Connect with us

News

SpaceX wants to use the first Mars-bound BFR spaceships as Martian habitats

Published

8 years ago

on

Speaking at the 2018 Mars Society Convention, SpaceX’s Principal Mars Development Engineer Paul Wooster briefly presented on the company’s BFR and Mars colony ambitions.

While the majority of the 30-minute talk rehashed CEO Elon Musk’s 2017 BFR update and subsequent Reddit AMA, it also happened to contain a handful of new details and slides, including a suggestion that the first BFR spaceships to land on Mars will stay on the Red Planet as temporary habitats or tools for early colonists.

The senior engineer reiterated the company’s aspirational Martian launch targets, featuring two uncrewed cargo BFRs in 2022 and four total BFRs in 2024, two crewed and two uncrewed. Whether or not the lack of change in those dates (provided by Wooster nearly a year after CEO Elon Musk’s identical date reveal in September 2017) asserts that SpaceX’s BFR and Mars research and development remains on track, it almost certainly confirms that the company’s incredibly aggressive targets are here to stay.

Graciously documented by Reddit users /u/theinternetftw and /u/Nehkara and European Space Agency intern Maxime Lenormand, at least partially alleviating the unbelievably atrocious webcast quality, Wooster offered attendees a slightly deeper glimpse into the extensive in-depth planning going on behind the scenes at SpaceX. Almost all of the new slides Wooster presented focused heavily on the technical side of actually planning to create a self-sustaining Martian colony, ranging from locations for any prospective colony to the types of skillsets that would be exceptionally invaluable in early colonists.

At this point, it’s entirely possible that SpaceX’s internal team of Mars-focused engineers and experts has already begun to approach or even surpass the detail and value of previous theoretical Martian colonization research from the likes of NASA, ESA, and other space agencies and companies. Still, SpaceX has made it eminently clear that it wants and likely needs to collaborate with independent experts on Mars, life support systems, construction, resource extraction and refinement, and more.

A private Mars workshop recently hosted by SpaceX – likely the first of many to come – evidenced that desire to collaborate with companies, agencies, and researchers that have already put years of effort into analyzing and answering the same questions SpaceX will need to answer to successfully build a sustainable city on Mars

 

Perhaps the most interesting detail to come out of Wooster’s August 25th talk, however, was the slight affirmation that SpaceX is seriously thinking about leaving the first landed BFR spaceships on Mars indefinitely, although it’s not entirely clear which spaceships he was referring to. According to paraphrased notes taken from the webcast, early BFR spaceships on the Martian surface would remain there to be used as resources (habitats). He subsequently noted that early colonists would “probably” live out of the first landed spaceships, to begin with, suggesting that the uncrewed, cargo-dedicated spaceships would still return to Earth, as they will not feature human-rated life support systems of any of the necessities for living.

Still, multiple other slides in Wooster’s presentation make it clear that the goal from the very beginning of the first BFRs to Mars is to expand living space and infrastructure as quickly as possible, paving the way for the arrival of more and more colonists. It’s extremely likely that a significant number of skilled colonists will be needed to ensure that the colony remains healthy and safe, while also guaranteeing that it can sustainably grow as rapidly as feasible.

Even though it certainly wasn’t the “BFR update” Musk suggested was coming soon, Wooster’s presentation provided the best glimpse yet into the extensive analysis and planning SpaceX is undertaking to discern how exactly to best structure its very first colony-focused launches to Mars.

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!

Related Topics:

Eric Ralph is Teslarati's senior spaceflight reporter and has been covering the industry in some capacity for almost half a decade, largely spurred in 2016 by a trip to Mexico to watch Elon Musk reveal SpaceX's plans for Mars in person. Aside from spreading interest and excitement about spaceflight far and wide, his primary goal is to cover humanity's ongoing efforts to expand beyond Earth to the Moon, Mars, and elsewhere.

Advertisement
Comments

News

Tesla launches V2L Outlet Adapter for Premium Model Y in the U.S.

Published

3 hours ago

on

August 14, 2026

By

Credit: Tesla

Tesla has launched a new Vehicle-to-Load (V2L) Outlet Adapter for Premium Model Y vehicles in the United States, meaning you can now power devices like laptops or light strings with your vehicle’s battery.

It appears the capability will be available for any Model Y Premium trim, including those that were purchased prior to the Adapter being launched. It will also only impact Juniper Model Y vehicles, so the first-gen owners will unfortunately not have access to this capability.

If your Model Y was purchased before Tesla renamed the trim levels to “Premium” and “Standard,” it does not seem to be compatible. My Model Y is technically a Premium build, as it is the Long Range All-Wheel-Drive. However, Tesla says it is not compatible with my vehicle.

For $80, you can now utilize your car as a portable charger for small appliances or devices. This is perfect for things like tailgates, concerts, or camping, as you can now plug in devices that you might use. Those string lights for camping? That laptop for the other games that are on at the tailgate?

Advertisement
-
-

They’ll both utilize energy from your Tesla’s battery to be powered. This is the first time Tesla has expanded the capability to vehicles outside of the Model Y Performance and Cybertruck. However, this feature has been highly requested by owners for an extended period of time.

Tesla launched the Outlet Adapter in China last year:

Tesla China rolls out Model Y L V2L adapter, and it’s free for early owners

You will need the Mobile Connector to operate the Outlet Adapter: the Outlet Adapter will plug into the main housing of the Mobile Connector, where the appropriate adapter to charge your vehicle will plug in.

It is rated for 120 volts and 20 amps, and has a max power rating of 2.4kW.

You can buy it here from Tesla for $80.

Advertisement
-
-
Continue Reading

News

Tesla Roadster unveiling nears, and it will fly: The Information

Published

7 hours ago

on

August 14, 2026

By

(Credit: Dami Kolz/Twitter)

Tesla is nearing its long-awaited unveiling of the all-electric Tesla Roadster, a new report from The Information claims, as the company has said several times this year that the event would take place “soon.”

Now, it appears there is movement on Tesla’s end regarding when it will happen.

The report says that Tesla will unveil the Roadster as soon as this month with a SpaceX version that will utilize cold-gas thrusters to help the vehicle float for a short period of time. This is something CEO Elon Musk has talked about with the Roadster for years.

Additionally, due to the delays, Tesla explored “a variety of designs” for the Roadster, potentially planning to abandon the design it showed off for the first time in 2017 and adopting an entirely new aesthetic.

Advertisement
-
-

According to The Information, Tesla considered utilizing a repurposed Model S Plaid and even wanted to upgrade the look to something like a Lamborghini Countach.

Elon Musk teases Tesla Roadster unveiling once again

We’ve heard all of these things before, including teases about the date and how “soon” the Roadster will finally be ready to be shown off to the world (for the second time). Musk said that the event would occur in April, then May, then Chief Designer Franz von Holzhausen continued to say it would be coming “soon.”

We do expect to see the Roadster by the end of the year, and now with this new report swirling, it appears it could be sooner rather than later.

The wait has been incredibly long, but there is likely a good reason for it. Tesla’s desire to make the Roadster the craziest vehicle on the road was non-negotiable, and it likely took a lot of time and resources to develop and perfect into something that was safe and suitable for a vehicle like this.

Continue Reading

Featured

Tesla finally got its Nevada Robotaxi Permit but with a few catches hard to miss

Nevada granted Tesla’s robotaxi permit, but capped the fleet at just ten vehicles for now.

Published

17 hours ago

on

August 13, 2026

By

Concept art of a Tesla Cybercab in Las Vegas Strip as rendered via Grok

Tesla has received its robotaxi permit in Nevada, more than two months after regulators closed the public comment period on the company’s application. News of the approval surfaced Wednesday night when Tesla investor and longtime company watcher Sawyer Merritt posted a copy of the interim order, and the Nevada Transportation Authority’s own carrier registry now lists the permit, AVNC Permit 002 under Docket 26-05015, as active for Tesla Robotaxi, LLC.

Tesla asked Nevada in June for authority to run up to 5,000 vehicles in Clark County within a year, however the permit the NTA issued is initially capping Tesla at ten fully autonomous vehicles and confines them to a defined geofence along the Las Vegas Strip corridor. Any expansion of that operating area, or any increase to the fleet size, requires the NTA’s approval first.

The order also sets rules that look more restrictive than what Tesla runs in Austin. Rides are barred on roads with posted speed limits above 45 miles per hour, pickups are off limits within a quarter mile of Harry Reid International Airport without separate authorization, and every vehicle has to carry visible “Robotaxi” markings while notifying riders before each trip that no one is driving. The order also requires “appropriate human supervision”, language that suggests Nevada isn’t ready to let Tesla offer the rides without a safety monitor that it has run in parts of Austin since January. As with standard protocol with robotaxi services, Tesla must report any accident, system failure, or vehicle that becomes stranded on a Nevada road within five business days.

Tesla is entering a market Nevada already knows well. Zoox, the Amazon owned robotaxi company, has run its own autonomous vehicle permit in the state since last year, building up to roughly 100 vehicles and 350,000 rides along the Strip. That history likely explains why the NTA started Tesla at ten cars rather than the fleet size the company asked for. The agency has a template for scaling a permit up once a company proves out its safety record.

Advertisement
-
-

Tesla’s Nevada application first surfaced in June, when the company filed for the permit alongside plans for a maintenance hub in southwest Las Vegas. The company has said it won’t meaningfully scale its robotaxi fleet anywhere until FSD v15 ships, expected in late 2026 or early 2027, which makes the ten vehicle cap less of a constraint today than it might look on paper. For now, Tesla has the legal right to start Nevada rides. Whether it starts before FSD v15 arrives is a separate question the permit doesn’t answer.

Continue Reading