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SpaceX is ready to build the first Starship destined for space after latest tests
After a busy several days of rocket hardware testing, Elon Musk says that SpaceX may be ready to build the first Starship prototype destined for space.
According to Musk, one test in particular – performed in South Texas just yesterday – is an encouraging sign that SpaceX’s Starship team is becoming increasingly competent at building the massive steel parts that will ultimately make up the generation launch vehicle. For SpaceX, the particular skills and expertise needed to precisely and consistently build a launch vehicle – let alone a rocket as large and complex as Starship – are quite a bit different from those it has mastered with Falcon 9, Falcon Heavy, and Dragon.
A lot of the expertise – particularly engineering talent, countless lessons-learned, and insight into reusability – is directly transferable from Falcon rockets to SpaceX’s Starship/Super Heavy program. Where it really isn’t transferable, however, is in the methods required to actually build the steel subcomponents that must ultimately be assembled together to form the rocket’s upper stage and booster. As a result, SpaceX has spent more than a year focused on building, testing, scrapping, improving, and re-testing any number of critical Starship components. Over the last four weeks (and last few days in particular), that testing has come to a head and Elon Musk believes the results have opened the door for SpaceX to begin building its first space-bound Starship prototypes.
SpaceX’s latest round of full-scale Starship hardware tests began just 10-20 days ago, depending on how one counts. Back around the start of the new calendar year, SpaceX began rapidly integrating two new Starship bulkheads and two cylindrical steel rings (barrel sections), ultimately delivering a finished ‘test tank’ after just 20 days of work. On January 10th, scarcely 24 hours after the two halves of the test tank were welded together, SpaceX sent the Starship test tank to its nearby launch pad and pressurized it with water until it quite literally burst.
Musk tweeted the results of that intentional test-to-destruction just a few hours after it was completed, revealing that SpaceX’s upgraded production and integration techniques enabled the tank to survive pressures almost 20% greater than the minimum Starships will need to perform orbital launches.
“Critically, the tank reached a maximum sustained pressure of 7.1 bar (103 psi), 18% more than the operating pressure (6 bar/87 psi) Musk says Starship prototypes will need to begin orbital test flights. At 7.1 bar, the test tank would have been experiencing an incredible ~20,000 metric tons (45 million lbf) of force spread out over its interior surfaces — equivalent to ~20% of the weight of an entire US Navy aircraft carrier. Perhaps even more impressive, that same Starship test tank was built from almost nothing extremely quickly, going from first weld to said pressurization test in just three weeks (20 days).
With relatively minor improvements to welding conditions and the manufacturing precision of Starship rings and domes, Musk believes that SpaceX can reliably build Starships and Super Heavy boosters to survive pressures greater than 8.5 bar (125 psi), guaranteeing a safety margin of at least 40%. Even a minor improvement of ~6% would give Starship a safety margin of 125%, enough – in the eyes of most engineering standards committees – to reasonably certify Starships for orbital test flights.”
Teslarati.com — January 12th, 2020
Test Tank 2: The Tankening
This brings us to January 27th, a little over two weeks after SpaceX completed and burst the first standalone Starship test tank. Over the last week, SpaceX has quickly assembled a second Starship test tank, using a few clearly new methods and parts, as well as a brand-new tent built by the same company that Tesla used for Fremont’s fourth General Assembly line.
In the last few days, two new bulkheads and steel rings came together to form Starship test tank #2, which was subsequently prepped for transport and moved about a mile down the road to SpaceX’s launch facilities on the morning of January 27th. Scarcely a few hours later, well before anyone was paying close attention for test activities, Elon Musk took to Twitter to reveal that the second tank had already been subjected to a pressure test with water. That second tank reportedly survived up to 7.5 bar, an improvement of about 6% compared to the first tank.
This time, however, the tank wasn’t actually catastrophically destroyed by the pressure test, instead developing a leak around the weld connecting the two halves that lead SpaceX to back off. Musk says that that presumably small leak will now be repaired, after which the same tank will be tested again but with one significant difference. Musk says that Test Tank #2’s second pressure test will be performed with a cryogenic liquid — most likely liquid nitrogen (LN2).
In replies after his reveal, Musk noted that he believed the second test tank could perform significantly better if pressurized with a cryogenic liquid. That’s because certain types of steel – particularly those SpaceX has chosen for Starship – exhibit something known as cryogenic hardening when exposed to extremely cold temperatures, producing steel that can be dramatically stronger by some measures.
Ultimately, as mentioned above, a tank pressure safety margin of 125% is the minimum most engineering standards provide for any given orbital-class launch vehicle. At 7.5 bar, even under the very unlikely assumption that Starship tanks will not see even a marginal strength increase at cryogenic temperatures, SpaceX’s second Starship test tank has officially hit that 125% safety margin. As Musk himself noted on Monday, he is now confident that SpaceX can immediately start building the first Starship destined for spaceflight and further revealed that two of that particular Starship’s three tank domes are already nearing completion.
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Known as Starship SN01 (serial number 01), there’s a strong possibility that the massive spacecraft will never reach higher than a 20 km (12.5 mi) flight test SpaceX intends to perform. The company’s rapidly changing strategy may very well mean that SN01 – now ‘go’ for production – could also support suborbital spaceflight testing and maybe even the first orbital Starship launch, although orbital launches will require a Super Heavy booster. Elon Musk, for one, has already christened Starship SN01 an “orbital vehicle”.
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Cybertruck
Tesla Cybertruck production snaps back after ugly supplier fight
Cybertrucks are piling up again at Giga Texas after Tesla’s court win against a parts supplier.
Cybertruck production at Giga Texas is showing its first visible recovery since Tesla sued a supplier last month over withheld manufacturing tooling.
Aerial observer Joe Tegtmeyer flew over the Austin factory Wednesday morning and counted roughly 100 or more Cybertrucks filling the outbound lot, a sharp jump from the thin numbers seen in recent weeks. The flyover came a day after a judge granted Tesla a temporary restraining order against Angstrom Automotive Group, the parts supplier at the center of the dispute.
Tesla filed an emergency lawsuit in late July after Angstrom told the automaker it planned to close the Troy, Texas facility where Tesla’s die-cast tools, trim dies and other Cybertruck stamping equipment were housed. According to Tesla’s complaint, a shipment of 700 finished parts never left the building, and when Tesla sent representatives to retrieve its equipment, accompanied by law enforcement, they were turned away. Angstrom allegedly then asked for an extra $250,000 a week to keep operating, which Tesla’s filing described as holding its own property for ransom.
TESLA: U.S. District Judge Christopher R. Wolfe of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas, Waco Division granted Tesla a Temporary Restraining Order and Writ of Replevin in its dispute with Angstrom Automotive (Case No. 6:26-cv-00477).
The order authorizes… https://t.co/E1DKcQSxMn pic.twitter.com/LR8aAiV2Og
— S.E. Robinson, Jr. (@SERobinsonJr) August 5, 2026
The restraining order gives Tesla immediate right of entry to Angstrom’s facility to recover the tooling. It is temporary, with a fuller hearing still to come, but the speed of Wednesday’s rebound suggests the Angstrom shortage was indeed the main bottleneck limiting Cybertruck output. Outbound lot counts are an imperfect measure of actual production, since finished trucks can sit for days before shipping, but a lot that full after a lean stretch is a meaningful signal.
Cybertruck output at Giga Texas has fluctuated all year as Tesla worked through supply issues and introduced new trims, including a cheaper Dual Motor AWD version that drew strong early demand.
Elon Musk
Space finally faced the people living next to its next Terafab mega-project
SpaceX confirmed Terafab’s Grimes County site is locked in, with construction starting within months.
SpaceX and Terafab representatives sat across from Grimes County residents for the first time on Wednesday, telling a packed Commissioners Court room that the $55 billion chip manufacturing project is now a done deal at the Gibbons Creek Reservoir site.
The meeting followed a $10 million check SpaceX sent the county earlier this week, satisfying a payment deadline built into the tax abatement agreement both sides signed in June. Elon Musk shared a post on X confirming the payment, and County Judge Joe Fauth told the San Antonio Express-News his office deposited the check after it beat its deadline.
Wednesday’s session, first reported by KBTX, moved the project from paperwork to construction. Terafab representative Riley Trennell told residents the JETI tax break agreements with Iola ISD and Anderson-Shiro CISD are signed and active, and that civil work and foundation prep are starting almost immediately. Renderings of the facility could be released within days, he said, with construction beginning within months.
The foundations for an exciting future are being built in Texas. Next up: Terafab → https://t.co/jGg52Zhn5I pic.twitter.com/SNfSXNr2tb
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) August 6, 2026
Elon Musk launches TERAFAB: The $25B Tesla-SpaceXAI chip factory that will rewire the AI industry
Musk first announced Terafab in March as a joint venture between Tesla, SpaceX and xAI aimed at producing over a terawatt of AI compute annually, an amount that dwarfs the roughly 20 gigawatts the entire global chip industry produces today. Intel joined as a manufacturing partner in April. Musk has said the project needed its own day in the spotlight rather than being squeezed into an earnings call, and for months the Grimes County site remained unconfirmed even as reporting pointed there.
SpaceX attorney Buck Brannon used Wednesday’s meeting to note that the company’s abatement is roughly 78 percent, not the 100 percent some earlier reports suggested. In exchange, SpaceX will pay Grimes County a fixed $20 million a year for 35 years, a total of $710 million, which Brannon said exceeds the $14 million Tesla paid Travis County in 2025.
SpaceX also addressed environmental concerns that have followed the project since Musk’s Terafab partnership with Intel was announced. Representatives said Terafab will not raise electric bills for other ratepayers, will not deplete local water supplies and will not draw down the Navasota River. SpaceX confirmed it owns the Navasota River pumping station, which it plans to use to divert stormwater into the Gibbons Creek Reservoir, and said it will build its own natural gas plants to power the facility rather than pulling from the ERCOT grid.
Grimes County commissioners also approved an addendum letting county employees use ten approved AI chatbots for work, including Grok.
Elon Musk has declared that SpaceX has effectively solved one of Starship’s most persistent engineering challenges: the reliability of its heat shield tiles.
During the company’s first-ever Earnings Call, the SpaceX CEO stated:
“I don’t want to jinx it or anything, but I think I would call the heat shield problem solved at this point. All indications from data and visual inspection is we have solved it. That doesn’t mean we won’t make improvements, but we do not see any technical obstacles to achieving rapid reusability at this point.”
Starship’s heat shield consists of roughly 18,000 hexagonal ceramic tiles covering the windward side of the upper stage. These tiles form the thermal protection system that shields the vehicle’s stainless-steel structure from the extreme heat of atmospheric reentry.
Elon says he believes the heat shield problem with Starship is currently solved.
He called it “arguably the single biggest problem” pic.twitter.com/eEE9vM5zlz
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) August 4, 2026
During descent, atmospheric friction generates temperatures exceeding several thousand degrees Celsius and creates plasma flows capable of melting unprotected metal. The tiles absorb, radiate, and insulate against this energy, allowing the vehicle to survive and potentially fly again. Without a durable heat shield, full and rapid reusability, the cornerstone of Starship’s design for frequent launches, satellite deployments, and deep-space missions, would remain impossible.
The tiles have long been a source of difficulty. On earlier test flights, a significant number of tiles detached during ascent due to vibration, aerodynamic loads, and imperfect attachment methods using pins and adhesives. Gaps between tiles allowed hot plasma to infiltrate, causing secondary damage and hot spots on the underlying structure.
These issues echoed challenges faced by NASA’s Space Shuttle, whose ceramic tiles required extensive, labor-intensive inspections and replacements between missions, preventing rapid turnaround. SpaceX has iteratively improved materials, standardized tile shapes, refined attachment techniques, added secondary ablative layers, and tested sealing methods such as “crunch wrap” felt to close gaps.
Progress was visible across Flights 10–12, with steadily better tile retention, yet questions remained about whether the system could support the minimal-refurbishment goal of rapid reuse.
Flight 13 on July 24 provided the decisive evidence. Ship 40 flew a deliberately more demanding profile with higher dynamic pressure to stress the heat shield beyond typical operational loads. It successfully deployed 20 operational Starlink V3 satellites, the first such payload on a Starship mission, performed an in-space Raptor engine relight, and executed a controlled reentry.
Elon Musk sheds two new bits of detail on Starship after 13th test launch
Cameras on six of the satellites and onboard sensors captured extensive imagery and data of the shield throughout the flight. The ship then achieved its softest splashdown to date in the Indian Ocean, remaining intact and floating rather than breaking apart or exploding as on prior missions. This allowed drone inspections and continuous telemetry of the heat shield in near-real time.
Post-flight analysis showed the majority of tiles remaining attached with only minor damage and limited plasma streaking at seams. Musk noted that the mission delivered “all the heat shield data we needed and then some.” Combined with visual inspections, these results underpinned his subsequent assessment that the core technical barriers to rapid reusability have been cleared. While refinements will continue, Flight 13 marked a pivotal step toward Starship’s operational future.
Tesla Cybertruck production snaps back after ugly supplier fight
Space finally faced the people living next to its next Terafab mega-project
