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SpaceX’s Moon Starship is a brilliant step towards reusable Mars rockets
SpaceX’s newly-announced Moon Starship is a fairly radical departure from the Mars-focused, fully-reusable vehicle the company has been pursuing for years. Unintuitively, that may be the perfect half-step towards truly reusable Mars rockets.
On April 30th, NASA announced that SpaceX had won $135 million to design and build a highly-customized variant of its reusable Starship spacecraft with the intention of launching a handful of space agency astronauts to the Moon in the mid-2020s. Whether or not that initial seed translates into enough funding to seriously design and build the ship SpaceX has shown off in new renders, it has already broken the ice, so to speak, between the US federal government (or at least NASA) and the company’s ambitious next-generation launch vehicle.
With a substantial amount of money now on the table for SpaceX to begin initial work on its Moon Starship, it’s worth analyzing just how different it is from the Starship the company is working on today.
First and foremost, perhaps the most obvious difference between SpaceX’s ‘base’ Starship and its lunar variant is the rocket’s hull. In the case of the Moonbound ship, SpaceX appears to have returned to a fully-painted vehicle for unknown reasons. More likely than not, that white paint is likely motivated by the fact that proposed NASA Moon landers must (obviously) be capable of landing and safely returning their astronaut cargo back into lunar orbit.
To do that, those landers must be able to sit on the surface of the Moon after landing for at least several days, with longer stays being even better. For Starship, this means that the vehicle must likely be able to keep its cryogenic liquid methane and oxygen propellant from warming up and turning into gas, thus preventing it from igniting its main Raptor engines. White paint is at least a bit more reflective (and thus insulating) compared to Starship’s shiny steel hull but it could also hint at the use of more extensive insulation then sealed off with paint.
This ties into perhaps the most significant functional change to the rocket. While visible in a render of the craft after landing on the Moon, a separate render just before touchdown fully revealed not only the addition of large vacuum-optimized retrothrusters – but a major strategic shift in how Lunar Starship will attempt to land on the Moon.
In short, it appears that SpaceX does not plan on propulsively landing Lunar Starship on the Moon under the power of its main Raptor engines. Instead, three triple-thruster clusters – likely relying on the same methane and oxygen propellant as Raptor – will fire up shortly before touchdown to gently land Starship on the Moon. This approach has significant benefits: the Moon’s gravity is so low (~1/6th of Earth’s) that using even just one engine as powerful as Raptor to land would be incredibly difficult – a single engine could theoretically lift a fully-fueled Starship thanks to low lunar gravity.
Additionally, powerful Raptor engines – even if they could be used to land – would likely dig huge craters in the Moon’s powder-like surface during a landing burn, making it more difficult astronauts to leave the ship to explore their surroundings. However, it also means that SpaceX must design and certify an entirely new kind of vacuum-optimized rocket engine – likely using gas propellant and fed by high-pressure tanks – for an extremely critical part of operations. If those landing engines were to fail, Starship would very likely crash on the Moon, marooning, wounding, or even condemning the astronauts aboard it.
Beyond new thrusters, a radically different landing strategy, and a painted (and possibly insulated) steel hull, Lunar Starship also features what looks like the tip of a Crew Dragon spacecraft in place of its nose, likely including Draco thrusters and a docking port. SpaceX has also copied the concept of Crew Dragon’s trunk section, installing a curved solar array that wraps around a large portion of Starship’s conical nose. Lunar Starship also offers what looks like the first official glimpse into a new style of Starship landing legs, prototypes of which are already installed on Starship SN4.
Simplicity first (ish)
Additionally, SpaceX has chosen to entirely exclude a windward heat shield from Lunar Starship, as NASA’s plan is (rather painfully) to launch astronauts to the Moon with SLS and carry them to lunar orbit and back to Earth on Orion. Starship also appears to be missing its complex and extensive habitation module and massive gallery window. All that absent hardware is almost certainly meant to dramatically simplify Starship to the point that even NASA would consider funding its development. Incredibly, that strategy appears to have worked and it’s possible that we could see Lunar Starships flying to the Moon as early as 2022.
While a stop at the Moon is decidedly one-way and requires a bit of a one-off Starship variant, what SpaceX has really done is found a way to get NASA to help fund the development of its fully-reusable next-generation launch system. Even if NASA’s Artemis program dies, flounders, or goes nowhere, SpaceX will likely still benefit significantly, much in the same way that NASA’s assistance developing Cargo Dragon and Falcon 9 was a huge boon for the company.
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Tesla rolls out xAI’s Grok to vehicles across Europe
The initial rollout includes the United Kingdom, Ireland, Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Italy, France, Portugal, and Spain.
Tesla is rolling out Grok to vehicles in Europe. The feature will initially launch in nine European territories.
In a post on X, the official Tesla Europe, Middle East & Africa account confirmed that Grok is coming to Teslas in Europe. The initial rollout includes the United Kingdom, Ireland, Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Italy, France, Portugal, and Spain, and additional markets are expected to be added later.
Grok allows drivers to ask questions using real-time information and interact hands-free while driving. According to Tesla’s support documentation, Grok can also initiate navigation commands, enabling users to search for destinations, discover points of interest, and adjust routes without touching the touchscreen, as per the feature’s official webpage.
The system offers selectable personalities, ranging from “Storyteller” to “Unhinged,” and is activated either through the App Launcher or by pressing and holding the steering wheel’s microphone button.
Grok is currently available only on Model S, Model 3, Model X, Model Y, and Cybertruck vehicles equipped with an AMD infotainment processor. Vehicles must be running software version 2025.26 or later, with navigation command support requiring version 2025.44.25 or newer.
Drivers must also have Premium Connectivity or a stable Wi-Fi connection to use the feature. Tesla notes that Grok does not currently replace standard voice commands for vehicle controls such as climate or media adjustments.
The company has stated that Grok interactions are processed securely by xAI and are not linked to individual drivers or vehicles. Users do not need a Grok account or subscription to enable the feature at this time as well.
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Tesla ends Full Self-Driving purchase option in the U.S.
In January, Musk announced that Tesla would remove the ability to purchase the suite outright for $8,000. This would give the vehicle Full Self-Driving for its entire lifespan, but Tesla intended to move away from it, for several reasons, one being that a tranche in the CEO’s pay package requires 10 million active subscriptions of FSD.
Tesla has officially ended the option to purchase the Full Self-Driving suite outright, a move that was announced for the United States market in January by CEO Elon Musk.
The driver assistance suite is now exclusively available in the U.S. as a subscription, which is currently priced at $99 per month.
Tesla moved away from the outright purchase option in an effort to move more people to the subscription program, but there are concerns over its current price and the potential for it to rise.
In January, Musk announced that Tesla would remove the ability to purchase the suite outright for $8,000. This would give the vehicle Full Self-Driving for its entire lifespan, but Tesla intended to move away from it, for several reasons, one being that a tranche in the CEO’s pay package requires 10 million active subscriptions of FSD.
Although Tesla moved back the deadline in other countries, it has now taken effect in the U.S. on Sunday morning. Tesla updated its website to reflect this:
🚨 Tesla has officially moved the outright purchase option for FSD on its website pic.twitter.com/RZt1oIevB3
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) February 15, 2026
There are still some concerns regarding its price, as $99 per month is not where many consumers are hoping to see the subscription price stay.
Musk has said that as capabilities improve, the price will go up, but it seems unlikely that 10 million drivers will want to pay an extra $100 every month for the capability, even if it is extremely useful.
Instead, many owners and fans of the company are calling for Tesla to offer a different type of pricing platform. This includes a tiered-system that would let owners pick and choose the features they would want for varying prices, or even a daily, weekly, monthly, and annual pricing option, which would incentivize longer-term purchasing.
Although Musk and other Tesla are aware of FSD’s capabilities and state is is worth much more than its current price, there could be some merit in the idea of offering a price for Supervised FSD and another price for Unsupervised FSD when it becomes available.
Elon Musk
Musk bankers looking to trim xAI debt after SpaceX merger: report
xAI has built up $18 billion in debt over the past few years, with some of this being attributed to the purchase of social media platform Twitter (now X) and the creation of the AI development company. A new financing deal would help trim some of the financial burden that is currently present ahead of the plan to take SpaceX public sometime this year.
Elon Musk’s bankers are looking to trim the debt that xAI has taken on over the past few years, following the company’s merger with SpaceX, a new report from Bloomberg says.
xAI has built up $18 billion in debt over the past few years, with some of this being attributed to the purchase of social media platform Twitter (now X) and the creation of the AI development company. Bankers are trying to create some kind of financing plan that would trim “some of the heavy interest costs” that come with the debt.
The financing deal would help trim some of the financial burden that is currently present ahead of the plan to take SpaceX public sometime this year. Musk has essentially confirmed that SpaceX would be heading toward an IPO last month.
The report indicates that Morgan Stanley is expected to take the leading role in any financing plan, citing people familiar with the matter. Morgan Stanley, along with Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, and JPMorgan Chase & Co., are all expected to be in the lineup of banks leading SpaceX’s potential IPO.
Since Musk acquired X, he has also had what Bloomberg says is a “mixed track record with debt markets.” Since purchasing X a few years ago with a $12.5 billion financing package, X pays “tens of millions in interest payments every month.”
That debt is held by Bank of America, Barclays, Mitsubishi, UFJ Financial, BNP Paribas SA, Mizuho, and Société Générale SA.
X merged with xAI last March, which brought the valuation to $45 billion, including the debt.
SpaceX announced the merger with xAI earlier this month, a major move in Musk’s plan to alleviate Earth of necessary data centers and replace them with orbital options that will be lower cost:
“In the long term, space-based AI is obviously the only way to scale. To harness even a millionth of our Sun’s energy would require over a million times more energy than our civilization currently uses! The only logical solution, therefore, is to transport these resource-intensive efforts to a location with vast power and space. I mean, space is called “space” for a reason.”
The merger has many advantages, but one of the most crucial is that it positions the now-merged companies to fund broader goals, fueled by revenue from the Starlink expansion, potential IPO, and AI-driven applications that could accelerate the development of lunar bases.
Tesla rolls out xAI’s Grok to vehicles across Europe
Tesla ends Full Self-Driving purchase option in the U.S.
