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SpaceX Falcon 9 “Block 5” next-gen reusable rocket spied in Texas test site
SpaceX’s next and final generation of Falcon rockets is nearly ready to complete its biggest milestone yet, second only to operational launch. Known as Falcon 9 Block 5, the upgraded booster arrived at SpaceX’s McGregor, TX test facilities and went vertical on the static fire test stand.
Now vertical, that first integrated static fire is likely to occur within a handful of days at most. Once complete, assuming the data it produces do not betray any bugs or serious problems, the booster will be brought horizontal and transported to one of SpaceX’s three launch facilities for its first operational mission.
Why Block 5?
With nary a hint of hyperbole, it’s safe to say that Falcon 9 Block 5 will be the most significant piece of hardware ever developed and fielded by SpaceX. The reason lies in many of the changes and upgrades present in this newest iteration of the rocket. While Falcon 9 B5 and its similarly upgraded Merlin 1D engines include design changes intended to satisfy NASA requirements before SpaceX can be certified to launch humans, the brunt of the upgrades are laser-focused on ease and speed of reusability.
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- SpaceX Block 5 Falcon9 at McGregor, Texas [Credit: Chris G – NSF via Twitter, Reprinted with permission from NASASpaceflight.com]
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- SpaceX Block 5 Falcon9 at McGregor, Texas [Credit: Chris G – NSF via Twitter, Reprinted with permission from NASASpaceflight.com]
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- SpaceX Block 5 Falcon9 at McGregor, Texas [Credit: Chris G – NSF via Twitter, Reprinted with permission from NASASpaceflight.com]
Photo courtesy of Chris G at nasaspaceflight.com via Twitter. Reprinted with permission.
The goal with those upgrades, as publicly stated by numerous SpaceX executives, is to enable as many as 10 flights with a bare minimum of refurbishment and 100 or more launches with intermittent maintenance. To achieve those titanic aspirations, SpaceX has gathered a flood of data and experience earned through the recovery of nearly 20 Falcon 9 and Heavy boosters, as well as the successful reflight and second recovery of several of those same boosters. With that data in hand, the company’s launch vehicle engineers optimized and upgraded the rocket’s design to combat the worst of the extreme forces each booster is subjected to while returning to land (or sea).
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- Falcon Heavy side booster B1025 gives a sense of the sheer brutality of reentry conditions. (Tom Cross)
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- Note the pieces of cork that have been torn off by the buffeting and heat on the lefthand side. (Tom Cross)
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- An incredibly detail shot of the side of the octaweb. The large chunk of smooth metal in the center is actually one of the booster’s connection points to the Falcon Heavy center core. (Tom Cross/Teslarati)
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- A beautiful capture of one of the booster’s nine Merlin engines, showing off the pipe used to cool the engine bell, as well as the ceramic blanket that protects its more sensitive plumbing. (Tom Cross/Teslarati)
As evidenced by photos taken by Gary Blair, one of NASASpaceflight.com‘s most renowned L2 forum contributors, many of the visible differences between Block 5 and previous versions of Falcon 9 are a result of drastically improved and expanded heat shielding of its most sensitive and crucial components. While Falcon 9 B5’s black sections by all appearances look like naked carbon fiber composite, they are likely to be coated with an incredibly heat-resistant material known a Pyron. Portions of the booster that suffer from incidental scorching and extreme heating (aside from the octaweb) appear to have been treated with this material, including a pathway down the side of the rocket known as a raceway. The raceway is a protective enclosure for a variety of cabling and piping, essentially the rocket’s nervous system as well as the home of several the cold gas thrusters it uses to orient itself outside of Earth’s atmosphere.
In the past, SpaceX has used high-quality cork as a quasi-ablative thermal protection system for those same components, including the payload fairing. A major downside of cork, however, is that it is very ablative and tends to come off rather haphazardly in large chunks, all of which must either be spot-fixed or replaced entirely before a booster reflight. By replacing that cork with Pyron or a similar internally-developed material, those sensitive Falcon components may be almost totally insulated from and resistant to temperatures as high as 2300 °F (1200 °C)
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- Block 5 looks similar to this Falcon 9, but with a deep black interstage and a black enclosure instead of the white covering seen running down the left side of the booster. (SpaceX)
Titanium grid fins are another central feature of Block 5, acting as a near-indefinitely reusable replacement for the aluminum grid fins SpaceX has traditionally used. Put through a huge amount of heating during reentry; aluminum grid fins have famously appeared to partially melt during some of the hottest booster recovery attempts. Titanium, a metal with a much higher melting point, will have no such problems, does not need ablative white paint, and certainly appear all but untouched by reentry in the cases of both their June 2017 debut and second flight on Falcon Heavy’s side boosters.
Finally and perhaps most importantly, is the octaweb – the assembly at the base of Falcon 9 responsible for safely transmitting nearly two million pounds of thrust from its nine Merlin 1Ds to the rest of the rocket’s structure, while also taking the brunt of the heat of reentry. Before Block 5, the octaweb was protected from that heating with an ablative thermal protection system, likely around 80% cork and 20% PICA-X, the same material used on Cargo Dragon’s heat shield. Based on comments made privately by individuals familiar with SpaceX, that ablative shielding is to be replaced by a highly heat-resistant metal alloy known as inconel. By ridding Block 5 of ablative heat shielding, SpaceX will no longer have to carefully examine and replace those materials after each launch, removing one of the biggest refurbishment time-sinks.
Titanium grid fins complete the highly reusable changes to Block 5 of Falcon 9. (NASA)
Combined, these various upgrades are intended to enable Falcon 9’s first stage to be reused almost effortlessly compared to previous iterations. With this vehicle, including the reusable fairing debuted on the launch of PAZ, SpaceX may well be able to achieve Elon Musk’s famous goal of lowering the cost of launch by nearly an order of magnitude. While SpaceX will likely use that cost reduction to first recoup its considerable investments in reusability and Falcon Heavy, major price drops may reach customers soon after. This Falcon 9, in particular, is unlikely to launch for another month or so, but when it does, it is perhaps the biggest step SpaceX has yet taken on the path to routine, rapid, and affordable access to orbit.
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News
It’s official: SpaceX takes aim at Verizon, AT&T, and T-Mobile
SpaceX is buying 800 MHz spectrum from Grain to turn Starlink Mobile into a carrier.
SpaceX has agreed to buy a nationwide block of low band wireless spectrum, a deal the company says will let Starlink Mobile operate as a full US carrier rather than a satellite add-on for someone else’s network.
The company announced the agreement on X on Thursday afternoon, saying it will “pave the way for @Starlink to become a major mobile carrier in the US.” The seller is Grain Management, a private investment firm that confirmed in a statement that SpaceX will acquire 100% of its nationwide 800 MHz portfolio. That covers up to 14 MHz of paired spectrum in the 817 to 824 MHz and 862 to 869 MHz bands. Neither side disclosed a price, and the deal still needs FCC approval.
We announced an agreement to acquire a nationwide low-band spectrum license portfolio that will pave the way for @Starlink to become a major mobile carrier in the US.
With this new spectrum and our Gen2 constellation, Starlink Mobile can ensure Americans have access to high-speed mobile broadband no matter where they are → https://t.co/1Uaf48v5pm
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) October 8, 2026
Grain only recently picked up the licenses itself. It bought the portfolio from T-Mobile in a transaction that closed in August, paying cash plus its own 600 MHz spectrum. Rival AST SpaceMobile had been testing satellites on the same bands before SpaceX stepped in.
SpaceX said its 2 GHz spectrum will handle high bandwidth capacity, while the new 800 MHz layer “ensures Starlink Mobile’s signal penetrates through obstacles, such as walls, and can provide service to customers’ devices even when they are in buildings.” The company added that most existing phones already support the band, so customers would not need new hardware to use it.
That 2 GHz spectrum came from SpaceX’s EchoStar acquisition last year, which gave the company exclusive S band rights in the US and global Mobile Satellite Service licenses. The Grain spectrum is different in an important way: it is tailored for service from ground towers, not satellites. SpaceX said that combination would make Starlink Mobile “the first network operator to deploy both satellite and terrestrial spectrum.”
The announcement also follows a key regulatory win. Earlier this week, the FCC approved SpaceX’s plan to deploy 15,000 second generation Starlink Mobile satellites, which the company has said will carry up to 100 times the data density of the current system, as Teslarati previously reported.
Shares of AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile fell in extended trading after the announcement. T-Mobile is currently SpaceX’s launch partner for Starlink Mobile in the US, which makes its position the most complicated of the three.
SpaceX has not been subtle about its plans. During the company’s August earnings call, President and COO Gwynne Shotwell said she expected Starlink Mobile to win over customers from the major carriers. “I anticipate us to be able to acquire quite a few of their customers because I think our service will be better,” she said, pointing to dead zone coverage and resilience during disasters. Shotwell also described plans for low cost cellular base stations that could pair with existing Starlink dishes.
SpaceX has targeted 2027 for deployment of its next generation Starlink Mobile satellites, with upgraded service expected by the end of that year. The FCC review of the Grain deal now determines when the terrestrial half of that network can come online.
Elon Musk
Trump presents Elon Musk with National Medal of Science, calls him “modern-day Thomas Edison”
Trump gave Elon Musk the National Medal of Science and compared him to Thomas Edison.
Elon Musk now has the highest honor the U.S. government gives to scientists and engineers. President Donald Trump presented him with the National Medal of Science on Thursday at the White House’s “Science: A New Golden Age” summit, held at the Institute of Peace in Washington, according to the White House.
Trump called Musk a “national treasure” and “our modern-day Thomas Edison.” “Few Americans in history have done more to advance America’s national interest than Elon in one field after another,” the president said. He also described Musk as an “industrial titan, brilliant engineer and one of the greatest technology founders to ever live.”
The official citation credits Musk “for engineering achievements of extraordinary ambition and scale that have pushed the frontiers of space exploration, intelligent systems, communications, and beyond, renewing American technological leadership and opening a new chapter in American manufacturing.” Tesla is not named in it, but “intelligent systems” and “American manufacturing” cover a lot of ground that Tesla and the Terafab chip project occupy.
Google co-founder Sergey Brin, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang and AMD CEO Lisa Su received the same medal. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and Dell Technologies CEO Michael Dell were given the National Medal of Technology and Innovation. It was the first time Trump has handed out either award in his two terms. As Teslarati noted when the list was first reported on Wednesday, the National Science Foundation says 529 people have received the Medal of Science since Congress created it in 1959.
🚨 IT’S OFFICIAL: President Trump just PERSONALLY presented Elon Musk the National Medal of Science for his INCREDIBLE contributions to our nation
I can’t think of ANYONE who deserves this honor more 👏🏻
Congratulations, @elonmusk! https://t.co/GkAaVp9wb9
— Nick Sortor (@nicksortor) October 8, 2026
The ceremony closes a loop that opened in 2025, when Musk left DOGE and criticized the “Big Beautiful Bill,” sparking a public feud. Al Jazeera noted that Musk was the largest contributor to Trump’s 2024 campaign, and CNBC reported that all of the honorees have given financially to Trump or Republican causes in some form. The reconciliation has moved quickly in recent weeks. Musk sat at Trump’s left at the September 29 White House AI lunch, was named to help lead the Pentagon’s Project Meridian study on the future of warfare, and adopted the administration’s “super intelligence” wording when he said SpaceXAI will become SpaceXSI.
For Tesla and SpaceX shareholders, the practical question is what the closer relationship means for federal approvals. Tesla’s Robotaxi and Cybercab expansion depends on national autonomy rules, and SpaceX’s Starship and Starlink plans run through the FAA, FCC and NASA. Thursday’s ceremony did not change any of that directly.
Elon Musk
Elon Musk’s Boring Company lands a new Middle East deal, and Nashville is about to get faster
The Boring Company signs Abu Dhabi tunnel agreement while adding more Prufrock machines in Nashville.
The Boring Company has signed an agreement with Abu Dhabi to study underground transport and utility tunnels across the emirate, adding a second UAE city to its pipeline as it prepares to also scale up tunneling back home in Nashville.
The deal was signed Thursday at the Liveability and Investment Exhibition (LIVEX 2026) by Boring Company President Steve Davis and Maysarah Mahmoud Salim Eid, director general of the Abu Dhabi Projects and Infrastructure Centre (ADPIC), according to the Abu Dhabi Media Office. Mohamed Ali Al Shorafa, chairman of the emirate’s Department of Municipalities and Transport, attended the signing.
Under the agreement, the two sides will assess feasibility, delivery and operating models for tunnels that could carry passengers or utilities. They will also look at Abu Dhabi’s potential as a regional hub for tunneling work. The current phase is exploratory, and no construction commitment or project budget has been announced.
“Abu Dhabi provides an ideal environment to explore the next generation of underground infrastructure solutions, supported by its ambitious growth vision and strong commitment to advanced technologies,”
Davis said. He added that the company wants to assess how tunnels can “expand urban capacity more efficiently, and enable better use of available space.”
The timing lines up with the money, considering last month, The Boring Company closed a $3 billion Series D led by the UAE and affiliated investors, valuing the company at $23 billion, as Teslarati reported. That round came with a commitment to build more than 150 kilometers of tunnel across the UAE, separate from the Dubai Loop pilot already under contract with Dubai’s Roads and Transport Authority. That pilot covers 6.4 kilometers and four stations linking DIFC and Dubai Mall at a cost of about $154 million.
Back home, The Boring Company projects in Nashville are also scaling up, with the company telling local NewsChannel 5 that a third Prufrock machine could start digging the Music City Loop in late October. A fourth is also targeted before the end of the year. Two machines are already mining Nashville limestone at the same time, and work is underway on a new launch site for the third.
The company said it has made more than 300 design and performance upgrades to its original Nashville machine. It is also working with property owners on more than 40 planned stations, with approvals in place for a future Nashville International Airport connection, a downtown station near the Music City Center, and stops at residential towers and the JW Marriott.
Construction on the Music City Loop began the same evening Tennessee and federal regulators approved the project’s lease in February, and the company targeted its first operational segment for late 2026. Back in Las Vegas, The Boring Company has said it plans to double its Vegas Loop station count by year’s end.
It’s official: SpaceX takes aim at Verizon, AT&T, and T-Mobile
Trump presents Elon Musk with National Medal of Science, calls him “modern-day Thomas Edison”
Elon Musk’s Boring Company lands a new Middle East deal, and Nashville is about to get faster
The Pentagon taps Elon Musk to design the battlefield of the future
Tesla Roadster’s new patent preps white-knuckle speeds, keeping it grounded
