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SpaceX aborts Starship launch after Raptors produce too much thrust
Update #3: SpaceX CEO Elon Musk says that Starship prototype SN10 automatically aborted a 2:15 pm CST (UTC-6) launch attempt after the rocket determined that its three Raptor engines were producing too much thrust.
Instead of scrubbing for the day, Musk says that SpaceX will instead increase the flight computer’s thrust limits and try again as early as 4:30 pm CST – still well before today’s window closes at 6:30 pm. SpaceX ended its webcast but will start a second webcast a few minutes prior to the next launch attempt.
Update #2: As of Wednesday morning, SpaceX has officially confirmed that Starship is on track for a third high-altitude launch and ‘bellyflop‘-style landing attempt sometime later today.
As of 11am CST (UTC-6), FAA approval is in hand, weather is encouraging, Starship prototype serial number 10’s (SN10) flaps have been unchained, and SpaceX has cleared the launch site – all signs that the rocket’s launch attempt is imminent. Much like SN8 and SN9 coverage, SpaceX says it will make a public livestream of SN10’s launch available to the public “a few minutes” before liftoff. Stay tuned and follow along with NASASpaceflight’s live coverage in the meantime.
Update: SpaceX has asked Boca Chica Village residents to prepare to evacuate the area as early as Wednesday morning for Starship’s third high-altitude launch and landing attempt.
The odds of things going so wrong that a Starship launch could actually end with a prototype impacting at or near the Village and the handful of non-employee holdouts still residing there are minuscule. However, FAA safety regulations and SpaceX’s contingent launch license mean that evacuations are now a routine part of Starship’s high-altitude flight tests since Starship SN8 took the first step beyond short hops. While undeniably inconvenient for the few remaining residents, today’s evacuation notice – short of an official SpaceX.com confirmation – does serve as the ultimate sign that Starship SN10’s first launch attempt is firmly scheduled on Wednesday, March 3rd.
With FAA approval in hand, weather rapidly improving, and the latest rocket prototype seemingly raring to go, the stars are aligning for SpaceX’s third high-altitude Starship launch and first triple-engine landing attempt.
As of March 1st, publicly-available FAA “temporary flight restrictions” (TFRs) and weather forecasts both agree that SpaceX is currently preparing to launch Starship serial number 10 (SN10) as early as Wednesday afternoon CST (UTC-6), March 3rd. Barring surprises, that gives SpaceX a healthy three-day period to account for any potential technical or weather-related delays.
Originally scheduled as early as the last week of February, unspecified delays pushed Starship SN10’s launch debut schedule into March. In general, the vehicle’s path to flight has been much smoother than Starship SN8 and SN9, both of which ran into hardware bugs and opaque FAA licensing issues. With Starship SN10, the FAA approved SpaceX’s “modified” launch license well before the company was ready for flight – and even before the rocket had attempted its first static fire.
Unlike Starships SN8 and SN9, both of which took anywhere from 6-10 weeks to go from rolling off the factory floor to preparing for their first launch attempts, SN10’s first launch attempt appears likely to occur less than five weeks after the rocket arrived at the launch site. The sequential improvements in efficiency and reliability between those three prototypes is a fundamental part (or goal, at least) of SpaceX’s iterative development process.
Still, Starship SN10’s preflight flow wasn’t completely free of drama and SpaceX ultimately put the rocket through a second triple-Raptor static fire after the first test revealed an issue with one of those engines. SpaceX swapped that faulty engine out in record time and fired up SN10 again less than 48 hours after test #1, seemingly producing more satisfactory results the second time around.
Unlike its predecessors, SN10 will also debut a new triple-engine approach to landing, aiming to increase redundancy and boost the odds of a successful touchdown even if one of the Starship’s three Raptors fail during a last-second flip maneuver. Building on the failures of SN8 and SN9, it’s safe to say that SN10 has the best shot yet at sticking the landing.
TFRs show that two earlier launch windows on Monday and Tuesday (March 1st and 2nd) were canceled, leaving only the Wednesday, March 3rd airspace closure request still open. Wednesday was then backed up with two alternate windows on Thursday and Friday not long after.
Hardware-wise, Starship SN10’s cherry-on-top (an explosives-based flight termination system or FTS) was installed on February 28th. In the event that Starship loses control and strays past a certain point outside of its approved trajectory, that FTS would explode, breaching the rocket’s propellant tank, triggering vehicle breakup, and thus preventing it from harming the local populace. All told, SpaceX confirmation of a Wednesday launch attempt – and another official webcast – should be imminent. Stay tuned!
Tesla Cybertruck Lead Engineer Wes Morrill revealed the company has made several changes to the all-electric pickup, which he calls a “living thing, constantly evolving and improving.”
Cybertruck is manufactured at Tesla’s Gigafactory Texas just outside of Austin, and over the past few years, Tesla has continued to make small changes to the pickup to improve everything from cost, reliability, serviceablility, and manufacturability.
“The finish line isn’t getting to production. A product is a living thing, constantly evolving and improving,” Morrill added.
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Some of those changes are yet to be revealed, but perhaps the most notable one was the change Tesla made to the aero shield that sits underneath the truck. In the past, it was aluminum, but now the Cybertruck is using a self-reinforcing polypropylene.
Morrill said that the polypropylene is “stretched into fibers and then laminated into the form,” and is much more durable, much lighter, and significantly cheaper than aluminum when it is manufactured this way.
It also enabled some improvements in the geometry of the Cybertruck, improving the manufacturing around the bolts and edges, in addition to minor form changes. These all benefitted the Cybertruck in more ways than one: specifically with durability and improved drag.
I was surprised by how interested people were to find out we made a relatively benign change to the Cybertruck aero shield, a part of the car most people never even see. So I’ll share some more details.
Here are two photos, the left is one of the latest trucks off the… pic.twitter.com/F5cZo2CZKf
— Wes (@wmorrill3) September 7, 2026
Typically, Teslas are not necessarily identified by model year because these changes are fluid and occur when the company sees fit to implement them. It is not like other automotive companies, which usually make sweeping manufacturing changes when building a new model year.
Instead, Teslas are recognized by their “generation” or “era.” For example, those with a newer Model Y might refer to their car as a “Juniper.” This is the same with Model 3, as many refer to the new body style as the “Highland.”
Tesla’s manufacturing changes are proof of the company’s constant need to improve its products and move things forward with its vehicles. There is no need to drag one’s feet and wait until next year if the product can be made better right now, and that’s precisely what Tesla did with the Cybertruck.
Elon Musk
Tesla Cybercabs narrowly miss deadly Amazon cargo plane crash
An Amazon cargo plane crash near Miami’s airport stopped feet from dozens of Tesla Cybercabs.
An Amazon Prime Air Boeing 767 cargo jet overran the runway at Miami International Airport on Sunday afternoon, killing five people and injuring five more. The jet, operated by North Carolina based carrier 21 Air as Flight 7598, touched down around 2 p.m. after arriving from San Juan, Puerto Rico, then crossed the airport perimeter, plowed across NW 67th Avenue and struck multiple vehicles before catching fire, according to the Associated Press.
Photos and video from the scene show the aircraft’s nose stopped within meters of a fenced staging lot holding dozens of gold painted Tesla Cybercabs, the steering wheel free robotaxi Tesla began putting on public roads in Austin last week. Miami-Dade Fire Rescue has confirmed the plane struck “multiple vehicles” but has not said whether any Cybercabs were among them, and neither Tesla nor airport officials have addressed the fleet directly.
The Cybercabs had not yet entered commercial service in Miami. Tesla’s existing Robotaxi operation there runs on modified Model Y vehicles and has been unsupervised since Ashok Elluswamy confirmed the detail on X in July.
Footage of the plane crash from earlier today | #ONLYinDADE pic.twitter.com/iGoOtnd6cD
— ONLY in DADE (@ONLYinDADE) September 6, 2026
Elon Musk offered the briefest of reactions. Replying to a Zero Hedge post about the Cybercabs sitting so close to the wreckage, he wrote a single word: “Weird.” He has not commented further, and Tesla has not issued a statement.
The timing puts Tesla’s newest vehicle near an unrelated but highly visible tragedy just days after its Austin debut, a launch that had already drawn scrutiny from federal regulators. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration opened an audit how Tesla certified the Cybercab as compliant with federal vehicle safety standards, a process Teslarati covered after the vehicle’s September 3 launch event. That inquiry concerns the car’s lack of a steering wheel and pedals, not the Miami crash.
Investigators from the FAA and NTSB are focused on the plane, not the parking lot beside it. Flight data reviewed by outlets including Simple Flying show the 767 touched down around 170 knots, well above the 135 to 140 knot range typical for the aircraft, though investigators have not determined a cause. Amazon said it is working with authorities and that its priority is the safety of everyone affected.
Whether any Cybercabs were damaged, and what Tesla plans for the fleet parked near one of the country’s busiest airports, remain open questions.
Tesla has reached a notable benchmark in its autonomous driving program after its Robotaxi fleet surpassed one million miles of unsupervised operation. The company made the announcement during its Cybercab event in Austin on September 3.
Tesla Vice President of AI Ashok Elluswamy told attendees he was happy to report the fleet had achieved one million miles of unsupervised Robotaxi operation as a testament to safety.
The new total marked a sharp increase from the 380,000 unsupervised miles Tesla disclosed during its second-quarter 2026 earnings update in late July.
In roughly six weeks, the company added about 620,000 miles. That acceleration followed Tesla’s decision to remove in-vehicle safety monitors from most of its operations outside the San Francisco Bay Area.
Credit: Tesla
Tesla first launched Robotaxi service in Austin in June 2025 with safety drivers present. It later began fully unsupervised rides and expanded into Dallas, Houston, Miami, Orlando, and Tampa. The San Francisco Bay Area remains the exception, where a safety monitor still rides in the vehicle under California permitting rules.
The company has not released a city-by-city breakdown of the one million unsupervised miles.
The milestone arrived as Tesla began offering public Cybercab rides in Austin. The purpose-built vehicle has no steering wheel or pedals and is designed only for autonomous ride-hailing. Production versions joined the existing fleet of modified Tesla vehicles already operating in the service.
Tesla’s unsupervised mileage is growing at a double-digit weekly rate according to earlier company comments, yet its fleet size remains modest compared with established competitors. Waymo has accumulated more than 200 million fully autonomous rider-only miles. Tesla has described its own unsupervised operations as having recorded zero notable incidents in the period leading up to the July update.
The one-million-mile figure reflects Tesla’s shift from supervised testing to broader driverless service in multiple states. It also highlights the company’s strategy of using both existing Model Y vehicles and the new Cybercab to scale its network.
Credit: Tesla
Whether the rapid recent growth continues will depend on further city expansions, regulatory approvals, and the performance of the purpose-built Cybercab in everyday paid rides. Tesla has not specified how many of the latest miles involved the new vehicle versus the rest of the fleet.
The announcement underscores Tesla’s progress toward a larger robotaxi network while illustrating the remaining gap in total autonomous experience relative to longer-operating rivals.
Tesla Cybertruck engineer reveals new changes in ‘constantly evolving’ pickup
Tesla Cybercabs narrowly miss deadly Amazon cargo plane crash
