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SpaceX prioritizes Starship test flights, pauses plans for floating launch pads
President and COO Gwynne Shotwell says that SpaceX has temporarily abandoned plans for floating Starship launch platforms to ensure it’s fully focused on gaining flight experience with the next-generation rocket.
On February 13th, a NASASpaceflight.com forum member reported that a pair of oil rigs were scheduled to leave a Mississippi port for an unknown destination. At one point, those oil rigs – christened Deimos and Phobos after Mars’ moons – were owned by SpaceX. In mid-2020, SpaceX bought the former half-billion-dollar oil rigs for just $7 million. Around the same time, CEO Elon Musk tweeted that SpaceX was “building floating, superheavy-class spaceports for Mars, moon & hypersonic travel around Earth.”
SpaceX’s oil rig purchase was publicly uncovered in January 2021. Since then, however, the company has done very little to Phobos or Deimos. Phobos’ deck was half-cleared in fitful bursts of work, but Deimos was left almost untouched. Now, according to SpaceNews, SpaceX’s second in command says the company sold Phobos and Deimos and has paused work on offshore Starship launch platforms.
The update that's rolling out to the fleet makes full use of the front and rear steering travel to minimize turning circle. In this case a reduction of 1.6 feet just over the air— Wes (@wmorrill3) April 16, 2024
In August 2021, Musk added some additional insight, revealing that the platforms were not a priority and that the only visible work done was the result of SpaceX hiring third parties to clear Phobos’ deck. Ultimately, the project may have been a false start. Speaking in February 2023, Shotwell told reporters that while SpaceX had sold the rigs, she was still confident that “sea-based [launch] platforms” would become a crucial asset in the future.
Perhaps even exceeding CEO Elon Musk’s infamously lofty ambitions, Shotwell said that SpaceX has “designed Starship to be as much like aircraft operations as we possibly can get” in the hopes of enabling “dozens of launches a day, if not hundreds of launches a day.” No rocket family in history has launched more than 61 times in one calendar year, making Shotwell’s Starship cadence target hundreds or even thousands of times more ambitious than a 1980s rocket record that’s still standing four decades later.
It’s unclear if the FAA’s stringent environmental reviews would ever allow SpaceX to get close to that kind of launch cadence using pads built on US soil. SpaceX fought long and hard to receive approval for up to five orbital Starship launches per year out of Boca Chica, Texas. SpaceX has also received approval [PDF] for up to 24 Starship launches per year out of a NASA Kennedy Space Center pad in Cape Canaveral, Florida. And SpaceX is permitted to launch [PDF] up to 70 much smaller Falcon rockets per year from its two existing Cape Canaveral pads.
“Dozens” to “hundreds” of Starship launches per day would be two or three orders of magnitude beyond the highest cadences the FAA has ever permitted. Shotwell’s continued interest in floating platforms is thus unsurprising, as they may be the only way SpaceX can realistically achieve airline-like Starship operations while still coexisting with US regulators.
According to SpaceNews, Shotwell said that SpaceX “really need[s] to fly [Starship] to understand it – to get to know this machine – and then we’ll figure out how we’re going to launch it.” That disciplined focus could be just the thing the Starship program needs. More than eighteen months after SpaceX first fully stacked a two-stage Starship, the rocket still hasn’t attempted an orbital launch. SpaceX has, nonetheless, put a vast amount of money and effort into building, expanding, and optimizing factories and launch facilities for Starship, an orbital rocket that has yet to even partially demonstrate itself.
In essence, SpaceX has made huge gambles on the assumption that a version of Starship mostly resembling what the company is building today will be highly successful, reusable, and reliable. SpaceX’s success with Falcon 9, Falcon Heavy, Dragon, and suborbital Starship testing suggests that it will ultimately be successful, in time. Nonetheless, Shotwell’s apparent desire to conduct orbital Starship launches and gather data before making major investments in new infrastructure (and, hopefully, big design changes and “optimizations”) is a welcome change of pace. Shotwell reportedly assumed oversight of Starbase and Starship in late 2022.
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Tesla Cybercab tests are going on overdrive with production-ready units
Tesla is ramping its real-world tests of the Cybercab, with multiple sightings of the vehicle being reported across social media this week.
Tesla is ramping its real-world tests of the Cybercab, with multiple sightings of the autonomous two-seater being reported across social media this week. Based on videos of the vehicle that have been shared online, it appears that Cybercab tests are underway across multiple states.
Recent Cybercab sightings
Reports of Cybercab tests have ramped this week, with a vehicle that looked like a production-ready prototype being spotted at Apple’s Visitor Center in California. The vehicle in this sighting was interesting as it was equipped with a steering wheel. The vehicle also featured some changes to the design of its brake lights.
The Cybercab was also filmed testing at the Fremont factory’s test track, which also seemed to involve a vehicle that looked production-ready. This also seemed to be the case for a Cybercab that was spotted in Austin, Texas, which happened to be undergoing real-world tests. Overall, these sightings suggest that Cybercab testing is fully underway, and the vehicle is really moving towards production.
Production design all but finalized?
Recently, a near-production-ready Cybercab was showcased at Tesla’s Santana Row showroom in San Jose. The vehicle was equipped with frameless windows, dual windshield wipers, powered butterfly door struts, an extended front splitter, an updated lightbar, new wheel covers, and a license plate bracket. Interior updates include redesigned dash/door panels, refined seats with center cupholders, updated carpet, and what appeared to be improved legroom.
There seems to be a pretty good chance that the Cybercab’s design has been all but finalized, at least considering Elon Musk’s comments at the 2025 Annual Shareholder Meeting. During the event, Musk confirmed that the vehicle will enter production around April 2026, and its production targets will be quite ambitious.
News
Tesla gets a win in Sweden as union withdraws potentially “illegal” blockade
As per recent reports, the Vision union’s planned anti-Tesla action might have been illegal.
Swedish union Vision has withdrawn its sympathy blockade against Tesla’s planned service center and showroom in Kalmar. As per recent reports, the Vision union’s planned anti-Tesla action might have been illegal.
Vision’s decision to pull the blockade
Vision announced the blockade in early December, stating that it was targeting the administrative handling of Tesla’s facility permits in Kalmar municipality. The sympathy measure was expected to start Monday, but was formally withdrawn via documents sent to the Mediation Institute and Kalmar Municipality last week.
As noted in a Daggers Arbete report, plans for the strike were ultimately pulled after employer group SKR highlighted potential illegality under the Public Employment Act. Vision stressed its continued backing for the Swedish labor model, though Deputy negotiation manager Oskar Pettersson explained that the Vision union and IF Metall made the decision to cancel the planned strike together.
“We will not continue to challenge the regulations,” Petterson said. “The objection was of a technical nature. We made the assessment together with IF Metall that we were not in a position to challenge the legal assessment of whether we could take this particular action against Tesla. Therefore, we chose to revoke the notice itself.”
The SKR’s warning
Petterson also stated that SKR’s technical objection to the Vision union’s planned anti-Tesla strike framed the protest as an unauthorized act. “It was a legal assessment of the situation. Both for us and for IF Metall, it is important to be clear that we stand for the Swedish model. But we should not continue to challenge the regulations and risk getting judgments that lead nowhere in the application of the regulations,” he said.
Vision ultimately canceled its planned blockade against Tesla on December 9. With Vision’s withdrawal, few obstacles remain for Tesla’s long-planned Kalmar site. A foreign electrical firm completed work this fall, and Tesla’s Careers page currently lists a full-time service manager position based there, signaling an imminent opening.
Tesla Semi Program Director Dan Priestly teased the major improvements to the all-electric Class 8 truck on Thursday night, following the company’s decision to overhaul the design earlier this year.
Priestley said he drove the Semi on Thursday, and the improvements appear to be welcomed by one of the minds behind the project. “Our customers are going to love it,” he concluded.
Just drove the redesigned Semi. Our customers are going to love it. https://t.co/KZ88sf1CDL
— Dan Priestley (@danWpriestley) December 19, 2025
The small detail does not seem like much, but it is coming from someone who has been involved in the development of the truck from A to Z. Priestley has been involved in the Semi program since November 2015 and has slowly worked his way through the ranks, and currently stands as the Director of the program.
Tesla Semi undergoes major redesign as dedicated factory preps for deliveries
Tesla made some major changes to the Semi design as it announced at the 2025 Annual Shareholder Meeting that it changed the look and design to welcome improvements in efficiency.
Initially, Tesla adopted the blade-like light bar for the Semi, similar to the one that is present on the Model Y Premium and the Cybertruck.
Additionally, there are some slight aesthetic changes to help with efficiency, including a redesigned bumper with improved aero channels, a smaller wraparound windshield, and a smoother roofline for better aero performance.
All of these changes came as the company’s Semi Factory, which is located on Gigafactory Nevada’s property, was finishing up construction in preparation for initial production phases, as Tesla is planning to ramp up manufacturing next year. CEO Elon Musk has said the Semi has attracted “ridiculous demand.”
The Semi has already gathered many large companies that have signed up to buy units, including Frito-Lay and PepsiCo., which have been helping Tesla test the vehicle in a pilot program to test range, efficiency, and other important metrics that will be a major selling point.
Tesla will be the Semi’s first user, though, and the truck will help solve some of the company’s logistics needs in the coming years.
Tesla Cybercab tests are going on overdrive with production-ready units
Tesla gets a win in Sweden as union withdraws potentially “illegal” blockade
