site, just like a Falcon 9. Musk explains that the aerodynamic shrouds covering the booster’s landing legs will serve no functional, lift-producing purpose. However, unlike Falcon 9 landing legs that retract only moments before touchdown, Super Heavy’s landing legs will be fixed, aside from – perhaps – some mild shock absorption capabilities.

Starship Mk1 stands vertical in Boca Chica, Texas ahead of Musk’s September 28th presentation. (Teslarati – Eric Ralph)

Musk seems confident that both Super Heavy and Starship will begin operation to support orbital flights relatively soon. The Super Heavy booster will support Starship launches from pads in Boca Chica, Texas and at Cape Canaveral, Florida’s Launch Complex 39A as early as six months from now. The Starship Mk1 prototype is expected to begin an aggressive flight-test campaign to altitudes of at least 20km (65,000ft) within the next 1-2 months, according to Musk.

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Investor's Corner

Lucid denies rumors of bankruptcy after over 40% stock drop

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1 hour ago

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July 14, 2026

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Credit: Lucid

Electric vehicle maker Lucid Group has denied rumors of an imminent bankruptcy after a report from this morning sent the stock on a dramatic drop on Wall Street, seeing losses of more than 40 percent during trading hours.

Lucid’s Director of Communications, Nick Twork, responded to the report from Eletric-Vehicles.com, which stated the company’s restructuring advisor, AlixPartners, was asked to review two decisions: taking Lucid shares private or filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.

The report also claims AlixPartners told the Lucid board to “concentrate on Gravity production while improving its quality, and to temporarily hold back the Lucid Air, the sedan that has defined the company since its launch.”

Twork said:

Shares rebounded after the response to the report, halving its losses as the trading day neared 3 p.m. Eastern.

Lucid has struggled to get its sales off the ground and into more respectable numbers, but the company is in its early years, when things are hard to begin with. It is also backed by several notable investors, including the Saudi Public Investment Fund (PIF), which has nearly limitless money and likely would not ditch an investment of this size so soon.

Lucid shares were down just 14 percent at the time of publication, a far cry from the 55 percent its losses topped out at during the day.

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Tesla owner attempts resale of Model S Signature Edition for over $260k

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5 hours ago

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July 14, 2026

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Credit: Tesla

A Tesla owner who purchased a Model S Signature Edition, one of the final 250 units of the all-electric flagship vehicle that the company discontinued earlier this year, is attempting to sell the car despite a no-resale clause that prohibits reselling for the first year.

The car is being sold by J&S Autohaus in Ewing, New Jersey, and is priced at $260,490, well above the $159,420 that Tesla sold it for earlier this year.

To those who do not know, the Model S Signature was a highly exclusive, limited-run farewell variant of the Model S Plaid that was produced this year to mark the end of production of both the Model S and Model X, Tesla’s two flagship vehicles.

Limited to just 250 units with invite-only sales, it serves as a collector’s item celebrating the legacy of the Model S, which helped pioneer Tesla’s electric vehicle success since its 2012 launch.

It bundles top-tier performance with bespoke cosmetic and luxury upgrades, plus Tesla’s Luxe Package. Here’s what the Model S Signature has over the typical Model S Plaid:

  • Exclusive Exterior – Unique Garnet Red Paint, matching door handles, gold Tesla “T” badges upfront, gold Plaid and Signature badging at the rear.
  • Premium Interior – White Alcantara upholstery with gold piping/accents, gold Plaid seat badges, Signature-marked door sills, individually numbered dashboard plaque, gold puddle lights, special interior lighting sequence, and a custom Signature key fob.
  • Performance Upgrades – Carbon-ceramic brakes with gold calipers
  • Bundled Luxe Package – Full Self-Driving (Supervised), four years of Premium Connectivity, free lifetime Supercharging
  • Performance Metrics – ~1,020 horsepower, sub-2-second 0-60 MPH, ~390-mile range

Tesla quickly introduced a No Resale Agreement for the Signature Editions of the Model S and Model X, which would penalize the seller for “the amount of $50,000 or the value received as consideration for the sale or transfer, whichever is greater.”

The company continues:

“If you sell or otherwise transfer the ownership of your Model S or Model X, the remainder of the Recommended Maintenance, Wheel and Tire Protection Plan, and Windshield Protection Plan will transfer automatically to the buyer. The Full Self-Driving (Supervised), Free Supercharging and Premium Connectivity will not transfer with the vehicle and will terminate once the ownership of the Model S or Model X is transferred.”

Tesla will likely come after the seller, especially as it has been about two months since Tesla launched deliveries.

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Tesla Full Self-Driving v14.3.5 Early Impressions: new features and early performance

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8 hours ago

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July 14, 2026

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Credit: TESLARATI

Tesla rolled out Full Self-Driving (Supervised) v14.3.5 yesterday, and about fifty miles of driving on the new version has given me enough time to highlight what seems to be strong about the release and what is not.

Additionally, Tesla has added a few new features with this specific update, which we’ll highlight as well.

Tesla Full Self-Driving v14.3.5 Performance

The new update is business as usual. Things seem to be running completely normal and necessary, but there are a few things that we’ve seemed to pick up on based on our own experience with v14.3.5, as well as what other users are seeing.

Initially, it seems to be more aware of its surroundings, making moves that are incredibly courteous to other drives and operating just a tad more reserved than what the suite might have done previously.

We had two instances where it showed this, the first being FSD needing to pass a Flagger Force vehicle that was placing down signage for the day. Their work truck was right at the front corner of a right-hand turn; typically where most cars travel when they take that turn.

FSD v14.3.5 recognized this, slowed down, and took the turn wide with no issues:

Additionally, v14.3.5 backed up for a semi truck that was making a wide turn onto a road my car was on. This is not new, but it seemed to be backing up for courtesy; it didn’t seem completely necessary, but it might have put some peace of mind in the truck driver’s head:

X user Mike P, also a Pennsylvania native like myself, shared three clips of his Tesla running v14.3.5 performing similar maneuvers. He said:

“FSD turns right into a small alley that only fits one car at a time, sees oncoming car, reverses out of alley to make space, realizes oncoming car is actually parking, re-enters alley.”
Check it out here:

It seems like Speed Profiles are still in need of some tweaking; I am adjusting what Speed Profile I’m in frequently, constantly changing it to get it to travel at the correct speed. This was an issue for me on v14.3.4. It seems like they’re just a little inconsistent.

Terrible Parking

Parking attempts on v14.3.5 were not good. There are quite a few people who have said this:

David Moss, the Tesla owner who has taken multiple coast-to-coast drives without any interventions, also has had some issues with parking early on with v14.3.5:

New Features

Tesla has added the ability to open Camera Preview at any time. Previously, it was only available in Park. Here’s what that feature looks like in action:

Check back later this week for a longer review of what we’ve noticed on Full Self-Driving v14.3.5.

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