News
SpaceX Starship blew its top during rocket fueling test (updated)
Update: SpaceX has released an official statement indicating that Starship Mk1’s November 20th failure came after a decision to intentionally pressurize the rocket prototype to its limits. This likely means that the test was to max flight pressures and not an intentional burst test, so Starship’s dome failure is still a significant concern and was definitely not planned.
More importantly, SpaceX says that it had already decided to retire Starship Mk1 before any kind of flight testing, treating the vehicle as a pathfinder. Instead, SpaceX will build and use Starship Mk3 – the next Boca Chica prototype – for Starship’s first attempted skydiver-style landing and 20 km (12 mi) flight test.
SpaceX statement on the above test and incident: pic.twitter.com/r1ReRYhUhz— Michael Sheetz (@thesheetztweetz) November 21, 2019
SpaceX’s first full-scale Starship prototype has suffered a significant failure during testing, destroying or severely damaging large sections of the rocket. However, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has already commented on the anomaly and is not all that concerned.
On November 20th, SpaceX – having canceled a planned road closure the day prior – unexpectedly requested a last-second road closure and entered into a much more serious round of testing with Starship Mk1, the rocket’s first full-scale prototype. This followed testing on November 18th that concluded with Starship Mk1’s very first ‘breath’ – some venting activity near the end of a tank proof test. SpaceX technicians spent the next 36 or so hours inspecting and working on Mk1, presumably looking for and patching minor leaks along its tank section.
The November 20th testing progressed far faster than the previous round of tests and Starship Mk1 was quickly venting again. Soon after that, frost began to appear on the exterior of its steel liquid oxygen and methane tanks, a telltale sign that some form of cryogenic testing was ongoing. Based on a distinct lack of activity at the nearby flare stack, SpaceX was using liquid oxygen (LOX) or liquid nitrogen (LN2) to verify that Starship performs as expected when filled with supercool propellant.
After initial venting and visible frost formation, SpaceX appeared to push forward, rapidly loading Starship Mk1 with LOX or LN2. This progress was easily visible thanks to the fact that the mass and pressure of all that cryogenic liquid made quick work of the slight imperfections on the exterior of Starship’s steel hull, turning the vehicle’s reflection from a speckled patchwork to an almost mirror-like finish. Roughly half an hour later, the otherwise peaceful scene was interrupted by the rapid failure of Starship Mk1’s upper LOX tank dome, instantly thrown several hundred feet into the air.
Seconds later, the crumpled upper half of Starship Mk1’s tank section appeared out of the clouds created and began hemorrhaging a huge volume of liquid oxygen, immediately boiling and vaporizing as it was exposed to the Earth’s comparatively white-hot atmosphere. Impressively, Starship appeared to remain functional after its top quite literally blew off, and the vehicle rapidly detanked and appeared to safe itself. Some ten minutes after the overpressure event, the freed liquid oxygen had boiled to nothing and Starship appeared to be quiet.
By all appearances, Starship Mk1 appeared to perform extremely well as an integrated system up to the point that its upper tank dome failed. The first frame from LabPadre’s stream with anything visibly amiss explicitly implicates the weld connecting the LOX dome to the cylindrical body of Starship’s LOX tank, point to a bad weld joint as the likeliest source of the failure. Although that hardware failure is unfortunate, Mk1’s loss will hopefully guide improvements in Starship’s design and manufacturing procedures.
Moving forward
Minutes after the anomaly was broadcast on several unofficial livestreams of SpaceX’s Boca Chica facilities, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk acknowledged Starship Mk1’s failure in a tweet, telegraphing a general lack of worry. Of note, Musk indicated that Mk1 was valuable mainly as a manufacturing pathfinder, entirely believable but also partially contradicting his September 2019 presentation, in which he pretty clearly stated that Mk1 would soon be launched to ~20 km to demonstrate Starship’s exotic new skydiver landing strategy.
Musk says that instead of repairing Starship Mk1, SpaceX’s Boca Chica team will move directly to Starship Mk3, a significantly more advanced design that has benefitted from the numerous lessons learned from building and flying Starhopper and fabricating Starship Mk1. The first Starship Mk3 ring appears to have already been prepared, but SpaceX’s South Texas focus has clearly been almost entirely on preparing Starship Mk1 for wet dress rehearsal, static fire, and flight tests. After today’s failure, it sounds like Mk1 will most likely be retired early and replaced as soon as possible by Mk3.
Above all else, the most important takeaway from today’s Starship Mk1 anomaly is that the vehicle was a very early prototype and SpaceX likely wants to have vehicle failures occur on the ground or in-flight. As long as no humans are at risk, pushing Starship to failure (or suffering unplanned failures like today’s) can only serve to benefit and improve the vehicle’s design, especially when the failed hardware can be recovered intact (ish) and carefully analyzed.
A step further, SpaceX is simultaneously building a second (and third) Starship prototype at its companion Cocoa, Florida facilities, and Starship Mk2 is nearly finished. Coincidentally, technicians installed its last tank dome – the same dome that failed on Mk1 – just days ago, and any insight that the Boca Chica team can gather from Mk1’s troubles will almost certainly be applied to Mk2, whether that means reinforcing its existing domes or fully replacing the upper dome with an improved design.
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News
NASA taps SpaceX for more astronaut missions as Boeing Starliner remains grounded
NASA just gave SpaceX a $946 million contract for three more astronaut missions through 2030.
NASA has awarded SpaceX a $946 million contract modification covering three more astronaut missions to the International Space Station, according to an announcement the agency published Friday. The award adds Crew-15, Crew-16, and Crew-17 to SpaceX’s existing Commercial Crew Transportation Capability contract, bringing the agreement’s total value to $5.92 billion across 17 flights.
SpaceX confirmed the award on X, writing that it was excited for Falcon 9 and Dragon to launch NASA’s Crew-15, 16, and 17 missions to the Space Station from Florida. The new missions cover ground, launch, in orbit, and return operations, along with cargo transport and a lifeboat capability while docked at the station, and the period of performance runs through 2030.
We’re excited for Falcon 9 and Dragon to launch @NASA’s Crew-15, 16, and 17 missions to the @Space_Station from Florida https://t.co/Qm16vVK9F3 pic.twitter.com/drg3s7GtuM
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) September 18, 2026
The award follows a notice of intent NASA issued in May, when the agency first signaled it would purchase up to six additional post certification missions from SpaceX. Teslarati covered that filing at the time, noting NASA cited technical issues and schedule delays encountered by Boeing as a driving factor. Friday’s contract modification locks in three of those six missions, with the remaining three left open for NASA to award later, potentially to Boeing if Starliner clears certification.
Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner has still not flown an operational crew rotation mission for NASA. The spacecraft’s most recent crewed test flight in 2024 ended without the astronauts returning aboard Starliner, and the company has spent the time since working through thruster problems. SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell said this week that SpaceX is not retiring Crew Dragon today, for sure, while stopping short of committing to fly it past 2030.
Crew-12 is currently docked at the space station, and NASA has said Crew-13 is targeting a launch in the coming weeks. The newly awarded Crew-15 through Crew-17 missions extend SpaceX’s role as NASA’s primary way of getting astronauts to and from orbit well into the back half of the decade, regardless of what happens with Starliner or Starship in the meantime.
Investor's Corner
New drone video shows Tesla’s Optimus Factory reaching a turning point
New drone footage shows Tesla’s dedicated Optimus factory steel frame nearing completion at Giga Texas.
Tesla’s dedicated Optimus factory at Gigafactory Texas is closing in on a finished steel frame, according to drone footage posted Thursday afternoon by longtime site observer Joe Tegtmeyer. In the video, Tegtmeyer said structural steel assembly is now about five column grids away from reaching the building’s north perimeter beam, putting the primary skeleton in its final stretch roughly six months after Tesla broke ground on the North Campus site in late March.
The Giga Texas Optimus Factory latest update … construction keeps moving fast!
Steel assembly is now only about 5 column grids from the north perimeter beam. Concrete is going in on the three upper floors, rebar is still being laid for more pours, and footing / grade-beam work… pic.twitter.com/qvFPvwnYzW
— Joe Tegtmeyer 🚀 🤠🛸😎 (@JoeTegtmeyer) September 17, 2026
Tegtmeyer’s footage shows concrete already going in on three upper floors while crews continue laying rebar and pouring grade beam footings at ground level. That kind of parallel work, steel rising at one end of the site while concrete sets at the other, is a scheduling approach Tesla used at the original Giga Texas building and appears to be repeating here to save time before the plant’s targeted 2027 production start.
Teslarati has tracked the building’s progress since Tesla confirmed construction was officially underway in May, when the first steel structure went up on what was then bare, reclaimed land. The facility is part of a more than 5.2 million square foot expansion of Giga Texas’s North Campus that Tesla has said will eventually run nearly the length of the existing vehicle factory, over 4,000 feet, while sitting somewhat narrower. Musk has pegged the long term output target at 10 million Optimus units a year once the line is running at full capacity, a volume that would dwarf the one million unit pilot line Tesla is standing up separately at its Fremont, California factory.
Tesla Giga Texas to feature massive Optimus V4 production line
The Texas facility sits alongside another major buildout on the same campus. Terafab, the joint Tesla and SpaceX chip fabrication plant that will eventually supply the silicon running Optimus units in the field. Housing robot assembly and chip production on the same grounds is a deliberate supply chain decision, cutting down on the shipping and lead time that would otherwise sit between the two.
Tesla has not given an updated timeline beyond its previously stated goal of bringing high volume Optimus production online at the site in the summer of 2027. Fremont’s smaller pilot line began mass producing the current Gen 3 robot in January, with that plant expected to build tens of thousands of units this year primarily to generate the real world data Tesla needs to refine the robot’s software before Giga Texas ramps up. Six months of visible construction progress, tracked almost entirely through Tegtmeyer’s recurring drone flights, gives the clearest outside look yet at how seriously Tesla is treating that 2027 deadline.
Investor's Corner
Tesla and SpaceX take “Terafab” Trademark fight to Federal Court
Tesla and SpaceX sue a small Illinois firm after cease and desist letters over Terafab.
Tesla and SpaceX are asking a federal judge to rule that their planned Terafab chip factory does not infringe a small Illinois company’s trademark, a request that arrives only after months of quiet negotiation broke down this summer.
The dispute traces to May 18, when Tesla filed three U.S. trademark applications for “Terafab” and “Tesla Terafab,” covering semiconductor chips and related chip making services. TERA-print LLC, a nanotechnology company that has held a federal trademark for “Tera-Fab” since 2021, responded five days later with a cease and desist letter. According to the lawsuit, first reported by Reuters, TERA-print argued that Tesla and SpaceX’s use of “Terafab” would confuse consumers familiar with its own trademark, which covers a desktop photolithography printer sold to researchers for sensor and bioengineering work.
What stands out in the filing is the timing of TERA-print’s own paperwork. One day before sending that cease and desist letter, on May 22, TERA-print applied to expand its existing registration to cover semiconductor materials, silicon chips, nanoelectronic devices and AI design services, categories it had not previously claimed. Tesla and SpaceX call that filing opportunistic in their complaint, noting it arrived two months after Tesla’s public Terafab announcement and just days after Tesla’s own trademark applications went in.
Elon Musk launches TERAFAB: The $25B Tesla-SpaceXAI chip factory that will rewire the AI industry
By June 10, TERA-print was threatening to sue for federal trademark infringement, false designation of origin and unfair competition, the complaint states. Rather than wait to be sued, Tesla, SpaceX and SpaceXAI met with TERA-print six separate times between June and August trying to resolve the dispute directly. Those talks collapsed, and the companies filed for declaratory judgment this week in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas, asking a judge to find that “Terafab” does not infringe TERA-print’s mark before TERA-print can file a claim of its own.
TERA-print isn’t backing down. The company told PCMag it discussed a settlement with Tesla as recently as September 2 and feels misled by what it called Tesla’s professed interest in settling. Its CTO, Andrey Ivankin, said TERA-print holds a Defense Department contract to fabricate semiconductors and partially owns Mattiq Inc., an AI company built on TERA-print’s products, and that the company will vigorously defend its rights.
Tesla and SpaceX argue the overlap is superficial. Terafab is planned as a $16.8 billion complex spanning roughly 100 million square feet at the Grimes County site SpaceX confirmed last month, built to produce chips for Optimus robots, Tesla’s AI computing needs and SpaceX’s orbital data center ambitions, a scale and purpose the companies say no reasonable consumer would confuse with a tabletop lab printer. TERA-print’s product line has stayed focused on lithography tools for biological and sensor research since it registered its mark in 2021.
The trademark fight is the second legal dispute tied to the Terafab project in the past week, following a separate SpaceX suit aimed at keeping company records about the facility out of public view, as KBTX reported. Whether construction proceeds under the Terafab name now depends on a federal judge in Austin.
NASA taps SpaceX for more astronaut missions as Boeing Starliner remains grounded
New drone video shows Tesla’s Optimus Factory reaching a turning point
