News
SpaceX’s Elon Musk: odds of Starship reaching orbit by 2020 are “rising rapidly”
SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has suggested that the company’s newly revamped Starship and Super Heavy rocket (previously known as BFR) could perform its first integrated launches – placing Starship into orbit – as few as 12-24 months from today.
Musk indicated that the odds of Starship reaching orbit as early as 2020 are now as high as “60% [and] rising rapidly”, thanks in no small part to the flurry of radical changes the spacecraft and booster have both undergone over the course of 2018.
Probability at 60% & rising rapidly due to new architecture
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 27, 2018
Combined with a decision – made public at a September 2018 media event – to delay the debut of a vacuum-optimized upper stage Raptor (RVac) and stick with its mature sea level variant, Musk apparently is quite confident that these dramatic shifts in strategy will allow SpaceX to aggressively slash the development schedules of its next-gen launch vehicle. Intriguingly, Musk noted that while these “radical” design changes were almost entirely motivated by his desire to expedite the fully-reusable rocket’s operational debut, it apparently became clear that the cheaper, faster, and easier iteration could actually end up being (in Musk’s own words) “dramatically better” than its exotic carbon-composite progenitor.
Time. Although it also turned out to be dramatically better.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 27, 2018

“Delightfully counter-intuitive”
Let there be little doubt – I am still immensely skeptical of this radical redesign and the implausible logistics of conducting said redesign at the last second while somehow maintaining the test schedule, let alone expediting it by 6-9 months. Despite the fact that Musk does seem to have a compellingly rational answer to every question thus far asked, he was no less convincing in mid-2016 when he stated with contagious conviction that Tesla’s Fremont factory would be an almost 100%-automated “alien dreadnought” as early as 2018. There is, of course, nothing wrong per se with being wrong, although taking 24 months and several hundred million dollars to realize as much can be downright fatal or at least a major health risk for any given company that faces such a challenge, as was the case with Tesla.
Skepticism aside, there are equally many reasons to be optimistic about the future of SpaceX’s Starship/Super Heavy (BFR) program over the next several years. Not only do metal hot structures have a proven track record of success (admittedly in the 1960s and for suborbital conditions, but still), but the century and a half humans have been making and building with steel serves to aggressively reduce risk in BFR’s development, whereas a giant, highly-reusable spaceship and rocket built mainly out of carbon composites is about as exotic, challenging, and alien as one could muster. One step further, Musk appears to be dead-set on the trade that the benefits of moving from composite to stainless steel far, far outweigh the costs.
- BFS/Starship shows off some of its heat shield. SpaceX may be looking into an advanced NASA solution for BFR’s thermal protection system. (SpaceX)
- Starship is shown here reentering Mars’ atmosphere at high speeds (SpaceX)
- Starship – in its 2018 design iteration – seen landing on Mars atop pillars of Raptor flame. (SpaceX)
- SpaceX CEO Elon Musk visited the South Texas site where Starship’s first prototype is being built on December 23rd. (Elon Musk)
- Starship… or BFWTF? 🙂 (NASASpaceflight /u/bocachicagal)
Most notably, Musk’s implication that a steel alloy skin – albeit with regenerative (i.e. liquid) cooling – could genuinely stand in for SpaceX’s ablative PICA-X heat shield technology on Starship was the most unintuitive but logical shift yet. Although steel alloys may literally have densities that are significantly higher than carbon composites, composites simply cannot (at least in the current state of the art) withstand high temperatures like those that Starship would inevitably experience during orbital and interplanetary reentries. As a result, Starship would need an extremely advanced heat shield technology that is minimally ablative, extremely lightweight, robust, and shock-resistant, not to mention an additional layer capable of mounting it to Starship’s composite hull while also insulating the propellant tanks and structure from the extreme heat of reentry.
Leeward side needs nothing, windward side will be activity cooled with residual (cryo) liquid methane, so will appear liquid silver even on hot side
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 25, 2018
Steel, on the other hand, is one of the least thermally conductive metals available, while also featuring alloys with melting points that can approach and even surpass 1500 degrees C. With regenerative cooling, it’s entirely possible that a hot steel shield and fusion of propellant tanks and load-bearing structures could ultimately result in a spaceship far more reusable, reliable, and perhaps even performant that a spaceship relying on exotic heat shield materials and linerless carbon composite propellant tanks.
Perhaps BFR Block 2 or 3 will make room for dramatically improved composite formulations and production methods down the road, but advanced steel and other metal alloys appear to be the way forward for SpaceX for the time being. For now, we can sit, watch, and wait as something comes together at the company’s South Texas test and launch facilities.
For prompt updates, on-the-ground perspectives, and unique glimpses of SpaceX’s rocket recovery fleet check out our brand new LaunchPad and LandingZone newsletters!
Investor's Corner
Tesla opens the Q&A for its biggest earnings call yet
Tesla opens its Q3 earnings Q&A, and Cybercab, Robotaxi, Optimus and regulators loom over October 21.
Tesla has opened its shareholder question portal for the Q3 2026 earnings call, with the Say Q&A page already listing questions. Investors have until 4:00 p.m. EDT on October 20 to submit and vote on what management should answer.
The call is set for Wednesday, October 21. Tesla will post results after the market closes, with a live webcast at 4:30 p.m. CT, or 5:30 p.m. ET, through its investor relations site.
Say ranks questions by the number of shares behind the votes, which gives institutional holders extra weight over the retail crowd.
Ahead of Q2, retail investors asked why Robotaxi growth had stalled, when Cybercab would start customer rides, and where the Optimus Gen 3 ramp stood, while an institutional holder asked how Tesla and SpaceX would split Terafab duties. Cybercab has since answered one of those. Tesla said last week it has 300 plus Cybercabs serving Austin, up eightfold in 30 days, with Dallas named as the next city. The questions now are likely to move from when to how fast.
There is also a regulatory question hanging over the call. NHTSA has demanded sworn answers on how the pedal free Cybercab was certified against federal safety standards, with responses due October 30, nine days after the call. Whether an analyst raises it live is unknown, but it is the kind of exposure that tends to find its way into a Q&A.
The numbers will not be the main draw. Tesla already reported 486,532 deliveries and 13.7 GWh of storage for the quarter. Consensus sits around 43 to 45 cents per share on roughly $27.8 billion in revenue, according to Zacks, after a Q2 report that missed on EPS. Goldman Sachs, which holds a Neutral rating and a $360 target, argues the outlook for Robotaxi, FSD and Optimus will matter more to the stock than the quarter itself.
The call also lands six days after the rescheduled Roadster event, which Tesla will stream on X on Thursday, October 15, at 7:55 p.m. CT. If the Roadster shows up with a production date or a SpaceX thruster package, expect it to climb the voting list before the deadline.
Elon Musk
Ukraine says Starlink is cutting out its military drones as Poland calls out Elon Musk
Ukrainian officials allege SpaceX limited military Starlink speeds, disrupting drone missions; SpaceX has not commented.
Ukrainian officials are accusing SpaceX of placing a speed limit on the military version of Starlink that their forces use to fly drones, but SpaceX has not confirmed that any change was made. Presidential adviser Serhiy Beskrestnov said in a Telegram post on Wednesday that Starshield terminals have begun losing service when they move faster than about 100 miles per hour, according to a Reuters report. “Our defense forces did not receive a warning about this limitation, and this led to the disruption of several missions,” he wrote.
Ukraine’s 7th Rapid Reaction Corps told Reuters that connections dropped for 10 to 20 seconds at just 68 to 75 mph, which made the drones harder to control. Volunteer Serhiy Sternenko, citing military reports, said the dropouts are now starting at 37 to 43 mph. These accounts come from Ukrainian officials and military sources and have not been independently verified. Regular civilian terminals were reportedly not affected, according to EUalive.
.@POTUS: We told Zelensky, ‘You can do whatever you want to Russia, but don’t hit the refineries because that’s a world problem.’ And what does he do? He goes and hits the diesel fuel. He better damn well stop. https://t.co/CdRlMcPlKr
— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) October 10, 2026
SpaceX has not publicly commented or explained what, if anything, changed. Beskrestnov and other Ukrainian officials believe the issue is intentional and point to the timing. Washington has been pressing Kyiv to stop long range strikes on Russian oil refineries after President Trump called for an “energy ceasefire,” and Musk posted on Saturday that “Zelensky has gone too far.” EUalive noted that neither Ukrainian nor Polish officials have presented evidence that the limit was ordered by Washington or by SpaceX, so the link to politics remains an allegation. Other explanations, such as a technical or policy change affecting fast moving terminals, have not been ruled out.
Poland’s foreign minister, Radosław Sikorski, responded on X by quote tweeting a Kyiv Independent report and writing: “Hey, @elonmusk, big man, are you playing politics with your products again? As your European customers, we are watching you.” Poland is the largest funder of Ukraine’s Starlink service, having supplied more than 29,000 terminals and covering operating costs Sikorski has put at roughly $50 million a year. The wording echoes their 2025 clash, when Musk told Sikorski to “be quiet, small man.” At the time of writing, neither Musk nor SpaceX had responded to the claims.
Hey, @elonmusk, big man, are you playing politics with your products again?
As your European customers, we are watching you.— Radosław Sikorski 🇵🇱🇪🇺 (@sikorskiradek) October 14, 2026
The dispute sits on top of a long history. Musk confirmed in February 2022 that Starlink was active in Ukraine after a request from a Ukrainian minister. That October, SpaceX asked the Pentagon to share the bill and Musk said the cost was approaching $20 million a month, before he reversed course and said SpaceX would keep paying. In December 2024 the Pentagon moved some of those terminals onto the Starshield service, the government version now at the center of the complaints.
SpaceX has also changed how its network treats certain terminals in Ukraine before, and that time it was with Kyiv’s cooperation. In February, Ukrainian officials confirmed that terminals believed to be used by Russian troops were disabled after coordination with SpaceX, a step that Ukrainian commanders later said hurt Russian assaults. Whether anything similar is behind the latest reports is unclear, which is why Kyiv is asking for answers.
Ukraine is already looking at backups. Defense tech company Stetman is developing its own satellite system, UASAT-NANO, and officials in Europe have discussed alternatives to Starlink since early 2025, though none match its scale yet.
Elon Musk
FAA kicks off review of SpaceX’s bid to fly Starship nearly every day
FAA is reviewing SpaceX’s plan for 456 Starship launches a year, up from 25 today.
The FAA said Tuesday that it will prepare an environmental impact statement on SpaceX’s proposal to run as many as 456 Starship launches and 912 landings a year from Starbase, Texas. SpaceX is currently authorized for 25 launches and 50 landings annually, which makes the request roughly 18 times the existing ceiling. The notice of intent is set to publish in the Federal Register on Wednesday.
The plan comes in two phases. Phase 1 would allow up to 100 launches and 200 landings a year, on any day and at any hour. Phase 2, which the FAA says could arrive within several years, would raise the limit to the full 456 launches, still at any hour but only on weekdays. The agency noted that 912 landings is the upper limit for the Texas facility no matter where a given mission begins, and that Starship and Super Heavy could come down at the launch site or in the Gulf and open ocean.
A draft statement will be released for public comment at a later date, and the FAA has not said when. According to the Federal Registar, written comments are due November 30 on regulations.gov under docket FAA-2026-12808, with in person scoping meetings on November 17 in Brownsville and November 19 in Port Isabel, plus a virtual session on November 18. The review will weigh air quality, wildlife, coastal resources, water, noise, and aviation, and the FAA said any increase beyond this proposal would need its own separate review.
The numbers look large next to what Starbase has actually done. Starship has flown three times from Texas this year, including Flight 14 on September 28, the first orbital flight, which deployed 26 Starlink V3 satellites. Bloomberg reported that Starbase has never launched more than five times in a calendar year. The current cap of 25 comes from an FAA approval in May 2025. In February, the agency also approved up to 44 Starship launches a year from Launch Complex 39A in Florida, so Phase 1 in Texas alone would more than double that allowance.
Musk has said Starship could eventually fly more than once per hour within less than a decade, per Bloomberg. The nearer term target is Flight 15. Musk said on October 10 that it is hopefully four to six weeks away and will try to catch the ship with the tower, as Teslarati covered. That flight still runs under the existing 25 launch limit, and so would every Starbase launch for as long as the new review takes.
As of mid morning Pacific time on Tuesday, SpaceX had not posted about the filing on its own account.




