For the second time this week, SpaceX is preparing for the maiden test flight of Starship, the company’s most ambitious rocket to date and the most powerful rocket ever built. If successful, Starship could become the vehicle of choice to take astronauts back to the moon or perhaps even take humanity on its first-ever journey to Mars.
Starship is poised for liftoff as early as Thursday during a one-hour launch window starting at 8:28 a.m. CT (9:28 a.m. ET). The rocket will be launching from Starbase, SpaceX’s private spaceport at the southernmost point of Texas. Similar to other missions, the Starship test flight will be livestreamed on SpaceX’s website about 45 minutes before the scheduled liftoff.
This will be Starship’s second attempt at a test flight. The rocket was initially set for its maiden flight on Monday, but the launch was halted due to a valve issue. The SpaceX team ended up treating the rest of the launch attempt as a “wet dress rehearsal,” with the private space company going through Starship’s launch steps except for the rocket’s actual liftoff.
The Test Flight
Starship is a very imposing rocket and is comprised of two sections. At its bottom lies the Super Heavy booster, a 230-foot-tall (69 meters) cylinder equipped with 33 engines, and sitting atop it is the 164-foot-tall (50 meters) Starship spacecraft.
Upon ignition, the booster is expected to propel the spacecraft over the Gulf of Mexico toward space. At around two and a half minutes after takeoff, the Super Heavy rocket booster is expected to separate from the Starship spacecraft and descend into the ocean. The Starship spacecraft will then utilize its engines for over six minutes to reach almost orbital speeds.
Starship is expected to complete nearly a full orbit of Earth before re-entering the atmosphere near Hawaii. Provided that everything goes according to plan, Starship would be splashing down in the Pacific Ocean about an hour and a half after it takes off from Texas, as noted in a CNN report.
Elon Musk Sets Expectations
While there is much humor to be inspired by Starship’s possible 4/20 maiden flight, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has tempered expectations about the upcoming rocket launch. Musk has noted that “success is not what should be expected… That would be insane,” when it comes to the test flight. Musk would know, considering his vast experience with rocket-building that began way back during Falcon 1’s days from 2006 to 2008.
Starship development has taken place at SpaceX’s Texas spaceport. Early testing of Starship started with “hop tests” of several prototypes, which progressed from short flights a few dozen feet off the ground to high-altitude flights. And while many of the tests ended in massive explosions, one suborbital flight test in May 2021 proved successful. Footage from the test looked like something from a sci-fi movie.
Musk’s tempered expectations for Starship’s maiden test flight should come as no surprise. Back when SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy rocket made its first launch in 2018, Musk estimated only a 50-50 chance of success. At the time, Musk even joked that people came from all over the world to witness either an amazing rocket launch or the best fireworks display they had ever seen. Fortunately, the Falcon Heavy launch was successful, and it provided some of the most iconic images of modern spaceflight in the form of Starman and his red Tesla Roadster floating in space.
SpaceX’s livestream for Starship’s second test flight attempt can be viewed below.
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Tesla made a dramatic change to the Online Design Studio to show its plans for Full Self-Driving, a major part of the company’s plans moving forward, as CEO Elon Musk has been extremely clear on the direction moving forward.
With Tesla taking a stand and removing the ability to purchase Full Self-Driving outright next month, it is already taking steps to initiate that with owners and potential buyers.
On Thursday night, the company updated its Online Design Studio to reflect that in a new move that now lists the three purchase options that are currently available: Monthly Subscription, One-Time Purchase, or Add Later:
🚨 Check out the change Tesla made to its Online Design Studio:
It now lists the Monthly Subscription as an option for Full Self-Driving
It also shows the outright purchase option as expiring on February 14 pic.twitter.com/pM6Svmyy8d
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) January 23, 2026
This change replaces the former option for purchasing Full Self-Driving at the time of purchase, which was a simple and single box to purchase the suite outright. Subscriptions were activated through the vehicle exclusively.
However, with Musk announcing that Tesla would soon remove the outright purchase option, it is clearer than ever that the Subscription plan is where the company is headed.
The removal of the outright purchase option has been a polarizing topic among the Tesla community, especially considering that there are many people who are concerned about potential price increases or have been saving to purchase it for $8,000.
This would bring an end to the ability to pay for it once and never have to pay for it again. With the Subscription strategy, things are definitely going to change, and if people are paying for their cars monthly, it will essentially add $100 per month to their payment, pricing some people out. The price will increase as well, as Musk said on Thursday, as it improves in functionality.
I should also mention that the $99/month for supervised FSD will rise as FSD’s capabilities improve.
The massive value jump is when you can be on your phone or sleeping for the entire ride (unsupervised FSD). https://t.co/YDKhXN3aaG
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 23, 2026
Those skeptics have grown concerned that this will actually lower the take rate of Full Self-Driving. While it is understandable that FSD would increase in price as the capabilities improve, there are arguments for a tiered system that would allow owners to pay for features that they appreciate and can afford, which would help with data accumulation for the company.
Musk’s new compensation package also would require Tesla to have 10 million active FSD subscriptions, but people are not sure if this will move the needle in the correct direction. If Tesla can potentially offer a cheaper alternative that is not quite unsupervised, things could improve in terms of the number of owners who pay for it.
News
Tesla Model S completes first ever FSD Cannonball Run with zero interventions
The coast-to-coast drive marked the first time Tesla’s FSD system completed the iconic, 3,000-mile route end to end with no interventions.
A Tesla Model S has completed the first-ever full Cannonball Run using Full Self-Driving (FSD), traveling from Los Angeles to New York with zero interventions. The coast-to-coast drive marked the first time Tesla’s FSD system completed the iconic, 3,000-mile route end to end, fulfilling a long-discussed benchmark for autonomy.
A full FSD Cannonball Run
As per a report from The Drive, a 2024 Tesla Model S with AI4 and FSD v14.2.2.3 completed the 3,081-mile trip from Redondo Beach in Los Angeles to midtown Manhattan in New York City. The drive was completed by Alex Roy, a former automotive journalist and investor, along with a small team of autonomy experts.
Roy said FSD handled all driving tasks for the entirety of the route, including highway cruising, lane changes, navigation, and adverse weather conditions. The trip took a total of 58 hours and 22 minutes at an average speed of 64 mph, and about 10 hours were spent charging the vehicle. In later comments, Roy noted that he and his team cleaned out the Model S’ cameras during their stops to keep FSD’s performance optimal.
History made
The historic trip was quite impressive, considering that the journey was in the middle of winter. This meant that FSD didn’t just deal with other cars on the road. The vehicle also had to handle extreme cold, snow, ice, slush, and rain.
As per Roy in a post on X, FSD performed so well during the trip that the journey would have been completed faster if the Model S did not have people onboard. “Elon Musk was right. Once an autonomous vehicle is mature, most human input is error. A comedy of human errors added hours and hundreds of miles, but FSD stunned us with its consistent and comfortable behavior,” Roy wrote in a post on X.
Roy’s comments are quite notable as he has previously attempted Cannonball Runs using FSD on December 2024 and February 2025. Neither were zero intervention drives.
Elon Musk
Tesla removes Autopilot as standard, receives criticism online
The move leaves only Traffic Aware Cruise Control as standard equipment on new Tesla orders.
Tesla removed its basic Autopilot package as a standard feature in the United States. The move leaves only Traffic Aware Cruise Control as standard equipment on new Tesla orders, and shifts the company’s strategy towards paid Full Self-Driving subscriptions.
Tesla removes Autopilot
As per observations from the electric vehicle community on social media, Tesla no longer lists Autopilot as standard in its vehicles in the U.S. This suggests that features such as lane-centering and Autosteer have been removed as standard equipment. Previously, most Tesla vehicles came with Autopilot by default, which offers Traffic-Aware Cruise Control and Autosteer.
The change resulted in backlash from some Tesla owners and EV observers, particularly as competing automakers, including mainstream players like Toyota, offer features like lane-centering as standard on many models, including budget vehicles.
That being said, the removal of Autopilot suggests that Tesla is concentrating its autonomy roadmap around FSD subscriptions rather than bundled driver-assistance features. It would be interesting to see how Tesla manages its vehicles’ standard safety features, as it seems out of character for Tesla to make its cars less safe over time.
Musk announces FSD price increases
Following the Autopilot changes, Elon Musk stated on X that Tesla is planning to raise subscription prices for FSD as its capabilities improve. In a post on X, Musk stated that the current $99-per-month price for supervised FSD would increase over time, especially as the system itself becomes more robust.
“I should also mention that the $99/month for supervised FSD will rise as FSD’s capabilities improve. The massive value jump is when you can be on your phone or sleeping for the entire ride (Unsupervised FSD),” Musk wrote.
At the time of his recent post, Tesla still offers FSD as a one-time purchase for $8,000, but Elon Musk has confirmed that this option will be discontinued on February 14, leaving subscriptions as the only way to access the system.
Tesla makes big Full Self-Driving change to reflect future plans
Tesla Model S completes first ever FSD Cannonball Run with zero interventions
