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SpaceX wants to move Starship Mk2 to one of its Florida launch pads later this month

Taken by local flight instructor @flying_briann on August 19th, this photo offers an excellent overview of SpaceX's Florida Starship build site. (Twitter - @flying_briann)

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According to documents filed with local city and transportation authorities in recent months and cataloged by a few local news outlets and spaceflight fans, SpaceX is preparing to transport its East Coast Starship prototype – known as “Mk2” – as early as later this month.

Throughout August 2019, local resident, spaceflight fan, photographer, and cookie-baker Julia Bergeron did a significant amount of groundwork to flesh out an estimated route for Starship Mk2. Delivering the massive rocket prototype from Cocoa, Florida to SpaceX’s Kennedy Space Center Launch Complex 39A facilities would involve a 30+ mile trip by road, cost-prohibitive due to the amount of work required. Confirmed by documents unearthed by local ClickOrlando journalists, SpaceX will instead transport the rocket a few miles by road before loading it onto a barge and shipping the vehicle the rest of the way to KSC.

According to ClickOrlando’s report, those documents indicate that SpaceX will work with Roll-Lift – a familiar contractor for the company – to move Starship the few miles from its Cocoa, FL build site to a river access point located off of a nearby bridge. Once there, it will be loaded onto a barge on the Indian River and pass through the Canaveral Barge Canal to reach the Banana River. Once that leg is complete, it’s a fairly straight shot by barge to NASA’s Kennedy Space Center Turn Basin, historically used to deliver extra-large rocket components like Saturn V stages and Space Shuttle External Tanks.

After arriving at the Turn Basin, a few-mile trek along KSC’s Pad 39 Crawlerway will mark the last leg of the spaceship’s move to Pad 39A, where SpaceX broke ground just days ago on a concrete foundation that will eventually support a launch mount for Starship and Super Heavy.

Currently disassembled into a nose cone, upper nose, and tank section, it remains to be seen if SpaceX will transport Starship Mk2 in pieces or integrate the three segments before moving the giant rocket. Stretching 9m (30 ft) in diameter and 45-55m (150-180 ft) tall depending on the stage of assembly, Starship will likely weigh several dozen metric tons (100,000+ lb) and pose major challenges over such a long journey.

SpaceX and city workers have already spent the last two or so months either raising or burying a number of utility lines along the proposed transport route, a necessity to give a vertical Starship the headroom needed to traverse several miles of public roads.

After this move, it’s likely that SpaceX will move its Florida Starship factory to a new site inside the bounds of Kennedy Space Center. Currently known by the road it sits beside, SpaceX has already begun work on its prospective Roberts Road facilities. Proposed in 2018 as a convenient Falcon 9 refurbishment and launch control center (LCC), Roberts Road could also provide at least as much room for Starship production as is available at SpaceX’s current Cocoa, FL property while sidestepping the logistical headaches of transporting Starships – let alone Super Heavy boosters – dozens of miles.

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SpaceX currently has more than two dozen stainless steel rings strewn about its Cocoa, FL build facilities, enough raw material to build more than 45m (150 ft) of the first Super Heavy booster or a Starship Mk3 prototype. Starship Mk2 has suffered some minor delays as a result of Hurricane Dorian but is poised to be capped with its third and final propellant tank dome before the end of the month. Starship Mk1 (located in Boca Chica, TX) and Starship Mk2 remain more or less neck-and-neck as the distinct SpaceX teams compete to complete their prototypes first.

According to ClickOrlando’s documentation, SpaceX plans to move Starship Mk2 to Pad 39A as early as this month. The on-road leg will take place at night and require road and highway closures, while SpaceX estimates that the entire transportation process could take up to two weeks from start to finish.

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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.

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Tesla begins Robotaxi certification push in Arizona: report

Tesla seems serious about expanding its Robotaxi service to several states in the coming months.

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Credit: Tesla

Tesla has initiated discussions with Arizona transportation regulators to certify its driverless Robotaxi service in the state, as per a recent report from Bloomberg News. The move follows Tesla’s launch of its Robotaxi pilot program in Austin, Texas, as well as CEO Elon Musk’s recent comments about the service’s expansion in the Bay Area.

The Arizona Department of Transportation confirmed to Bloomberg that Tesla has reached out to begin the certification process for autonomous ride-sharing operations in the state. While details remain limited, the outreach suggests that Tesla is serious about expanding its driverless Robotaxi service to several territories in the coming months.

The Arizona development comes as Tesla prepares to expand its service area in Austin this weekend, as per CEO Elon Musk in a post on X. Musk also stated that Tesla is targeting the San Francisco Bay Area as its next major market, with a potential launch “in a month or two,” pending regulatory approvals.

Tesla first launched its autonomous ride-hailing program on June 22 in Austin with a small fleet of Model Y vehicles, accompanied by a Tesla employee in the passenger seat to monitor safety. While still classified as a test, Musk has said the program will expand to about 1,000 vehicles in the coming months. Tesla will later upgrade its Robotaxi fleet with the Cyercab, a two-seater that is designed without a steering wheel.

Sightings of Cybercab castings around the Giga Texas complex suggests that Tesla may be ramping the initial trial production of the self-driving two-seater. Tesla, for its part, has noted in the past that volume production of the Cybercab is expected to start sometime next year.

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In California, Tesla has already applied for a transportation charter-party carrier permit from the state’s Public Utilities Commission. The company is reportedly taking a phased approach to operating in California, with the Robotaxi service starting with pre-arranged rides for employees in vehicles with safety drivers.

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Tesla sets November 6 date for 2025 Annual Shareholder Meeting

The automaker announced the date on Thursday in a Form 8-K.

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Credit: Tesla

Tesla has scheduled its 2025 annual shareholder meeting for November 6, addressing investor concerns that the company was nearing a legal deadline to hold the event. 

The automaker announced the date on Thursday in a Form 8-K submitted to the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The company also listed a new proposal submission deadline of July 31 for items to be included in the proxy statement.

Tesla’s announcement followed calls from a group of 27 shareholders, including the leaders of large public pension funds, which urged Tesla’s board to formally set the meeting date, as noted in a report from The Wall Street Journal

The group noted that under Texas law, where Tesla is now incorporated, companies must hold annual meetings within 13 months of the last one if requested by shareholders. Tesla’s previous annual shareholder meeting was held on June 13, 2024, which placed the July 13 deadline in focus.

Tesla originally stated in its 2024 annual report that it would file its proxy statement by the end of April. However, an amended filing on April 30 indicated that the Board of Directors had not yet finalized a meeting date, at least at the time.

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The April filing also confirmed that Tesla’s board had formed a special committee to evaluate certain matters related to CEO Elon Musk’s compensation plan. Musk’s CEO performance award remains at the center of a lengthy legal dispute in Delaware, Tesla’s former state of incorporation.

Due to the aftermath of Musk’s legal dispute about his compensation plan in Delaware, he has not been paid for his work at Tesla for several years. Musk, for his part, has noted that he is more concerned about his voting stake in Tesla than his actual salary.

At last year’s annual meeting, TSLA shareholders voted to reapprove Elon Musk’s compensation plan and ratified Tesla’s decision to relocate its legal domicile from Delaware to Texas.

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Grok coming to Tesla vehicles next week “at the latest:” Elon Musk

Grok’s rollout to Tesla vehicles is expected to begin next week at the latest.

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Credit: Tesla China

Elon Musk announced on Thursday that Grok, the large language model developed by his startup xAI, will soon be available in Tesla vehicles. Grok’s rollout to Tesla vehicles is expected to begin next week at the latest, further deepening the ties between the two Elon Musk-led companies.

Tesla–xAI synergy

Musk confirmed the news on X shortly after livestreaming the release of Grok 4, xAI’s latest large language model. “Grok is coming to Tesla vehicles very soon. Next week at the latest,” Musk wrote in a post on social media platform X.

During the livestream, Musk and several members of the xAI team highlighted several upgrades to Grok 4’s voice capabilities and performance metrics, positioning the LLM as competitive with top-tier models from OpenAI and Google.

The in-vehicle integration of Grok marks a new chapter in Tesla’s AI development. While Tesla has long relied on in-house systems for autonomous driving and energy optimization, Grok’s integration would introduce conversational AI directly into its vehicles’ user experience. This integration could potentially improve customer interaction inside Tesla vehicles.

xAI and Tesla’s collaborative footprint

Grok’s upcoming rollout to Tesla vehicles adds to a growing business relationship between Tesla and xAI. Earlier this year, Tesla disclosed that it generated $198.3 million in revenue from commercial, consulting, and support agreements with xAI, as noted in a report from Bloomberg News. A large portion of that amount, however, came from the sale of Megapack energy storage systems to the artificial intelligence startup.

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In July 2023, Musk polled X users about whether Tesla should invest $5 billion in xAI. While no formal investment has been made so far, 68% of poll participants voted yes, and Musk has since stated that the idea would be discussed with Tesla’s board.

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