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SpaceX installs Raptor Vacuum engine on first orbital-class Starship
Update: Providing the best views yet of the Raptor Vacuum installation process, SpaceX began installing one of Starship S20’s six engines (one of at least two recently trucked to the launch site) on Monday morning.
It remains to be seen exactly how many engines will be installed on Ship 20 or how many will be ignited during its first static fire test but barring the delivery of more Raptors, signs currently point to an initial test of two engines – one sea-level-optimized Raptor Center (RC) and one Raptor Vacuum with a much larger nozzle. Whenever Ship 20 does fire up those engines, it will be the first static fire of a RVac engine installed on a Starship and the first simultaneous, side-by-side static fire of two different Raptor variants. Since publishing time, SpaceX has cancelled a Tuesday road closure, pushing Starship S20’s first static fire attempt to no earlier than (NET) Wednesday evening.
For the third time in two months, SpaceX has begun installing Raptor engines on its first orbital-class Starship prototype – hopefully for good.
In no uncertain terms, Starship 20’s (S20) path to what could be its last Raptor installations has been about as windy and mysterious as they come. Starship 20 (S20) left the Starbase factory floor for the first time in early August – all six Raptors installed in another program first – for a brief fit check and photo op. After spending about an hour installed on top of Super Heavy Booster 4 (B4), Ship 20 was removed and returned to the build site, where teams removed all six engines and finished wiring and plumbing the vehicle.
Days before the ship’s long-anticipated trip to Starbase’s suborbital launch site for qualification testing, the mount SpaceX prepared for the process quickly had hydraulic rams – used to safely simulate Raptor thrust – were abruptly removed. Starship S20 was then installed on the Pad B mount, where SpaceX proceeded to reinstall six Raptors. Weeks later, after slow heat shield repairs neared completion, SpaceX again removed Ship 20’s Raptors and reinstalled the hydraulic rams it had removed – unused – the month prior. Finally, on September 30th, some seven weeks after the prototype arrived at the suborbital launch site, SpaceX put Starship S20 through its first major test – a lengthy ‘cryoproof’.
Now, ten days after completing a seemingly flawless cryoproof test on its first try, SpaceX has once again trucked multiple Raptors – at least one sea level and one vacuum engine – from the Starbase build site to Starship S20’s suborbital test stand. From the outside looking in, it’s hard not to view the contradictory path S20 took to its first tests – and is still taking to its first static fire(s) – as an unusually visible sign of some kind of internal tug of war or major communication failure between different SpaceX groups or executives.
It’s impossible to determine anything specific beyond the apparent fact that several of the steps taken from Ship 20’s first factory departure to its first cryoproof and static fire tests could have probably been deleted entirely with no harm done and many dozens of hours of work saved. At the end of the day, Starship S20 completed cryoproof testing without issue on the first try and is now seemingly on track to begin its first static fire test campaign later this month.
At the moment, SpaceX has three possible static fire test windows scheduled from 5pm to midnight CDT on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday (Oct 12-14). A similar Monday window was canceled days ago on October 7th, suggesting that more cancellations are probably on the horizon. For now, there’s a chance that Starship S20 – with anywhere from two to all six Raptor engines installed – will fire up for the first time before next weekend. It’s hard to say how exactly SpaceX will proceed. It’s not inconceivable that SpaceX will install all six engines and gradually ramp up to a full six-engine static fire over several tests.
Given that SpaceX has already static fired three Raptor Center (RC) engines on multiple Starship and Super Heavy prototypes, odds are good that Starship S20’s test campaign will be similar – beginning with a three-Raptor static fire, in other words. SpaceX could then add one, two, or all three Raptor Vacuum engines into the fray for one or more additional tests with 4-6 engines total. It’s also possible that suborbital launch mount and pad limitations will prevent more than three engines from firing at once, in which case SpaceX would presumably perform two separate tests of Ship 20’s Raptor Center and Raptor Vacuum engines.
Given that two Raptor variants have never been static fired simultaneously on the same vehicle, it’s hard to imagine that SpaceX won’t also want to perform one or several combined static fires with Raptor Vacuum and Raptor Center engines on Ship 20.
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SpaceX just locked up a NASA record no other U.S. spacecraft can touch
SpaceX’s Crew-13 Dragon reached the ISS in under eight hours, and NASA confirmed a record.
SpaceX now owns every spot on the list of the five fastest trips a U.S. spacecraft has ever made to the International Space Station, and its newest entry beat the old mark by more than four hours.
Crew Dragon Grace docked to the forward port of the station’s Harmony module at 7:05 p.m. ET on October 1, just 7 hours and 55 minutes after lifting off from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral. NASA confirmed the milestone in a space station blog update, writing that the flight “marked the fastest launch‑to‑docking of a U.S. spacecraft in the history of the International Space Station.”
The previous U.S. record also belonged to Dragon. SpaceX’s uncrewed CRS-31 cargo mission reached the station in a little over 12 hours in November 2024. The fastest crewed trip before last week was Crew-11, which took 14 hours and 43 minutes in August 2025, according to Space.com.
A post that Elon Musk reposted on Monday filled out the rest of the ranking. Behind Crew-13, CRS-31 and Crew-11 sit Axiom’s Ax-2 mission at 15 hours and 35 minutes and NASA’s Crew-4 at 15 hours and 44 minutes. All five flew on Dragon.
SpaceX turned a heralding moment for Starship into its greatest
Crew-13 carried NASA astronauts Jessica Watkins and Luke Delaney, Canadian Space Agency astronaut Joshua Kutryk, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Sergey Teteryatnikov. NASA had projected a docking around 8 p.m. ET, as Teslarati reported the day before launch, and Dragon arrived nearly an hour early. Our launch day coverage noted that the flight was lined up to be the quickest Crew Dragon transit yet.
The speed came from timing more than hardware. SpaceX’s Julianna Scheiman said the station “was in an opportune spot in space,” which let Dragon start closing the gap almost immediately after reaching orbit. “This is close to the fastest it could be,” she added. Most Crew Dragon flights still take close to a day, using a series of Draco thruster burns to raise and phase their orbit before arrival.
Dragon’s next job at the station is a departure. NASA said Monday it is targeting 8:05 a.m. ET on Wednesday, October 7, for Crew-12 to undock, setting up a splashdown off the coast of California around 11:34 a.m. on Thursday. Clearing that port makes room for CRS-35, a cargo Dragon carrying the final set of iROSA solar arrays.
Dragon remains NASA’s only operational ride to the station while Boeing’s Starliner stays grounded, and the agency recently added Crew-15, Crew-16 and Crew-17 to SpaceX’s contract in a $946 million modification.
Elon Musk has acknowledged that early discussions with Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) could bring the company into his ambitious Terafab semiconductor project, signaling a possible partnership with the world’s leading contract chipmaker.
Musk confirmed that early talks are underway, but as of right now, they are “just discussions.” There is no confirmation of a deal nor dismissal of the possibility of one, leaving open the prospect of one of the largest advanced-chip collaborations under discussion in the U.S.
@wholemars Just discussions, but something may come of it
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 3, 2026
The report that speculated on potential discussions between Terafab and TSMC comes from Tim Culpan, who outlined a few ways the collaboration could operate. One is TSMC using the project as an “anchor customer” for future facilities in Texas, potentially contributing process expertise, operational know-how, or capacity while Terafab provides capital, long-term purchase commitments, or both.
Tesla and SpaceX jointly developed the Terafab project, with Intel already participating on the tech side. Elon Musk announced the project in March, and it intends to produce more than one terawatt of AI compute capacity annually once fully built.
Company statements place the first phase at approximately $16.8 billion in cost, with later filings pointing to a total that could reach well into the tens of billions across multiple stages.
Intel joined the effort in April 2026 and is expected to supply its 14A manufacturing process for the full-scale plant.
Musk has said existing suppliers, including Samsung and TSMC, remain important for near-term needs; Tesla already has production arrangements with Samsung for AI5 and AI6 chips, but that future demand from Optimus robots, Cybercab vehicles, and planned space-based data centers will eventually exceed what the global industry can currently deliver.
Terafab is positioned as the long-term answer to that projected shortfall, and Tesla did something similar during COVID to avoid a chip shortage. This is just a much larger-scale solution.
If the partnership were to materialize, it would add TSMC’s industry-leading strategies to a project that already combines Tesla’s and SpaceX’s capital and offtake with Intel’s process technology. For now, the only public confirmation is Musk’s brief acknowledgement that conversations are occurring.
Tesla’s early strategy for charging units operating within its Robotaxi fleet reveals that the company surely has not lost any of that scrappy DNA that took it from an unlikely success story to the most valuable carmaker in the world.
An observer at a Tesla Supercharger in Austin spotted ten total Robotaxi vehicles arrive: one Cybercab and nine Model Y units. A Tesla employee was waiting at the lot and allowed each unit to park itself; every car that arrived had nobody in it.
Tesla wins FCC approval for wireless Cybercab charging system
The Tesla employee would walk around and plug each car in, adjusting the parking if needed:
So look at what I found. This is how Tesla charges unsupervised robotaxis at a public supercharger. Here is a driverless Cybercab showing up with no one in it. There are 9 other Model Ys that showed up too. A Tesla employee is walking around and plugging each of them in. She also moves the cars if they are not positioned well enough to charge. I love this process. One person charges multiple robotaxis at once
— Abhimanyu Yadav (@WorldlyReviewer) October 3, 2026
It’s a very interesting strategy, but extremely understandable at this early point in the Robotaxi program. It’s only been out for about 15 months, and Cybercab just entered the fleet in early September.
On top of that, Tesla is still working tirelessly on its wireless charging apparatus, and a new patent was just published regarding that product last week.
However, this is just another example of how Tesla still has plenty of that scrappy DNA leftover from the “production hell” days, when CEO Elon Musk slept on the floor of the factory, employees were working crazy hours, Tesla was building Sprung Structures to build cars in, and the company was tiptoeing on the brink of bankruptcy.
@Teslarati Sheer magnitude of the entire production system is hard to appreciate. Almost every element of production is >75% automated. Only wire harnesses & general assembly, which are <10% of production costs, are primarily manual.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 12, 2020
For now, Tesla is utilizing a simple system for recharging its ride-hailing vehicles, and that is a Tesla employee doing it manually until another solution presents itself. Sure, it’s not the most high-tech thing, and it certainly is not what people might have expected at this point in time, but it works, and it’s keeping the entire suite running.
SpaceX just locked up a NASA record no other U.S. spacecraft can touch
Elon Musk teases TSMC as potential Terafab partner
