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SpaceX’s Mr Steven spotted in high-speed test at sea with upgraded net
SpaceX’s newly-outfitted recovery vessel Mr Steven was recently captured conducting aggressive maneuvers off the coast of Port of Los Angeles, just days after the vessel’s massive new arms and net were installed for the first time. The intense pace of upgrades and acceptance testing confirm beyond any reasonable doubt that SpaceX does not intend to waste its next Falcon 9 fairing recovery attempt, set to accompany the July 25th launch of Iridium-7.
The iconic fairing recovery vessel has – for the past three or four weeks – been undergoing major upgrades to its arms or claws, as well as a massive, new net spanning nearly 0.9 acres (3700 m²). With what appears to be a genuine fourfold increase in usable area for fairing recoveries, SpaceX likely has a very strong chance of actually pulling off its first successful catches and reuses of Falcon 9 payload farings, valued at roughly 5% of the rocket’s cost ($3 million per a $60 million base price) per half. Manufacturing cost and price to the customer are difficult to compare, but it at least offers a hint of the full cost of each ~800 kg segment of carbon fiber and aluminum honeycomb.
Mr Steven seen just after a day spent conducting sea-trials a few miles offshore, July 14. (Pauline Acalin)
Based on photos and video captured between July 12 and 15, Mr Steven’s crew and recovery technicians appeared to waste no time at all leaping from arm and net installation to sea-trials of the new hardware at least as extreme as anything previously observed from the SpaceX-leased vessel. Less than half an hour after leaving the harbor for the first time since his massive new arms arrived, Marinetraffic tracking data showed that Mr Steven was already performing aggressive turns and sprints at speeds up to 20 knots (~25 mph), fairly impressive given the vessel’s 200 foot (62 meter) length and gross weight of nearly 200,000 pounds (82,000 kg).
While this may seem impressive, Mr Steven is a class of ship known as a Fast Supply Vessel (FSV) designed to routinely transport a full 400 metric tons of cargo on its deck at cruising speeds of 23 knots (27 mph), which means that the only thing Mr Steven’s wildly expansive arms likely challenge is the vessel’s center of gravity (balance), hence the follow-up tests with hard turns at high speed.
Also of interest, an extraordinary video of some of that testing – unofficially captured, somehow, by drone – showed the ship aggressively maneuvering in reverse, an ability that could come in useful during recovery attempts if the expanded net’s coincidental protection of Mr Steven’s cockpit means that it can become a less fixed element, actively seeking out falling fairings to help close the gap on each parasailing half’s 50 meter error margin.
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- Mr Steven makes some serious waves, using his pod thrusters to strafe backwards at 5-10 knots. (anonymous)
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- It’s subtle, but a small plus sign appears to ‘mark the spot’ on Mr Steven’s new net, stretching roughly 60×60 meters. (anonymous)
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- Mr Steven shows off the fancy new rigging of that upgraded net. (Pauline Acalin)
Another opportunity fast approaches
Previously scheduled for July 20, Iridium’s NEXT 7 multi-satellite launch was pushed back a handful of days to July 25 to give SpaceX engineers and technicians additional time to prepare what is the company’s third Block 5 Falcon 9 to roll off its Hawthorne, CA assembly line. While suboptimal for the customer and for SpaceX’s manifest, that slight delay very likely padded slim schedule margins for Mr Steven’s major arm upgrades, meaning that the vessel will now be able to participate in the imminent launch’s recovery operations. After the first flightworthy vehicle’s debut in May 2018, SpaceX’s rocket production has ramped up in quite an extreme fashion, jumping from four first stages produced in six months to another three or four boosters completed and tested in Texas in just two months.
While the transportation of Falcon fairings and upper stages is far harder to keep track of, production of those critical components of the rocket have also reached throughput levels that are new territory for SpaceX, including an impressive statistic of an average of one full Merlin 1D rocket engine manufactured daily according to an individual with experience on the factory floor.
The Block 5 iteration of the workhorse SpaceX vehicle is in many ways a wholly new rocket, featuring an array of upgrades that include new heat shielding at the rocket’s base, interstage, and legs; retractable landing legs, upgraded Merlin 1D engines, and a clean-sweep refresh of the vehicle’s avionics, to name just a handful of the major changes included.
SpaceX technicians wrench on a trio of varied Merlin 1Ds in McGregor, Texas, where every single engine is test-fired before being attached to a Falcon 9. (SpaceX)
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Elon Musk
The Starship moon landing number NASA and Elon Musk can’t agree on
Musk disputes NASA estimate of 22 Starship launches for Moon landing, predicting 6 to 8.
Elon Musk is disputing a new NASA safety panel estimate of how many Starship launches it will take to put astronauts on the Moon, saying the real number will be less than half the panel’s figure.
On Thursday, NASA’s Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel held its quarterly public meeting. Panel member Charlie Precourt, a former NASA astronaut, flagged the fueling process for SpaceX’s lunar lander as a major risk for Artemis IV, the mission planned to land a crew on the Moon in 2028. “We need to keep our eyes on numerous required fuelings for the lander,” Precourt said, according to Ars Technica. “I think the last estimate is around 22 flights.”
Ars Technica’s Eric Berger posted the comment on X, and Musk replied. “That’s way too high,” Musk wrote. “Actual number will be more like 6 to 8.”
The disagreement comes down to a basic problem with sending a ship as large as Starship to the Moon. Starship burns nearly all of its propellant just reaching Earth orbit, so it cannot continue on to the Moon without stopping for a refill. SpaceX’s answer is a gas station in space. First, a Starship that works as a storage tank, called a depot, is launched into orbit. Then a series of tanker Starships launch one at a time, dock with the depot and pump their leftover propellant into it. Once the depot is full, the lunar lander version of Starship launches, docks, fills up and heads for the Moon.
Every tanker trip is its own full rocket launch, which is why the count matters. More launches mean more time, more cost and more chances for something to go wrong before astronauts ever leave Earth. Berger estimated that even if SpaceX reaches twice weekly Starship launches by the end of 2027, filling a depot at the panel’s number would still take roughly three months.
How many tankers are needed depends mostly on how much propellant each one can carry to orbit and how much is lost along the way. Starship’s fuel and oxygen are stored at extremely cold temperatures, and some of it slowly boils off while waiting in orbit. More is lost in each transfer. NASA appears to be working from what Starship can lift today, while Musk’s range assumes a more capable rocket.
Musk has pushed back on higher counts before. In 2021, after a government document suggested 16 launches, he called that “extremely unlikely” and said eight tankers would be the most required.
Much of the answer depends on hardware SpaceX has not finished flying. As Teslarati noted earlier this year, the company plans to carry out the refueling process with its upgraded V3 Starship, and Precourt described Artemis IV as carrying “a large number of firsts.” He also praised NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman’s team for working to clear obstacles for both SpaceX and Blue Origin, whose Blue Moon lander does not rely on orbital refueling for its first mission.
Elon Musk
Tesla’s secretive “Project Crystal Sun” gets a big green light in Texas
Fort Bend County approved four incentive agreements Thursday for Tesla’s proposed $10.1 billion solar factory.
Fort Bend County commissioners on Thursday approved a package of tax incentives for Tesla’s proposed $10.1 billion solar cell factory near Needville, Texas, giving the company one of the last local approvals it needs before it decides where to build. All four Tesla agreements passed 4 to 0.
The votes covered a property tax abatement inside Reinvestment Zone No. 34, a Chapter 381 economic development agreement, a foreign trade zone non-objection paired with payments in lieu of certain taxes, and a separate payment in lieu of taxes “true up” agreement, according to agenda notes from the Fort Bend Commissioners Court meeting.
The project, known internally as “Project Crystal Sun,” would make solar cells and finished modules on roughly 3,000 acres near FM 762 and FM 1994, south of the Brazos River. As Teslarati reported when the filing first surfaced in August, Tesla’s application under the state’s JETI Act splits the investment into $1.5 billion in real property and $8.6 billion in equipment, with 9,712 permanent jobs projected by 2033 and commercial operations targeted for the first quarter of 2029. The plant would handle the full chain from ingot and wafer production through cell testing.
Inside Tesla’s secretive $10 Billion “Project Crystal Sun” filing
Thursday’s approval does not lock in the site. Tesla has told the Texas Comptroller it is still weighing other locations, and site selection adviser David Dennison told Lamar Consolidated ISD trustees in September that the race had narrowed to Fort Bend and one out of state rival with a “very compelling package,” according to the Houston Chronicle. Tesla hopes to decide before the end of 2026, and the incentives still need sign off from the Comptroller and the Governor’s office.
Local officials have now done nearly everything within their control. Commissioners created the reinvestment zone in an August 24 special meeting, with Interim County Judge Daniel Wong formally withdrawing himself over his engineering firm’s past work with Tesla. Lamar CISD trustees voted 7 to 0 on September 15 to advance a JETI agreement that would tax Tesla’s qualifying property at 50 percent of its value for maintenance and operations from 2029 through 2038.
The plant lines up with a target Elon Musk set on Tesla’s Q4 2025 earnings call in January, when he said the company would “work toward getting 100 GW a year of solar cell production, integrating across the entire supply chain from raw materials all the way to finished solar panels.” In March, Tesla was reported to be negotiating a $2.9 billion purchase of Chinese solar manufacturing equipment bound for Texas. The Houston area already hosts Tesla’s Megafactory in Brookshire, where Megapack 3 production has started. Tesla said on its Q3 call that Megapack supply for 2027 is nearly sold out, and Musk wrote on X Thursday that the company is “increasing production of Megapacks as much as possible,” as demand from data centers climbs.
Tesla revealed plans to develop its own maps internally to fix Navigation issues and give owners more control over their routing.
On the company’s Q3 2026 Earnings Call, a question was asked about FSD Navigation issues, particularly speed limit recognition, parking, and routing. These are issues that surface from version to version and seem to be seriously challenging for Tesla’s AI team to resolve.
Tesla’s Head of AI, Ashok Elluswamy, said in response to the question:
“You’re totally right that we shouldn’t be depending on external people’s maps. So we are building our own maps, but not like the same way as OneMoreMap. We are building an entirely new architecture with essentially AI-based mapping and navigation.”
He continued:
“It’s going to be super awesome. It’s going to be integrated with voice. You can talk to it, ask for different routes. It’s going to learn your personalized preferences, plus the fleet preferences. The collective intelligence of all the cars is going to flow into making the maps and navigation super cool.”
Elluswamy said this issue should be confronted, and the mapping should be available for people by the time the v15 release starts deploying to customers.
“And over the next several months,” he added, “it’s just going to take over all of the navigation functions, parking, destination handling. And it will know you better than you know yourself in some regard for the driving task, and then handle it fully.”
Tesla Summon got insanely good in FSD v14.3.2 — Navigation? Not so much
Navigation is perhaps the most notable complaint with FSD, and although it has gotten better, it is still flawed. Much of the time, FSD will take people on routes that are not preferred by the driver, but Tesla tried to combat this with a routing feature in the Summer 2026 Update.
Tesla currently relies on Google for map data, but it is sort of counterintuitive to believe the company would rely on a third party for this. These improvements will be welcome, as routing and navigation have been such a pain point for so many owners for so long.
Quotes via Motley Fool
The Starship moon landing number NASA and Elon Musk can’t agree on
Tesla’s secretive “Project Crystal Sun” gets a big green light in Texas
