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SpaceX’s first orbital Starship engine just breathed fire
Less than three weeks after shipping to Texas, SpaceX says that Starship’s first Raptor Vacuum engine has completed a “full duration test fire” on the march towards orbital test flights.
Known as Raptor Vacuum or RVac, the engine is almost entirely based off of its sea level-optimized cousin, taking all of the complex turbomachinery and combustion chambers that represent the bulk of a rocket engine. Things start to diverge below the throat of the combustion chamber (the narrow part of the central hourglass-like curve), where SpaceX has expanded Raptor’s existing bell nozzle by a factor of five or more.
SpaceX’s reusable Starship spacecraft will use a mix of three sea level Raptors and three Raptor Vacuum engines to give it the thrust it needs to reach orbit and ensure efficient operations both in atmosphere and vacuum.
In simple terms, a rocket engine can benefit from a vacuum-optimized nozzle because the added surface area (more or less) gives the extremely high-pressure gases exiting its combustion chamber even more footholds to push against. Rocket nozzles are at their most efficient when the engine’s exhaust gas finishes expanding to match ambient pressure at the exact moment it exits the bell. Logically, at sea level on Earth, the ambient air pressure is quite high, meaning that rocket exhaust doesn’t have to expand as much to equalize.
In the vacuum of space, however, exhaust gases must expand far more to reach the same pressure as its surroundings. For rocket propulsion, that extra expansion can be exploited to make a more efficient engine, squeezing extra energy out of the same propellant and in a perfect vacuum, the most efficient nozzle would technically be infinite. Engineering and physical infinities don’t exactly get along, unfortunately, so vacuum rocket engineers are forced to settle on a nozzle size at a scale that humans can feasibly manufacture.
In theory, Starship doesn’t need Raptor Vacuum engines to be a functioning orbital spacecraft and CEO Elon Musk himself floated a design with seven sea-level engines just two years ago. Since then, the SpaceX CEO revealed that Raptor was making such good progress that the company undid the removal of vacuum-optimized engines from Starship’s baseline design.
It’s unclear exactly what SpaceX means when it says that Raptor Vacuum SN1 completed a “full duration test fire.” For Starship, a full-duration orbital insertion burn – beginning immediately after Super Heavy booster separate – would likely be no shorter than five or six minutes. Even for SpaceX, going from shipping the very first engine (Raptor Vacuum) produced to a successful several-minute static fire in less than three weeks’ time would be an almost inconceivable feat of engineering. The feat would imply that SpaceX is already extremely comfortable with several-minute Raptor burns – perhaps the single biggest hurdle standing between Starship and orbit.
More likely, “full duration test fire” simply refers to the fact that the pathfinder Raptor Vacuum engine managed to ignite, burn, and shut down on schedule – avoiding a premature shutdown, in other words. For an engine as large and complex as Raptor, even that downgraded interpretation would represent an impressive achievement.
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Tesla Energy has introduced the Powerwall Lease in conjunction with Tesla Electric, making the service available in Texas. This new option delivers whole-home backup power using two Powerwall units for a net monthly cost of $35 after credits, accompanied by a low fixed electricity rate.
Under the lease terms, customers pay a one-time order fee of $100. The base lease payment for the two Powerwalls is approximately $122 per month during the first year, subject to a 3 percent annual escalator thereafter. Enrollment in a qualifying Tesla Electric Backup plan or Virtual Power Plant plan provides an $87 monthly credit.
Powerwall Lease is now available with Tesla Electric in Texas
Whole-home backup for $35/month, with a low fixed electricity rate
– Two Powerwalls, $0 installation
– Storm Watch outage protection
– One app to manage it all pic.twitter.com/oTzqc6K3aF— Tesla Energy (@teslaenergy) August 13, 2026
This credit lowers the effective cost to roughly $35 per month plus applicable tax.
Installation of the standard system carries no additional charge. The package features Storm Watch for outage protection and allows complete management through a single Tesla application. The system supplies continuous whole-home backup capability.
The Powerwall system enables households to maintain electricity during severe storms that disrupt the utility grid. When outages occur, the batteries automatically provide seamless backup power to the home.
Tesla announces 100k Powerwalls are participating in Virtual Power Plants
Tesla Storm Watch monitors weather forecasts and ensures the units are fully charged ahead of anticipated severe weather events so that power remains available throughout the disruption, keeping lights, refrigeration, and other essential systems operating without interruption.
Availability is restricted to select Texas locations where retail electric choice exists. Participants must lease exactly two Powerwall units and maintain continuous enrollment with Tesla Electric. Solar panels cannot be included under this particular lease arrangement.
The monthly credit activates automatically once the system is installed, receives permission to operate, and enrollment is confirmed. To retain the credit, customers are required to stay enrolled in Tesla Electric and fulfill all program conditions.
Nonstandard installations that involve electrical upgrades or special permitting may lead to extra expenses and might impact eligibility for the credit, so be sure to check with either your installer or Tesla to ensure you will still qualify.
Elon Musk continues to tease the unveiling event for the Tesla Roadster, a continuing trend that has grown into a bigger game of “When” for fans who have been waiting years for the car to finally enter production.
A video shared on X of the Joe Rogan Experience podcast that Musk appeared on last year, teasing the Roadster unveiling, was shared once again on the social media platform. The poster said the Roadster event will be “unforgettable.”
Musk agreed:
Yes
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 12, 2026
The timing is interesting because just yesterday, Musk said that we will be getting flying cars, and for years, Tesla has hinted that it could develop a SpaceX cold gas thruster package that would help the car float or fly for a short period of time.
It would be reasonable to assume Tesla’s major delays with this unveiling event are likely caused by the company’s need to break the rules and push the envelope on nearly everything. Last July, Lars Moravy, Tesla’s VP of Vehicle Engineering, said:
“Roadster is definitely in development. We did talk about it last Sunday night. We are gearing up for a super cool demo. It’s going to be mind blowing. We showed Elon some cool demos last week of the tech we’ve been working on and he got a little excited.”
The latest updates that Tesla has given us are that the Roadster is in design development, and it did have several potential dates for an unveiling event this year, including April. It was then pushed to August.
However, there are no clues as to when Tesla will be ready, and fans are certainly getting frustrated with the delays.
For what it is worth, Franz von Holzhausen told Jay Leno this week that the event would be “very soon.”
We sure hope.
Lifestyle
Tesla’s driverless Cybercab just passed a big test with State Governor
Florida’s governor rode Tesla’s Cybercab at a closed test track and called the experience impressive.
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis rode in a Tesla Cybercab on a closed test track this week and came away impressed, posting on X that the vehicle “successfully navigated all hazards — a kid running into the street, a crash with police stopping traffic, a Model S cutting us off, etc.” He called the ride “impressive.”
The stop was part of a broader event Monday at SunTrax, a 775 acre state owned proving ground in Auburndale that Florida built specifically to test autonomous and connected vehicles before they reach public roads. Standing next to a gold Cybercab, DeSantis described the car in plain terms: “You go in there and you just sit. You have a screen. There’s no steering wheel, no pedals. Clearly these things could be very beneficial.”
We took a ride on a robotaxi on the Suntrax course and it successfully navigated all hazards — a kid running into the street, a crash with police stopping traffic, a Model S cutting us off, etc.
Impressive! https://t.co/FVAkzFLz3r
— Ron DeSantis (@RonDeSantis) August 11, 2026
DeSantis paired the praise with a caveat that has followed autonomous vehicles since the category existed. “You don’t want to be in an autonomous vehicle and it drives you into a ditch. That would not be good,” he said, framing safety validation as the gate before wider deployment.
SunTrax, the 2.25 mile oval which the state calls the only high speed autonomous vehicle test track in the Southeast, can simulate rain, pedestrian crossings, hills and crowded urban conditions at highway speeds, letting companies push a car past what an early public rollout would risk. Tesla, Waymo and Beep all use the facility, and Florida’s regulatory approach, among the most permissive for autonomous vehicles in the country, doesn’t require a human operator inside a fully autonomous car.
Tesla has reason to want the blessing of Florida and states beyond, as the Cybercab entered volume production at Gigafactory Texas this spring and has since self certified as SAE Level 4 under Texas law. Public road testing so far has kept a safety monitor in the passenger seat, and Florida is where Tesla has been expanding its existing Model Y based Robotaxi service instead, adding Miami in July and then Orlando and Tampa two weeks later. A closed track endorsement from a sitting governor doesn’t change any of that, but it does put Tesla’s newest hardware in front of a state that has already shown it will move fast on rules.
Tesla launches Powerwall Lease for affordable home backup
Elon Musk teases Tesla Roadster unveiling once again
