News
SpaceX CEO Elon Musk teases Starship flight debut details, reveals presentation date
Speaking on August 28th, CEO Elon Musk says that SpaceX’s first Starship flight test(s) could occur as early as October 2019, in line with a late-July estimate that pegged the milestone at 2-3 months out.
Under construction in Cocoa, Florida and Boca Chica, Texas, SpaceX’s duo of orbital-class Starship prototypes have made immense progress in the last two or so months, part of a (hopefully friendly) internal competition to be first to flight and first to orbit. Elon Musk has been planning to present an updated overview on the next-generation SpaceX launch vehicle, originally expected in August before a variety of factors pushed it into September. Musk says that presentation is now scheduled no earlier than (NET) September 28th.
Musk has previously described the highly-anticipated update as a technical overview of the decision-making process that has lead SpaceX to replace Starship’s composite design with stainless steel, among many other changes the rocket has undergone in the last 6-12 months. Aside from the obvious, Musk recently revealed that Starship’s fins/legs/wings also had to be modified from the tripod fin/canard setup shown in SpaceX’s September 2018 design update.
The first of Starship Mk1’s (Texas) landing fins or canards arrived in Boca Chica in mid-August, followed soon after by what appeared to be header tanks (smaller internal tanks for landing propellant), and what has been described as “the guts of Starship”. Although SpaceX’s Starship Mk2 (Cocoa, FL) team was forced to pause work for several days as a result of the incoming Hurricane Dorian, work in Texas has proceeded unabated and continues around the clock with two or three shifts.
Starship Mk1’s triple-Raptor thrust structure was installed inside the vehicle’s tank section several weeks ago. Workers are now in the process of installing the Starship’s common bulkhead, a dome that will separate its liquid oxygen and methane tanks, and a third and final dome – the top of Starship’s LOx tank – is in the late stages of assembly.
In short, SpaceX’s Mk1 Starship continues to maintain an absolutely blistering pace of progress and could very well be ready in time for Musk’s proposed October flight debut, despite the fact that the CEO is more than a little infamous for his near-impossible deadlines and schedules.
Starship’s first flight
Musk says that Starship’s first flight – likely featuring the Mk1 vehicle – or a subsequent test flight could see the spacecraft prototype reach an altitude of 20 km (12 mi/~64,000 ft), indicating that SpaceX plans to transition into high-altitude, high-velocity testing as soon as possible.
Incredibly, Musk also stated that Starship’s inaugural orbital launch attempt could come “shortly thereafter”, an attempt that – according to previous statements from Musk – would demand the completion of the first Super Heavy booster, as well as the 20+ Raptor engines it would require. Musk estimated that Raptor will reach orbital flight-readiness as early as October or November, while an orbital flight test before the end of 2019 would technically mesh with his late-July estimate of December/January.
Whether or not SpaceX manages to achieve that almost unbelievably ambitious target, it seems entirely plausible that – barring unforeseen developments – Starship Mk1 and Mk2 will be ready for flight testing well before the end of 2019. Stay tuned for updates as Starship assembly continues in Texas and Florida.
Check out Teslarati’s Marketplace! We offer Tesla accessories, including for the Tesla Cybertruck and Tesla Model 3.
Tesla short sellers won big following the company’s massive fall on Wall Street after it reported subpar Earnings on Wednesday.
Tesla short sellers collected about $4.12 billion in single-day profits on Thursday, according to Bloomberg. Shares fell as much as 15 percent during Thursday’s session. It closed as one of the worst days for Tesla on Wall Street in the past three years.
Investors sold off the stock after Tesla said it would aggressively direct its spending toward AI and its Optimus robot project. The company had record revenues, which were driven by one of the strongest quarters in terms of vehicle deliveries in company history.
However, it missed EPS estimates by reporting just $0.33, a far cry from the $0.53 analysts expected.
S3 Partners reported that about 3 percent of Tesla’s outstanding stock is sold short. Managing Director at S3, Ihor Dusaniwsky, provided the short seller’s potential profit, as well as another figure: shorts have likely had paper gains of $8.92 billion this year, as Tesla shares are down 30 percent in 2026.
Tesla (TSLA) Q2 2026 earnings results: miss on EPS, beat on revenue
Tesla has burned short sellers many times in the past, but the company’s latest Earnings Call was a chance for those skeptics to taste some payback. Although the company gave some very transparent information regarding future projects, the rollout of Robotaxi, Optimus, and Semi, many investors took their profits on Thursday.
Notable short sellers like Michael Burry have been transparent about their skepticism around Tesla shares. Burry just revealed three weeks ago that he had opened up a new short on the stock, stating he shorted Tesla shares at $416.22. “Happy it jumped back to this level,” he said in a blog post.
At the time of publication, Tesla shares were down about 3 percent and the stock was trading at $309.92.
Tesla’s long-standing saga regarding its door handles and a manual release has entered its latest chapter, and as a result, a big change is coming.
On Friday, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) denied Tesla’s petition that was seeking a defect investigation into roughly 180,000 Model 3 vehicles for an issue involving the emergency mechanical door release.
🚨 The NHTSA denied a petition from Tesla that would have thrown out concerns regarding its door handles.
NHTSA said Tesla’s petition did not present evidence of a safety-related defect warranting an investigation. The agency said a rulemaking process would be a better strategy. pic.twitter.com/j6PzUBM1mT
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) July 24, 2026
NHTSA said that Tesla’s petition did not present evidence of a safety-related defect in the door handles or their emergency releases. Instead, the agency determined that it would rather solve the issue of the lack of labeling or location of emergency mechanical door releases and the federal safety rules that govern them.
Essentially, the NHTSA wants to create and enforce rules that would require automakers to make emergency door latch releases more clearly labeled in a car. Despite a Tesla having manual door releases on all four passenger doors, many people do not know they exist or how they work.
Tesla addresses door handle complaints with simple engineering fix
In recent times, Tesla has faced some criticism involving its door handles, specifically because some occupants have reported that they are unable to exit their vehicles after losing power. The door handles on a Tesla are electronically operated, but in the event that the 12V battery dies, there is a manual release that can be used.
The NHTSA only identified a single complaint involving the mechanical door releases: a 2022 Model 3 owner said the release was concealed and unlabeled after the vehicle lost power after a front-end collision. It has also already started to create a separate rulemaking process to make emergency door-egress systems more obvious.
It should be noted that all Teslas have mechanical emergency door releases, but they are placed in various locations as the vehicles have aged and been redesigned from year to year. Refer to the safety manual for your vehicle if you have any confusion about where the emergency releases are and how they work.
News
SpaceX Starship Flight 13 faces wrath of the Texas skies
SpaceX pushed Starship Flight 13 to Friday, blaming weather instead of the previous engine issues.
SpaceX called off Thursday’s launch attempt of Starship Flight 13, pushing the mission to Friday because of weather tied to Tropical Storm Bertha. The company confirmed the delay on X, noting “Now targeting Friday, July 24 for Starship’s thirteenth flight test, due to weather. A key objective for the flight test is to get clear imagery from the ground of Starship’s heatshield as it flies at a higher dynamic pressure during ascent, which won’t be possible with today’s weather conditions.”
This is the second delay for Flight 13 in two weeks. SpaceX first tried to launch the mission on July 16, but the countdown ended in an automated abort at T-0 when four of Super Heavy Booster 20’s 33 Raptor engines failed to ignite. Musk said at the time that two Raptors would need to be removed and replaced, as Teslarati reported. The company spent the following week destacking Ship 40 and Booster 20, swapping engines, and running leak checks before restacking the vehicle on Pad 2 Wednesday night, according to Spaceflight Now’s live coverage.
Unlike the engine problem, Thursday’s delay has nothing to do with the hardware. SpaceX wants clean footage of Starship’s heat shield captured from the ground as the vehicle flies through max dynamic pressure, something the storm’s cloud cover over South Texas would not allow. The company said visibility should improve for Friday’s attempt, with the same 90 minute window opening at 5:45 p.m. CT.
Flight 13 will be the second outing for the V3 versions of Starship and Super Heavy, following their debut on Flight 12 in May. The mission carries 20 production Starlink V3 satellites, the first time SpaceX has flown operational satellites rather than mass simulators on Starship. Six of those satellites are fitted with cameras to inspect the heat shield from a different angle during ascent, giving engineers a second data source beyond the ground imagery the weather is currently blocking.
Booster 20 will attempt a boostback burn and a splashdown landing burn in the Gulf of America, while Ship 40 follows a suborbital trajectory toward a landing in the Indian Ocean. The flight plan largely mirrors Flight 12, though the booster will run a more aggressive ascent burn after max Q this time, and the ship’s heat shield includes load sensing tiles meant to measure stress at the higher dynamic pressure SpaceX is targeting.
If Friday’s attempt succeeds, Flight 13 could be the last suborbital test in the program. SpaceX is already looking to push for an orbital flight on Flight 14.
Tesla short sellers win big after shares fall after earnings
Tesla door handle saga gets its latest chapter and a big change is coming
