News
SpaceX President updates schedule for Starship’s orbital launch debut
SpaceX COO and President Gwynne Shotwell says that the company now expects Starbase to be ready for Starship’s first orbital launch attempt as early as June or July, pushing the schedule back another month or two.
To accomplish that feat, SpaceX will need to more or less ace a wide range of challenging and unproven tests and pass a series of exhaustive bureaucratic reviews, significantly increasing the odds that Starship’s orbital launch debut is actually closer to 3-6 months away. While SpaceX could technically pull off a miracle or even attempt to launch hardware that has only been partially tested, even the most optimistic of hypothetical scenarios are still contingent upon things largely outside of the company’s control.
Will FAA or won’t FAA?
Both revolve around the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), which – in SpaceX’s case – is responsible for completing a ‘programmatic environmental assessment’ (PEA) of orbital Starship launches out of Boca Chica, Texas and issuing a launch license for the largest and most powerful rocket ever built. In some ways, both tasks are unprecedented, but the bureaucratic processes involved are still largely the same as those SpaceX has successfully navigated over the last two decades.
First up, the FAA’s environmental review. Until very recently, the fate of Starbase’s PEA was almost completely indeterminable and could have gone any number of ways – most of which would not be favorable for SpaceX. However, just a few days ago and about a week after the FAA’s latest one-to-two-month PEA delay announcement, the agency updated an online dashboard to show that the fourth of five main PEA processes had been completed successfully. The most important part of the update is the implication that SpaceX and the FAA have now completed almost every aspect of the PEA that requires cooperation with other federal agencies and local stakeholders.
Only one more cooperative process – ensuring “Section 4(f)” compliance – still needs to be completed. Without delving into the details, there is no convincing evidence to suggest that that particular step will be a showstopper, though SpaceX might have to compromise on certain aspects of Starbase operations to complete it. Once Section 4(f) is behind them, the only thing standing between the FAA and SpaceX and a Final PEA is the completion and approval of all relevant paperwork. In other words, for the first time ever, the FAA’s targeted completion date – currently May 31st, 2022 – may actually be achievable.
Still, as the FAA itself loves to repeatedly point out, “the completion of the PEA will not guarantee that the FAA will issue a launch license – SpaceX’s application must also meet FAA safety, risk, and financial responsibility requirements.” Even if the PEA is perfect, SpaceX still has to secure an FAA launch license for the largest and most powerful rocket in history. It’s unclear if SpaceX and the FAA have already begun that painful back-and-forth or if some tedious fine print prevents it from starting before an environmental review is in place. Without knowing more, launch licensing could take anywhere from a few days to several months.
A series of tubes
Without the FAA’s launch license and environmental approval, any Starship SpaceX builds cannot legally launch from Starbase. On the other side of the coin, though, it’s just as true that the FAA’s nods of approval are worth about as much as the paper they’re written on without a rocket that’s ready to launch. In a perfect world, SpaceX would have a Starship and Super Heavy booster fully qualified, stacked, and sitting at Starbase’s orbital launch site when the FAA finally gives a green light. However, that’s not quite what SpaceX’s reality is today.
First Starship orbital flight will be with Raptor 2 engines, as they are much more capable & reliable. 230 ton or ~500k lb thrust at sea level.
We’ll have 39 flightworthy engines built by next month, then another month to integrate, so hopefully May for orbital flight test.— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 21, 2022
SpaceX has made a significant amount of progress in the last month and a half, but contrary to CEO Elon Musk’s hopes as of March 21st, the company will absolutely not be ready to attempt an orbital launch by the end of May. Nonetheless, Shotwell’s estimate of “June or July” may not be completely out of reach. Since Musk’s tweet, SpaceX finished assembling Super Heavy Booster 7, rolled the rocket to the launch site on March 31st, and completed several major tests in early April. However, during the last test, an apparent operator error significantly damaged a large part installed inside the booster, forcing SpaceX to return Super Heavy B7 to Starbase’s build site. After two and a half weeks of repairs, Booster 7 returned to the launch site on May 6th and completed another ‘cryoproof’ test, seemingly verifying that those quick repairs did the job.
Had Booster 7 not required repairs, it’s not impossible (but still hard) to imagine that SpaceX could have had a Super Heavy booster ready to launch by the end of May. Still, the static fire testing Booster 7 needs to complete is almost entirely unprecedented and could take months to complete. To date, SpaceX has never ignited more than six Raptors at once on a Starship prototype, while Super Heavy will likely need to complete multiple 33-engine tests before it can be safely considered ready for flight. Worse, there is no guarantee that SpaceX actually wants to fly Booster 7 after the damage it suffered. If Booster 8 carries the torch forward instead, Starship’s orbital launch debut could easily slip to late Q3 or Q4 2022.
Meanwhile, Super Heavy is only half of the rocket. When Musk tweeted his “hopefully May” estimate, SpaceX was nowhere close to finishing the Starship – Ship 24 – that is believed to have been assigned to the orbital launch debut. However, SpaceX finally accelerated Ship 24 assembly within the last few weeks and ultimately finished stacking the upgraded Starship on May 8th. A great deal of work remains to truly complete Ship 24, but SpaceX should be ready to send it to a test stand within a week or two. Even though the testing Ship 24 will need to complete has been done before by Ship 20, making its path forward less risky than Booster 7’s, Ship 24 will debut a number of major design changes and likely needs at least two months of testing to reach a basic level of flight readiness.
Last but not least, there’s the question of the orbital launch site (OLS) itself. Is the launch mount ready to survive a full Super Heavy static fire? Is the pad’s tank farm ready to fill Starship and Super Heavy with several thousand tons of flammable, explosive cryogenic propellant? If it’s a goal of the test flight, is the launch tower ready for a Super Heavy booster to attempt to land in its arms? While there are reasons to believe that the answer to some of those questions is “yes,” plenty of uncertainty remains and plenty of work is still incomplete.
Ultimately, Shotwell’s June goal is almost certainly unachievable. Late July, however, might be within the realm of possibility, but only in the unlikely event that all Booster 7 and Ship 24 testing is completed almost perfectly and without further delay. For the pragmatic reader, August or September is a safer bet. Thankfully, at least one thing is certain: activity at Starbase is about to get significantly more exciting.
Cybertruck
Tesla Cybertruck too safe for even Musk’s biggest critics to ignore
Krassenstein’s decision reveals that superior safety isn’t a partisan issue. For parents prioritizing family protection over personal or political grudges, the Cybertruck has become too safe to ignore.
The Tesla Cybertruck is an extremely polarizing vehicle because of its potential symbolism as a political stance instead of just a pickup truck — or at least that is what many would want you to believe.
Of course, the Cybertruck is an icon of Tesla culture, and it is one of those things that never has a middle ground: you love it, or you don’t.
But maybe there is an establishment of that “grey area” happening.
In a striking illustration of engineering triumph over political tribalism, prominent Elon Musk critic Brian Krassenstein has purchased a Tesla Cybertruck, openly citing its exceptional safety as the deciding factor for his family.
The announcement on X triggered predictable backlash, yet it underscores a growing reality: the Cybertruck’s safety credentials are proving impossible for even Musk’s fiercest detractors to dismiss.
I might get hate for this too but I bought a Cybertruck.
With a young family, safety was important and so is not polluting the atmosphere with $5 a gallon gasoline. pic.twitter.com/XJqFqR6O9r
— Brian Krassenstein (@krassenstein) May 6, 2026
Krassenstein, who has repeatedly clashed with Musk over issues ranging from content moderation and “wokeness” to public health figures, made no attempt to hide his reservations. In his May 6 post, he acknowledged the coming criticism: “I might get hate for this too but I bought a Cybertruck.”
He stressed that the decision had “nothing to do with Elon or politics,” pointing instead to practical advantages—his existing Tesla charger, eligibility for Full Self-Driving upgrades, a returning-owner discount, and crucially, the vehicle’s strong safety profile.
With gasoline prices hovering near $5 a gallon in some areas, he also highlighted the environmental benefit of switching from a polluting combustion engine.
The numbers, data, and awards validate Krassenstein’s choice.
The 2025 Cybertruck earned the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety’s (IIHS) elite Top Safety Pick+ award—the only pickup truck to achieve this highest rating. It delivered “Good” scores across every crashworthiness category, including the challenging updated moderate overlap front crash test, while excelling in crash avoidance and mitigation systems.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) awarded it a perfect 5-star overall rating, with top marks in frontal, side, and rollover categories. No other pickup truck holds both distinctions simultaneously.
Tesla Cybertruck crash test rating situation revealed by NHTSA, IIHS
Beyond lab results, the Cybertruck’s stainless-steel exoskeleton and ultra-rigid structure have demonstrated remarkable real-world resilience. Owners have reported surviving high-speed collisions with minimal cabin intrusion.
In one widely discussed incident, a Cybertruck endured a 70 mph sideswipe on the interstate; the driver reported barely feeling the impact while the other vehicle was heavily damaged.
Tesla’s crash demonstrations and independent analyses consistently show how the vehicle’s design prioritizes occupant protection through a fortified passenger cell rather than traditional crumple zones, giving families superior safeguarding in many common crash scenarios.
The online pile-on following Krassenstein’s post focused on aesthetics, politics, and perceived hypocrisy rather than the data. Critics called the angular truck “ugly” or accused him of selling out.
Yet his purchase highlights an inconvenient truth for polarized discourse: when objective safety metrics—IIHS awards, NHTSA ratings, and documented crash performance—point decisively toward one vehicle, even Musk’s biggest critics are forced to confront its merits.
Krassenstein’s decision reveals that superior safety isn’t a partisan issue. For parents prioritizing family protection over personal or political grudges, the Cybertruck has become too safe to ignore.
SpaceXAI announced today that it had signed an agreement with Anthropic to give the company access to its Colossus 1 data center in Memphis, Tennessee.
It is a monumental deal as Anthropic will gain access to all of the compute at the plant, delivering more than 300 megawatts of power and over 220,000 NVIDIA GPUs within the month.
Anthropic’s Claude AI account on X announced the partnership:
“We’ve agreed to a partnership with SpaceX that will substantially increase our compute capacity. This, along with our other recent compute deals, means that we’ve been able to increase our usage limits for Claude Code and the Claude API.”
The company is also:
- Doubling Claude Code’s 5-hour rate limits for Pro, Max, and Team plans;
- Removing the peak hours limit reduction on Claude Code for Pro and Max plans; and
- Substantially raising its API rate limits for Opus models.
We’ve agreed to a partnership with @SpaceX that will substantially increase our compute capacity.
This, along with our other recent compute deals, means that we’ve been able to increase our usage limits for Claude Code and the Claude API.
— Claude (@claudeai) May 6, 2026
SpaceX also published its own release on the new agreement, noting that it is “the only organization with the launch cadence, mass-to-orbit economics, and constellation operations experience to make orbital compute a near-term engineering program rather than a research concept.”
CEO Elon Musk also commented on the partnership and shed light on intense meetings he had with senior members of Anthropic last week, stating, “nobody set on my evil detector.”
Same here.
By way of background for those who care, I spent a lot of time last week with senior members of the Anthropic team to understand what they do to ensure Claude is good for humanity and was impressed.
Everyone I met was highly competent and cared a great deal about…
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 6, 2026
This has turned the argument that SpaceX is as much an AI company as a space exploration company into a very valid argument:
SpaceX is following in Tesla’s footsteps in a way nobody expected
Nevertheless, this is an incredibly valuable and important move in the grand scheme of things. AI scaling is fundamentally bottlenecked by compute, and demand for Claude has surged, bringing terrestrial power grids, land, and cooling operations hitting limits everywhere.
Anthropic has been aggressively signing multiple large-scale deals to be competitive in the space, including:
- Up to 5GW with Amazon
- 5GW with Google and Broadcom
- Strategic $30b Azure deal with Microsoft/NVIDIA
- $50b U.S. infrastructure investment with Fluidstack
Access to Colossus 1 gives Anthropic immediate relief on NVIDIA GPU capacity. For SpaceXAI, it turns its rapid buildout into revenue. It also showcases its ability to deliver at world-leading speed and scale.
Most importantly, it plants the seed that its much larger vision, orbital AI compute, is totally viable.
Starlink V3 satellites could enable SpaceX’s orbital computing plans: Musk
Within the month, Anthropic will begin using 100 percent of Colossus 1’s compute, directly expanding capacity for Claude Pro and Max subscribers and the API. This means fewer limits, faster responses, and support for heavier workloads.
In the long term, meaning 2026 and beyond, there will be a continued rollout of other multi-GW deals Anthropic has signed, and an early exploration of orbital compute with SpaceXAI.
News
Tesla unveils mysterious prototype at Giga Texas: Is the Model Y L coming to America?
The Model Y L has been available in China for some time, but Americans are wondering when it will potentially come to the United States, offering a larger version of the best-selling vehicle in the world, as the Model X is officially phased out.
Tesla unveiled a mysterious prototype, covered up between a Model Y and a Cybertruck at Gigafactory Texas, perhaps giving yet another hint that the Model Y L is coming to America.
The Model Y L has been available in China for some time, but Americans are wondering when it will potentially come to the United States, offering a larger version of the best-selling vehicle in the world, as the Model X is officially phased out.
Giga Texas observer and drone operator Joe Tegtmeyer captured an image of the vehicle on May 6, showing a fully-covered prototype parked alongside a standard Model Y and a Cybertruck.
This mystery Tesla is covered at Gigafactory Texas
What do you think it is? https://t.co/l5WVKLi9yM pic.twitter.com/CcOybDkCkn
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) May 6, 2026
From top-down and angled views, the prototype appears nearly identical in scale to the Model Y but reveals noticeably distinct rear proportions—an elongated rear door that stretches farther over the wheel arch and rear glass that flows uninterrupted to the spoiler lip.
The side-by-side placement provides an immediate size reference. The mystery vehicle sits comfortably between the compact Model Y and the massive Cybertruck, suggesting it occupies a practical middle ground for families seeking more interior room without jumping to a full-size pickup.
Enthusiasts quickly took to social media with guesses ranging from an extended-wheelbase Model Y to a potential station-wagon variant.
The sight of this prototype follows an earlier look at another shrouded body-in-white resting in a wooden shipping crate at the Giga Texas plant in late March.
That prototype appeared to display an elongated silhouette. Some analysis seems to show nearly exact dimensions as to what is reported for the Model Y L in the Chinese market, approximately 4.98 meters long with a 3.04-meter wheelbase, roughly seven inches longer overall than the U.S.-spec Model Y. The rear-door extension and glass-to-spoiler design were identical to the current sighting:
The Model Y L has already proven popular in China, where it launched in six- and seven-seat configurations and quickly ranked among the top-selling mid-to-large SUVs. Owners enjoy roughly 10 percent more cargo space and enhanced family versatility.
Tesla has remained silent on U.S. plans other than CEO Elon Musk saying it could come in late 2026, but localizing production at Giga Texas would make strategic sense.
With the Model X phase-out and steady Model Y output already humming along expanded lines, a longer-wheelbase variant could add tens of thousands of annual deliveries without major retooling.
The latest sighting arrives amid Tesla’s broader push to refresh its lineup. Whether this prototype represents the long-rumored Model Y L, a subtle Juniper-style update, or something entirely new remains unconfirmed.
Yet the consistent visual cues—precise dimensional match, distinctive rear styling, and strategic placement at Giga Texas—point strongly toward an extended Model Y designed for American families who want extra space without sacrificing the Model Y’s efficiency and affordability.Tesla watchers will be monitoring future drone flights closely.
If the prototype is indeed the Model Y L, it could mark a significant expansion of the company’s best-selling vehicle and deliver the extra room many U.S. buyers have been requesting for years. For now, the blue tarp keeps its secrets—but the clues are getting harder to hide.
Tesla Cybertruck too safe for even Musk’s biggest critics to ignore
SpaceXAI signs agreement with Anthropic for massive AI supercomputer access
