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SpaceX CEO Elon Musk forecasts a dozen Starship launches next year
CEO Elon Musk has provided a small update on SpaceX’s next-generation Starship rocket in a brief statement to and Q&A with the board of the US National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine.
While it’s now been more than two years since Musk last gave a proper presentation on the Starship program, a number of excellent questions from board members still managed to extract a handful of new details about the fully reusable rocket, which the SpaceX CEO says aims to “be a generalized transport mechanism for the [entire] solar system.” According to Musk, though, the most pressing near-term issues facing SpaceX are more down to Earth.
Reiterated several times in his comments to the National Academies, Musk says that the current limiting factor for Starship is securing regulatory approvals from the FAA for the rocket’s first orbital test flights, which SpaceX and Musk initially hoped would begin as early as mid-2021. Targets from July to November 2021 have since come and gone, while SpaceX has only begun to make concerted progress towards Starship’s first orbital launch in the last two or so months. Almost two months after its first rollout, Starship S20 – the first orbital-class prototype – began integrated testing, completing ambient and cryogenic proof tests in late September and its first Raptor preburner and static fire tests in the second half of October.
Most recently, after almost a month spent inactive at SpaceX’s Starbase test facilities, Starship S20 fired up all six of its Raptor engines – the first test of its kind and a major milestone for the program. Save for the completion of some relatively simple closeout tasks, Starship S20 is now more or less qualified for flight after its successful static fire. That leaves Super Heavy Booster 4 (B4) – the first stage meant to carry Ship 20 into space – up next on SpaceX’s South Texas testing docket after almost four agonizing months spent sitting, untested, at various Starbase facilities.
Musk says that SpaceX preparing to complete “a bunch of tests in December” with the implication that those tests likely include the first full Super Heavy wet dress rehearsal (WDR) with thousands of tons of live propellant and the first several booster static fire tests. Recently refitted with 29 Raptor engines for the third time in four months, it appears that SpaceX is finally close to finishing Super Heavy B4 to a point that will allow the booster to begin integrated testing. Through Super Heavy B3, which completed testing this summer, SpaceX thankfully already knows that the basic booster design is a structurally sound pressure vessel with plumbing and systems capable of surviving a three-Raptor static fire.
Still, that’s barely more than 10% of the total number of engines Super Heavy will need operational to send Starship to orbit. After months at the pad, SpaceX is finally closing out Booster 4’s aft section and installing a basic heat shield around its 29 Raptor engines, which will produce up to ~5400 metric tons (~12M lbf) of thrust at liftoff – more than any other rocket in history. Following Starship S20’s recent success, SpaceX has now fired six Raptors simultaneously and in close proximity without issue. However, Super Heavy B4 will have to fire 29 engines packed into roughly the same amount of space. No other liquid rocket stage in history has a more densely-packed thrust section, averaging at least 85 tons of thrust per square meter (~125 psi) of available engine space.
It’s thus likely that SpaceX will split Super Heavy B4’s first static fire campaign into several different parts, possibly involving seperate tests of the center cluster of nine Raptor Center (RC) engines and outer ring of 20 Raptor Boost (RB) engines before firing up all 29 together. Even if that testing is completed without issue on the first attempts, SpaceX will still likely want to perform a full wet dress rehearsal – and possibly even another 29-engine static fire – with Ship 20 installed on top of Booster 4.
Musk also believes that Starbase’s first orbital launch site will be complete as early as “later this month” – essential for full booster testing. Once all testing is complete, Musk says Starship, Super Heavy, and Starbase should be ready for their first orbital launch attempt as early as January or February 2022. Of course, that launch is entirely contingent upon FAA environmental approval and launch licensing, the former still incomplete and the latter unable to proceed until the former is complete. If the FAA reaches a favorable conclusion, meets its recently-announced target of December 31st to complete Starbase’s environmental review, and grants SpaceX a new launch license just days or a few weeks later, a January-February launch isn’t out of the question.
Looking further into 2022, Musk also revealed that he hopes SpaceX will complete “a dozen [Starship] launches” next year – incredibly ambitious by any measure. There isn’t a rocket in history that’s achieved double-digit launches in the same year as its debut. More importantly, even if the FAA environmental review SpaceX is in the middle of ends with the best possible outcome for Starship, it limits the company to either 3, 5, or 8 (it’s somewhat ambiguous) orbital launch attempts per year. Still, even a ‘mere’ three orbital Starship launch attempts in 2022 would be an incredible acheivement for SpaceX – let alone five, or Musk’s forecast of a dozen.
Elon Musk
The Boring Company’s latest Tesla tunnel truck mod “fits like a glove”
The Boring Company has modified a Tesla powered tunnel truck to carry freight containers underground.
The Boring Company has found a second job for the Tesla hardware it already runs underground. In a post on X, Elon Musk’s tunneling company showed its latest Prufrock Liner Truck modified to carry a standard 20 foot shipping container. “Using TBC tunnels to transport freight,” the company wrote. “The latest Prufrock Liner Truck (using Tesla Model 3 batteries and drive units) has been modified to carry a standard 20′ shipping container. Fits like a glove!”
The photo shows a red container sitting on a long, low white chassis parked outside, with drive hardware visible at one end. The Boring Company did not say where or when freight hauling would start, which customers it has in mind, or how many trucks it is converting.
Using TBC tunnels to transport freight.
The latest Prufrock Liner Truck (using Tesla Model 3 batteries and drive units) has been modified to carry a standard 20’ shipping container.
Fits like a glove! https://t.co/VV0phWK4fc
— The Boring Company (@boringcompany) October 19, 2026
Until now, the liner trucks have hauled concrete. Teslarati reported in August on Liner Truck 3, which uses Model 3 battery packs and drive units to move more than 22,000 pounds of precast tunnel segments to the boring machine. It has 28 miles of range, tops out at 12 mph, and is piloted remotely from the company’s operations center in Texas. The freight version appears to be the same platform with a different bed, and The Boring Company has not said whether it will also be remotely piloted.
Freight has been on the company’s menu for years. When TBC updated its product lineup in 2021, its freight tunnel was described as sized to fit a standard shipping container, “barely.” The company later used the idea at Tesla’s own factory, where Prufrock 3 dug a tunnel to Giga Texas that now moves finished Cybertrucks away from the production line.
The Boring Company closed a $3 billion Series D in September at a $23 billion valuation, and Teslarati has covered how that money is tied to a UAE tunneling push and a faster Nashville build. In Nashville, Prufrock MB1 and MB2 are mining at the same time, and a third machine is expected to launch in late October. Each machine needs a steady supply of liner trucks, so any design that works for segments and containers alike gives the company more use out of the same Tesla parts.
The Vegas Loop remains the only Boring Company system open to the public, and it moves passengers in Tesla vehicles. A freight service would be a separate product, and the post gave no indication that one is close to launch. For now, it is a truck, a container and a short caption saying they fit together.
Elon Musk said he is planning to give “every one of his SpaceX shares to every kid in America” in 2027, stating that “this will be the first of many.”
SpaceX went public earlier this year, and its stock price has been relatively stable since leveling off shortly after its IPO. Based on its current price, it’s a gift of just over $10 billion to children across the United States.
It appears to be closely related to President Donald Trump’s bank accounts for children, which were set up earlier this year as Trump Accounts.
Just hours earlier, Anthropic had announced the establishment of its Anthropic Public Benefit Fund, “a new wholly-owned entity dedicated entirely to public benefit.” Musk responded by stating he recommended “giving the shares directly to the public,” and that he would be doing it that way.
Just a little bit later, Musk said children across the U.S. would be getting a share from him:
Next year, I will give one of my SpaceX shares to every kid in America.
This will be the first of many.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 19, 2026
There are roughly 70 million children, meaning someone under the age of 18, in the United States, according to the Federal Interagency Forum on Child and Family Statistics. Musk’s ownership of SpaceX stock shows he has around 849 million Class A shares of SpaceX stock, according to filings with the SEC.
Elon Musk revealed in a post on X that “Permits were impossible to get,” explaining the fate of The Boring Company’s most ambitious East Coast proposal.
The comment responded to a query about what became of his July 20, 2017 announcement that he had “just received verbal govt approval” for an underground Hyperloop connecting New York City, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Washington, D.C., capable of carrying passengers from the Big Apple to the Nation’s Capital in just 29 minutes.
The Boring Company receives verbal ‘approval’ to build NY to DC Hyperloop tunnel
The 2017 post, which envisioned city-center stations and multiple elevators in each city, sparked immediate scrutiny. Local and state officials in New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and D.C. said they had no knowledge of any approval. A White House spokesperson confirmed only “promising conversations” about the transformative infrastructure.
Musk clarified shortly after that there was “still a lot of work” to do for formal approvals.
@cybrtrkguy Permits were impossible to get
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 19, 2026
Limited progress followed, as Maryland Governor Larry Hogan’s administration issued a conditional utility permit and supported work near Fort Meade. In 2018, Washington, D.C., granted a preliminary permit for site preparation and excavation on a vacant lot at 53 New York Ave. NE in the NoMa neighborhood, which The Boring Company said could become a station.
A draft environmental assessment for a D.C.-Baltimore segment was released in 2019. Yet, by April 2021, the company had removed the project from its website, and the Federal Highway Administration reported receiving no indication of further interest. Communication with Maryland officials had ceased.
The full corridor would have required coordination among the District of Columbia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, New York, the Federal Highway Administration, the Army Corps of Engineers, the National Park Service, and other agencies.
Environmental reviews under the National Environmental Policy Act, utility clearances, and approvals for novel infrastructure added to the overall complexity of the project and its approval.
Speculation on the permitting barriers centers around a few factors, but a multi-state, multi-level route involving unproven high-speed vacuum-tube technology inherently triggers exhaustive safety, environmental, and engineering reviews that can stretch for years, even for conventional projects.
There are also other elements, of course, like officials who may face political exposure if a privately funded, untested system encountered anything such as cost overruns, delays, or safety issues. On the outset of this project, there were limited things such as engineering plans or demonstrated technology maturity, which also added to the potential skepticism.
The East Coast vision for Boring Co., once framed as a privately funded revolution that could reshape Northeast travel, quietly ended without construction of the promised network. Musk’s recent statement frames the outcome as a regulatory impasse, unfortunate but not unexpected.
The Boring Company’s latest Tesla tunnel truck mod “fits like a glove”
Elon Musk will give ‘every kid in America’ a SpaceX share in 2027
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