SpaceX
SpaceX to submit Moon lander proposal for latest NASA spaceflight competition
SpaceX reportedly plans to submit its own human-rated Moon lander design for NASA’s latest major request for proposal (RFP), part of the agency’s rough plan to return humans to the Moon no earlier than 2028.
Meant to begin delivering NASA astronauts to the surface of the Moon as early as 2028, the agency hopes to base those lander operations on a thus far unbuilt space station orbiting the Moon with the support of its SLS rocket and Orion spacecraft.
This is actually a pretty big deal. https://t.co/P6LXAMXVJI
— Eric Berger (@SciGuySpace) February 11, 2019
SpaceX will submit a lunar lander design.
— Eric Berger (@SciGuySpace) February 11, 2019
Meant to build directly off of SLS/Orion, a NASA-designed rocket and spacecraft beset with at least three years of delays and billions of dollars in cost overruns, it’s unclear where SpaceX might fit into NASA’s latest modernized attempt at an Apollo Program 2.0. Alongside the 2017 cancellation of Crew Dragon’s propulsive landing program due in part to the likely cost of the certification burden NASA would have placed on the technology before allowing it to land astronauts, SpaceX also canceled Red Dragon (and thus Grey Dragon), a proposal to use a minimally modified version of Crew Dragon as an ad-hoc Mars lander and R&D testbed.
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Aside from the likely cost of certifying propulsive Crew Dragon to NASA specifications, CEO Elon Musk also explained the program’s cancellation as a consequence of SpaceX’s far greater interest in what he described as “vastly bigger ship[s]” in July 2017. This translated into a presentation at IAC 2017 a few months later, where Musk revealed SpaceX’s updated design for a giant, fully-reusable launch vehicle meant to enable sustainable Mars colonization, known then as BFR. BFR has since been reconceptualized at least two more times, settling (at present) on a radical new approach said to rely heavily on stainless steel as a replacement for advanced carbon composites.
Initially making one 200 metric ton thrust engine common across ship & booster to reach the moon as fast as possible. Next versions will split to vacuum-optimized (380+ sec Isp) & sea-level thrust optimized (~250 ton).
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 1, 2019
In the second half of 2018 and the first few months of 2019, the SpaceX CEO’s BFR (now Starship/Super Heavy) narrative has noticeably diverged from a largely exclusive focus on Mars to include a new interest (be it genuine or out of convenience) in the Moon. Most notably, Musk stated in January and February 2019 that SpaceX’s single-minded goal for BFR was now “to reach the moon as fast as possible”. In response to a question about SpaceX’s intentions for the first few orbital BFR (Starship) launches, Musk also replied, “Moon first, Mars as soon as the planets align”.
This is likely explicitly connected to Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa’s decision to purchase the first operational Starship (BFR) launch in support of his philanthropic #DearMoon project, meant to send 8-10 artists from across Earth on the first commercial voyage around the Moon as early as 2023. While no specific value was given, the implication of CEO Elon Musk’s emotional response when discussing the financial support pegged the number in the hundreds of millions of dollars, likely on the order of $250M to $500M. However, any astute bureaucrat or aerospace executive would also be (and have been) distinctly aware of a new political undercurrent pushing for the US and NASA to return humans to the Moon, circulating for the last few years before breaking through to the surface in the last six or so months.
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- SpaceX’s updated BFR spaceship seen cresting over the Moon’s limb. (SpaceX)
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- SpaceX’s 2017 BFS (now Starship) delivers cargo to a large lunar base. (SpaceX)
Orion/SLS versus Starship/Super Heavy?
Per Musk’s frequent and insistent comments on just how hard he expects it to be for SpaceX to fully fund the development of BFR, it would come as no surprise to learn that SpaceX had set its eyes on potential sources of major BFR development funds. Where exactly NASA will find the multibillion-dollar sum likely required to develop even a commercial human-rated Moon lander is entirely unclear, but alas. Although NASA’s new Moon mission seems like an apt fit for SpaceX, funding aside, the problem remains that SpaceX’s next-generation Starship/Super Heavy (formerly BFR) launch vehicle poses a direct, existential threat to NASA’s SLS rocket and Orion spacecraft, an almost entirely expendable system likely to cost no less than $1B per launch and unlikely to launch for the first time until 2021.
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NASA’s human return to the Moon is meant to directly complement SLS/Orion thanks to the intention of using a theoretical Moon-based space station (known as Gateway) in a bizarre lunar orbit (known as a “Near Rectilinear Halo Orbit” or NRHO) as the base of lunar-landing operations. The decision to place said Gateway in a lunar halo orbit derives almost exclusively derives (PDF) from a separate decision to design NASA’s future exploration plans around SLS and Orion, particularly Orion in the context of the Moon. Put simply, Orion is relatively mass-inefficient and has a fairly limited amount of delta V (shorthand for the capacity to change one’s velocity), preventing far more useful orbits (i.e. actual lunar orbits). The fragile web of Gateway, SLS, Orion, and any potential crewed Moon landers is intentionally designed to be interdependent, meaning that each piece on its own makes little objective sense and has no obvious functional benefit relative to a bevy of alternatives.
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- SLS Block 1. (NASA)
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- NASA’s proposed Moon-based space station, known as Gateway. (NASA)
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- BFR’s spaceship and booster (now Starship and Super Heavy) separate in a mid-2018 render of the vehicle. (SpaceX)
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- A BFS attempts a Mars landing in this official updated render. (SpaceX)
As designed, SpaceX’s Starship/Super Heavy combo would be a nearly redundant and radically simpler solution to the mishmash of Gateway, SLS, Orion, and others. A return to using propulsive Crew Dragon landings as a method of significant payload delivery to the lunar surface is immensely unlikely. The value of an entirely new SpaceX-built craft is equally unclear, given Musk and SpaceX’s general stance on putting development funds towards things that bring the company closer to achieving its ultimate goal of sustainable interplanetary colonization. Regardless, it will undoubtedly be exciting to see what happens and whether SpaceX actually chooses to submit a proposal for one or all aspects of NASA’s baselined lunar lander.
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Elon Musk
Space finally faced the people living next to its next Terafab mega-project
SpaceX confirmed Terafab’s Grimes County site is locked in, with construction starting within months.
SpaceX and Terafab representatives sat across from Grimes County residents for the first time on Wednesday, telling a packed Commissioners Court room that the $55 billion chip manufacturing project is now a done deal at the Gibbons Creek Reservoir site.
The meeting followed a $10 million check SpaceX sent the county earlier this week, satisfying a payment deadline built into the tax abatement agreement both sides signed in June. Elon Musk shared a post on X confirming the payment, and County Judge Joe Fauth told the San Antonio Express-News his office deposited the check after it beat its deadline.
Wednesday’s session, first reported by KBTX, moved the project from paperwork to construction. Terafab representative Riley Trennell told residents the JETI tax break agreements with Iola ISD and Anderson-Shiro CISD are signed and active, and that civil work and foundation prep are starting almost immediately. Renderings of the facility could be released within days, he said, with construction beginning within months.
Elon Musk launches TERAFAB: The $25B Tesla-SpaceXAI chip factory that will rewire the AI industry
Musk first announced Terafab in March as a joint venture between Tesla, SpaceX and xAI aimed at producing over a terawatt of AI compute annually, an amount that dwarfs the roughly 20 gigawatts the entire global chip industry produces today. Intel joined as a manufacturing partner in April. Musk has said the project needed its own day in the spotlight rather than being squeezed into an earnings call, and for months the Grimes County site remained unconfirmed even as reporting pointed there.
SpaceX attorney Buck Brannon used Wednesday’s meeting to note that the company’s abatement is roughly 78 percent, not the 100 percent some earlier reports suggested. In exchange, SpaceX will pay Grimes County a fixed $20 million a year for 35 years, a total of $710 million, which Brannon said exceeds the $14 million Tesla paid Travis County in 2025.
SpaceX also addressed environmental concerns that have followed the project since Musk’s Terafab partnership with Intel was announced. Representatives said Terafab will not raise electric bills for other ratepayers, will not deplete local water supplies and will not draw down the Navasota River. SpaceX confirmed it owns the Navasota River pumping station, which it plans to use to divert stormwater into the Gibbons Creek Reservoir, and said it will build its own natural gas plants to power the facility rather than pulling from the ERCOT grid.
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Grimes County commissioners also approved an addendum letting county employees use ten approved AI chatbots for work, including Grok.
Elon Musk has declared that SpaceX has effectively solved one of Starship’s most persistent engineering challenges: the reliability of its heat shield tiles.
During the company’s first-ever Earnings Call, the SpaceX CEO stated:
“I don’t want to jinx it or anything, but I think I would call the heat shield problem solved at this point. All indications from data and visual inspection is we have solved it. That doesn’t mean we won’t make improvements, but we do not see any technical obstacles to achieving rapid reusability at this point.”
Starship’s heat shield consists of roughly 18,000 hexagonal ceramic tiles covering the windward side of the upper stage. These tiles form the thermal protection system that shields the vehicle’s stainless-steel structure from the extreme heat of atmospheric reentry.
Elon says he believes the heat shield problem with Starship is currently solved.
He called it “arguably the single biggest problem” pic.twitter.com/eEE9vM5zlz
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) August 4, 2026
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During descent, atmospheric friction generates temperatures exceeding several thousand degrees Celsius and creates plasma flows capable of melting unprotected metal. The tiles absorb, radiate, and insulate against this energy, allowing the vehicle to survive and potentially fly again. Without a durable heat shield, full and rapid reusability, the cornerstone of Starship’s design for frequent launches, satellite deployments, and deep-space missions, would remain impossible.
The tiles have long been a source of difficulty. On earlier test flights, a significant number of tiles detached during ascent due to vibration, aerodynamic loads, and imperfect attachment methods using pins and adhesives. Gaps between tiles allowed hot plasma to infiltrate, causing secondary damage and hot spots on the underlying structure.
These issues echoed challenges faced by NASA’s Space Shuttle, whose ceramic tiles required extensive, labor-intensive inspections and replacements between missions, preventing rapid turnaround. SpaceX has iteratively improved materials, standardized tile shapes, refined attachment techniques, added secondary ablative layers, and tested sealing methods such as “crunch wrap” felt to close gaps.
Progress was visible across Flights 10–12, with steadily better tile retention, yet questions remained about whether the system could support the minimal-refurbishment goal of rapid reuse.
Flight 13 on July 24 provided the decisive evidence. Ship 40 flew a deliberately more demanding profile with higher dynamic pressure to stress the heat shield beyond typical operational loads. It successfully deployed 20 operational Starlink V3 satellites, the first such payload on a Starship mission, performed an in-space Raptor engine relight, and executed a controlled reentry.
Elon Musk sheds two new bits of detail on Starship after 13th test launch
Cameras on six of the satellites and onboard sensors captured extensive imagery and data of the shield throughout the flight. The ship then achieved its softest splashdown to date in the Indian Ocean, remaining intact and floating rather than breaking apart or exploding as on prior missions. This allowed drone inspections and continuous telemetry of the heat shield in near-real time.
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Post-flight analysis showed the majority of tiles remaining attached with only minor damage and limited plasma streaking at seams. Musk noted that the mission delivered “all the heat shield data we needed and then some.” Combined with visual inspections, these results underpinned his subsequent assessment that the core technical barriers to rapid reusability have been cleared. While refinements will continue, Flight 13 marked a pivotal step toward Starship’s operational future.
SpaceX COO Gwynne Shotwell outlined ambitious plans for Starlink Mobile during the company’s August 4 Earnings call, signaling a direct challenge to U.S. wireless giants like AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon.
Shotwell noted that the three companies generate roughly $600 billion in combined annual revenue. “I anticipate us to be able to acquire quite a few of their customers because I think our service will be better,” she said. “We will eliminate dead zones leveraging the satellites in orbit. It will be better during any natural disaster… I’m quite excited about Starlink Mobile.”
SpaceX President & COO Gwynne Shotwell on @Starlink Mobile and its impact on Verizon, AT&T and T-Mobile:
“Roughly, between them, $600 billion a year. I anticipate us to be able to acquire quite a few of their customers. Our service will be better. We will eliminate dead zones… pic.twitter.com/UYZUkrGc0L
— Sawyer Merritt (@SawyerMerritt) August 4, 2026
SpaceX intends to combine its satellite constellation with terrestrial infrastructure. The company has acquired about 65 MHz of spectrum from EchoStar and plans to deploy next-generation Starlink Mobile satellites in 2027, with upgraded service targeted for the end of that year.
Shotwell described the enhanced network, leveraging more satellites and spectrum, as potentially “100 times better” than the current direct-to-cell offering, which already supports basic texting and app-based voice/video in coverage gaps through partnerships. She also indicated plans for low-cost cellular base stations that could integrate with existing Starlink dishes, creating a hybrid system for broader capacity in urban, suburban, and rural areas.
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For the general public, Starlink Mobile promises significant advantages. Satellite connectivity can fill gaps where traditional cell towers fail, delivering service in remote locations, mountains, or during outages caused by storms, wildfires, or infrastructure damage—conditions in which ground networks often collapse.
Users could enjoy more consistent coverage without relying solely on dense tower builds, potentially at competitive prices as SpaceX scales. The hybrid approach aims to support full mobile services, including higher-speed data, while working with unmodified smartphones over time.
These developments revive long-standing but unfounded rumors of a Musk-developed “Tesla phone.” Speculative claims of a “Pi Phone” or similar device with built-in Starlink connectivity have circulated for years on social media, often featuring fabricated images and details. Elon Musk has repeatedly denied any such plans, stating Tesla has no intention of entering the smartphone market unless forced by extreme circumstances with app stores.
No official product, filings, or development announcements have ever materialized; the rumors remain hoaxes.
The announcement quickly pressured telecom stocks. Shares of AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile fell between roughly 2 and 4 percent in after-hours and premarket trading as investors weighed the competitive threat from a hybrid satellite-terrestrial network.
While execution challenges remain—spectrum deployment, infrastructure rollout, and regulatory hurdles—Shotwell’s remarks mark SpaceX’s clearest signal yet of entering the consumer mobile market as a full competitor.
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Space finally faced the people living next to its next Terafab mega-project
SpaceX has solved Starship’s biggest challenge, Elon Musk says
