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SpaceX completes vast Mr Steven arm upgrades for quadruple-sized net
Scarcely 48 hours after they began, SpaceX technicians have already completed installation of all four of Falcon fairing recovery vessel Mr Steven’s new and dramatically larger arms, as well as eight giant struts. All that remains to be installed is an upgraded net, said by CEO Elon Musk to have four times the area of its predecessor.
Put simply, it’s difficult to express how large these upgraded arms really are, and photos still only give a partial sense of their scale. SpaceX technicians busy installing the new arms on July 10th nevertheless offer a fleeting appreciation of the true size of this new payload fairing recovery apparatus, which will hopefully see its first operational debut in just two weeks with a fairing recovery attempt after the Iridium-7 Falcon 9 mission, July 25th.
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- A few SpaceX technicians examine one of Mr Steven’s newly-attached arms and struts. (Pauline Acalin)
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- Mr Steven and the ever mysterious inflatable ring now floating at Berth 240, July 10. (Pauline Acalin)
All arms on deck
While it’s difficult to estimate from photos alone, it appears that Mr Steven’s new arms are minimum of roughly 65 meters squared, assuming a square aspect ratio. In other words, the vessel’s next and newest net could have an area as large as 3600 square meters (~40,000 square feet, ~0.85 acres), easily more than quadruple the size of Mr Steven’s previous net. For comparison, the massive autonomous spaceport drone ships (ASDS) SpaceX often recovers its Falcon 9 and Heavy boosters aboard have a usable landing area of roughly 45,000 square feet, a little more than 10% larger than Mr Steven’s new net.
With these vast new arms, struts, and (soon enough) net, SpaceX is likely as close as they have ever been to successfully catching a Falcon 9 fairing, an achievement that would likely allow the company to begin reusing the large carbon fiber-composite shrouds almost immediately. Critically, although SpaceX appears to have begun attaching recovery hardware to both fairing halves in recent West Coast attempts, it remains to be seen whether Mr Steven’s new claw apparatus will be able to catch both halves, thus closing the gap on fairing recovery without necessitating the leasing and modification of perhaps three additional copies of the vessel.
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- A before and after comparison of Mr Steven’s old and new arms. (Pauline Acalin)
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- Even at this zoom, the human workers are difficult to make out. (Pauline Acalin)
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- E N H A N C E. (Pauline Acalin)
Adding three recovery-critical ships (two for West Coast missions, two for East Coast missions) to SpaceX’s already massive blue-water fleet could significantly raise the operating costs of each recovery attempt, as well as generally adding considerable complexity to the orchestration of those fleets come launch time. Perhaps not. Still, if Mr Steven sees success with his 4Xed net and arms, chances are very good that SpaceX will lease and modify another Fast Supply Vessel – if they already haven’t done so – to provide the company’s higher-volume East Coast launch facilities with their own, dedicated fairing catcher. Mrs Steven awaits…
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- A few more arm and strut glamour shots, July 10. (Pauline Acalin)
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- A few more arm and strut glamour shots, July 10. (Pauline Acalin)
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- Port of San Pedro or an Andrew Pollock painting? You be the judge. (Pauline Acalin)
Zeroing in on Falcon fairings
Worth noting, SpaceX may have already halved the error margin officially advertised for the parafoil guidance units it procured from Canadian supplier MMIST, apparently missing Mr Steven by about 50 meters while MMIST suggests a 50% chance of successfully landing a payload in a 100-meter sphere. Given the significant expense likely incurred by designing, building, installing, and testing two distinct net and arm systems aboard Mr Steven, it’s safe to say that SpaceX engineers and technicians believe there is a very strong chance that the newest solution will successfully close the fairing recovery gap, said by CEO Elon Musk to be a rather literal 50 meters between the vessel’s old net and the unforgiving ocean surface.
With an additional 30 meters (~100 feet) of reach in both axes, the new net alone may be able to shrink that error margin by ~60%. Perhaps the fact that it also appears to cover (and thus protect) Mr Steven’s wheelhouse will allow the vessel more leeway to aggressively maneuver as the fairing nears touchdown, providing that final 20-meter leap to slip his net under the fall halves.
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In the meantime, we will ponder who exactly SpaceX is procuring a 40,000 square foot net from.
Incredibly, this artist rendering of a much larger net installed on Mr Steven was perhaps two or more times smaller than the solution now installed on the vessel. (Reese Wilson)
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Tesla released Full Self-Driving version 14.3.6 last week, and after what was potentially one of the best FSD releases in v14.3.5, there has been a bit of a regression. While there are some bright spots, the changes made to v14.3.6 seem to have backtracked some behaviors.
Overall, it is hard to really complain about FSD in any sense; it has revolutionized how I travel literally anywhere. According to my self-driving app, the last time I went a day without using it was 59 days ago.
However, I think it’s also important to recognize when things are just plain bad with FSD. There are times it does truly mind-boggling things, and I’ll dive into those here. Additionally, I only had these issues on local roads, not on highways. Highway operation, generally, is always incredible other than the occasional complaint about speed or left lane camping.
With those things being said, my personal experience may not represent others’ experiences. A handful of people have said they have had a similar experience on v14.3.6, while others have said it is more than normal.
Turning Hesitancy, Inaccuracy
I’ve noticed more inaccuracy turning into multi-lane stretches of road than in any version I can remember. I’ve had at least three instances of FSD turning into a stretch of roadway that has two or more lanes, and not selecting a lane confidently as it has in past versions.
I think Tesla FSD v14.3.6 is a regression from previous .3 branches
This version in particular has been incredibly hesitant, jerky, and indecisive at times. There’s actually been two drives that I have decided to not used FSD for the remainder of the trip. These were local trips… pic.twitter.com/YobHDOKRS6
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) July 26, 2026
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Instead, the car will drive over one of the dashed road lines, and the steering wheel will jerk back and forth before picking the lane. It should be said that it has always picked the correct lane when choosing based on the navigation, but it is still very indecisive. The steering wheel jerking is reminiscent of some of the later versions of v13.
I admit I really hate to see the steering wheel jerking come back. However, I think when Tesla releases v14.3.7, it won’t be present. When there are occurrences of it in FSD versions, it is usually resolved by the following release.
FSD Disregards Manual Turn Signals
This is my biggest bone to pick with FSD other than Navigation issues, but this one seems like it would be such an easy fix.
If Tesla is going to put the word “Supervised” on the end of “Full Self-Driving,” then when I tell the car to do something, it should do it. If I input an increase in speed by pressing the accelerator, the car will immediately respond. It does not disregard my input because it feels it is traveling at the right speed.
FSD should never disobey and turn off turn signals that the driver inputs. Trying to direct the car into the correct lane, I had initiated the left turn signal not once, not twice, but three times, with the car turning it off all three times and continuing in a lane that would end in just one block. The only solution at this point would be to zipper merge.
This goes back to the fact that self-driving’s biggest bottleneck might be rider preference. A zipper merge might have been more than reasonable, might have saved me time that I spent sitting through an additional light cycle, and might be something many drivers would do. I was in no hurry, I traditionally do not try to zipper merge because it feels inconsiderate, and lastly, the car should have just followed my input.
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This caused me to disengage and drive manually the rest of the way home. Sometimes I just do not need FSD to try to pass every car it can at intersections.
Bird Braking is a Thing of the Past
The big complaint with recent versions of Full Self-Driving has been what we’ve coined as “bird braking,” which is when the car will brake suddenly as a bird flies past.
There have been zero issues with this so far in v14.3.6, which is an excellent improvement.
FSD Might Already Be Taking Note of Driver Preferences
Another thing I have noticed over the past few days is that v14.3.6 seems to already be taking my preferences with navigation into account.
This is something that is supposed to be rolling out with the Summer Update, but I have a hunch it’s already present and might have been included in this v14.3.6 build. On Friday, FSD pulled into an entrance to a local convenience store that it had never attempted to go into before.
Typically, I manually pull into this entrance because it avoids heavy cross traffic at the main entrance. FSD has always chosen that congested main entrance.
I don’t want to get anyone excited but my Tesla running FSD v14.3.6 just:
✅ Pulled into an entrance at my local Sheetz that I routinely pull into manually but FSD never has entered
-✅ Pulled into my assigned parking space at home despite many other spots being vacant https://t.co/ZUShvknTWO pic.twitter.com/83O5a2S0eh
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) July 24, 2026
Additionally, FSD has pulled into my assigned parking spot at my townhouse community on multiple occasions with this release. This is something that used to happen ocassionally, but not consistently.
It also navigated back to the same convenience store last night, drove through crazy cars scrambling to gas pumps, navigated out of the parking lot correctly, drove me home, and, once again, parked in my assigned spot.
As previously stated, this release just seems to have a few things that need to be brought to Tesla’s attention, and also to make others who use FSD aware of some things that I’ve experienced. I look forward to the next release that will remedy these issues, just as Tesla has always done in the past.
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Elon Musk’s massive Terafab project, which will be the first true conglomeration between each of his major entities, is set to get its final location soon, the CEO said on Tesla’s recent earnings call.
“The Terafab, we expect to announce a location soon, and provide more details about our plans in that regard. We’ll leave that to the product, the launch announcement rather than try to squeeze it into an earnings call,” Musk said last Wednesday.
Tesla Terafab set for launch: Inside the $20B AI chip factory that will reshape the auto industry
Terafab was announced by Musk back in March and was essentially a massive, vertically integrated semiconductor manufacturing project that would provide all the chips the three companies needed for their AI initiatives without needing third-party companies.
The plant will produce over 1 terawatt of AI compute each year, and will help back up projects like Optimus, Full Self-Driving, and other AI-based projects that Musk’s companies are working on.
In April, less than a month after the project was launched, Intel announced it would join the project, contributing manufacturing expertise and consulting to Terafab as a whole. Intel is one of three chip manufacturers that produce sub-5 nanometer chips at scale. TSMC and Samsung are the other two.
However, there was no true indication of where Terafab would end up, but most believe it will likely be somewhere in Texas. Business Insider has reported that SpaceX plans to build out Terafab in Grimes County, Texas, but this is unconfirmed.
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Musk confirmed recently that it would not be on Giga Texas property, as it is simply too large.
The sheer scale of TERAFAB is going to be insane.
Elon said it wouldn’t be suitable for anywhere on Giga Texas property because it’s too big:
“We couldn’t possibly fit the Terafab on the GigaTexas campus. It will be far bigger than everything else combined there.
Several… pic.twitter.com/79GbhNNuf4
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) March 23, 2026
Terafab holds much of Musk’s grand ambitions for the future within its construct. It holds so much responsibility for the future and the biggest projects that Musk’s companies can imagine.
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“I think this is a very big announcement and it deserves to have its own day in the spotlight and not be squeezed into an earnings call,” he said. “I do think Terafab is going to be an amazing initiative and a necessary one, and one without which we will be constrained in our ability to scale Optimus production, because we simply won’t have enough AI chips.”
He continued by stating that Terafab is necessary for scaling Optimus, which Musk said could be the biggest product of any kind of all time. “It’s crucial to solve that, and we’ll have to solve memory, logic, and packaging in order to scale Optimus.”
SpaceX performed a secret test on a specific portion of Starship with its recent 13th test flight last week, CEO Elon Musk revealed.
Starship’s 13th test flight took place last Friday, and in many aspects, it was one of the most overwhelmingly successful launches in the project’s history.
All of the mission objectives were met without incident, both the Super Heavy Booster and Ship managed to perform safe splashdowns in the Gulf of America and the Indian Ocean, respectively, and the deployment of Starlink satellites came and went without any complications.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 25, 2026
However, there was more on the agenda for SpaceX with Flight 13. Musk revealed an internal test of the ship’s heat shield tiles, as the space exploration company wanted to push them to the limits after previous issues.
Many noticed that Starship’s initial launch seemed to be more accelerated than normal, and that was not a mistake. Musk revealed that SpaceX decided to give Flight 13 an intentionally aggressive acceleration rate in an effort to test how well the tiles would remain attached to the ship:
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This flight intentionally had much higher acceleration to test how well the heat shield tiles would remain attached at high dynamic pressure.
Test was successful.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 25, 2026
SpaceX had issues with some of the heat shield tiles remaining attached early on in the Starship program. The first six test flights presented some kind of anomaly with them, so the company’s big focus with them was to figure out a way to keep them intact through the duration of the flight.
Things truly improved as Flight 10 showed that ceramic tiles generally stayed attached to the ship far better due to refined attachment, as SpaceX utilized pins instead of adhesives. Flights 10 through 13 truly showed some clear progress with the heat shield tiles, and this latest test seems to be where some real progress was noticed, especially by Musk.
The 13th Starship launch last Friday was the second with Starship V3, SpaceX’s latest and greatest iteration of the spacecraft. Goals and ambitions are getting even grander as the project continues to progress. Musk has already hinted that SpaceX will likely try to catch Starship with Flight 14.
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Tesla Full Self-Driving v14.3.6 review: a rare regression, but some bright spots
Musk’s massive Terafab project will get final location soon
