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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.
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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Elon Musk
Elon Musk launches TERAFAB: The $25B Tesla-SpaceXAI chip factory that will rewire the AI industry
Tesla, SpaceX, and xAI unveiled TERAFAB, a $25B chip factory targeting one terawatt of AI compute annually.
Elon Musk took the stage over the weekend at the defunct Seaholm Power Plant in Austin, Texas, to officially unveil TERAFAB, a $20-25 billion joint venture between Tesla, SpaceX, and xAI that he described as “the most epic chip building exercise in history by far.” The announcement marks the most ambitious infrastructure bet Musk has made since Gigafactory 1 in Sparks, Nevada, and it fuses three of his companies into a single, vertically integrated AI hardware machine for the first time.
TERAFAB is designed to consolidate every stage of semiconductor production under one roof, including chip design, lithography, fabrication, memory production, advanced packaging, and testing. At full capacity, the facility would scale to roughly 70% of the global output from the current world’s largest semiconductor foundry from Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC).
Elon Musk’s stated goal is one terawatt of computing power annually, split between Tesla’s AI5 inference chips for vehicles and Optimus robots, and D3 chips built specifically for SpaceXAI’s orbital satellite constellation.
Tesla Terafab set for launch: Inside the $20B AI chip factory that will reshape the auto industry
The logic behind the merger of these three entities is rooted in a supply chain crisis Musk has been signaling for over a year. At Tesla’s Q4 2025 earnings call, he warned investors that external chip capacity from TSMC, Samsung, and Micron would hit a ceiling within three to four years. “We’re very grateful to our existing supply chain, to Samsung, TSMC, Micron and others,” Musk acknowledged at the Terafab event, “but there’s a maximum rate at which they’re comfortable expanding.” Building in-house was, in his framing, not a strategic option, but a necessity.
The space angle is where the announcement becomes genuinely unprecedented. Musk said 80% of Terafab’s compute output would be directed toward space-based orbital AI satellites, arguing that solar irradiance in space is roughly 5x greater than at Earth’s surface, and that heat rejection in vacuum makes thermal scaling viable. This directly feeds the SpaceXAI vision, which is betting that within two to three years, running AI workloads in orbit will be cheaper than doing so on the ground. The satellites, powered by constant solar energy, would effectively turn low Earth orbit into the world’s largest data center.
Will Tesla join the fold? Predicting a triple merger with SpaceX and xAI
Historically, this announcement threads together every major Musk initiative of the past two years: the xAI-SpaceX merger, Tesla’s $2.9 billion solar equipment talks with Chinese suppliers, the 100 GW domestic solar manufacturing push, the Optimus humanoid robot program, and Starship’s development. TERAFAB is the capstone that ties them into a single coherent architecture — chips made on Earth, launched by SpaceX, powered by Tesla solar, run by xAI, and ultimately extended to the Moon.
“I want us to live long enough to see the mass driver on the moon, because that’s going to be incredibly epic,”Musk said during the presentation.
Announcing TERAFAB: the next step towards becoming a galactic civilization https://t.co/IDKey07mJa
— Tesla (@Tesla) March 22, 2026
News
Rolls-Royce makes shocking move on its EV future
When Rolls-Royce unveiled its first all-electric model, the Spectre, in 2022, former CEO Torsten Müller-Ötvös declared the brand would cease production of internal combustion engine vehicles by the end of the decade.
Rolls-Royce made a shocking move on its EV future after planning to go all-electric by the end of the decade. Now, the company is tempering its expectations for electric vehicles, and its CEO is aiming to lean on its legacy of high-powered combustion engines to lead it into the future.
In a significant reversal, Rolls-Royce Motor Cars has scrapped its ambitious plan to become an all-electric manufacturer by 2030. The luxury British marque announced the decision amid sustained customer demand for traditional combustion engines and shifting regulatory landscapes.
When Rolls-Royce unveiled its first all-electric model, the Spectre, in 2022, former CEO Torsten Müller-Ötvös declared the brand would cease production of internal combustion engine vehicles by the end of the decade.
The move aligned with the industry’s broader push toward electrification, promising silent, effortless power befitting the “Rolls-Royce of cars.”
However, new CEO Chris Brownridge, who assumed the role in late 2023, has reversed course. “We can respond to our client demand … we build what is ordered,” Brownridge stated.
The company will continue offering its iconic V12 engines, which remain a cornerstone of its heritage and appeal to discerning buyers who appreciate the distinctive sound and character. He noted the original pledge was “right at the time,” but “the legislation has changed.”
While not abandoning electric vehicles entirely, the Spectre remains in production, with an electric Cullinan option forthcoming; the decision marks the end of a strict all-EV timeline. Relaxed emissions regulations and slowing EV demand, evidenced by a 47 percent drop in Spectre sales to 1,002 units in 2025, forced the reconsideration.
It was a sign that perhaps Rolls-Royce owners were not inclined to believe that the company’s all-EV future was the right move.
Rolls-Royce joins a growing roster of automakers reevaluating aggressive electrification targets.
Fellow luxury brand Bentley has pushed its full electrification from 2030 to 2035, while continuing to offer hybrids and ICE models. Mercedes-Benz walked back its 2030 all-EV goal, now aiming for about 50% electrified sales while keeping combustion engines into the 2030s. Porsche has abandoned its 80% EV sales target by 2030, delaying models and extending hybrids.
Mainstream giants are following suit. Honda canceled its U.S. EV plans, including the 0-Series and Acura RSX, facing a $15.7 billion hit as it doubles down on hybrids. Ford and General Motors have incurred tens of billions in writedowns, canceling models and pivoting to hybrids amid an industry total exceeding $70 billion in charges.
This trend reflects a pragmatic shift driven by infrastructure gaps, consumer preferences, and policy changes. In the ultra-luxury segment, where emotional connection reigns, automakers are prioritizing flexibility over rigid deadlines, ensuring brands like Rolls-Royce evolve without alienating their core clientele.
News
Elon Musk teases expectations for Tesla’s AI6 self-driving chip
This optimistic timeline for tape-out—the stage where chip design is finalized before manufacturing—signals Tesla’s push to rapidly advance its silicon capabilities.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk is outlining expectations for the AI6 self-driving chip, which is still two generations away. Despite this, it is already in the plans of the company and its serial entrepreneur CEO, who has high expectations for it.
Musk provided fresh details on the company’s aggressive AI hardware roadmap, spotlighting the upcoming AI6 chip designed to supercharge Tesla’s self-driving tech, humanoid robots, and data center operations.
In a post on X dated March 19, Musk stated, “With some luck and acceleration using AI, we might be able to tape out AI6 in December.”
With some luck and acceleration using AI, we might be able to tape out AI6 in December
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 19, 2026
This optimistic timeline for tape-out—the stage where chip design is finalized before manufacturing—signals Tesla’s push to rapidly advance its silicon capabilities.
The announcement builds on progress with the predecessor AI5. Earlier in January, Musk announced that the AI5 design was “in good shape” and “almost done,” describing it as an “existential” project for the company that demanded his personal attention on weekends.
He characterized AI5 as roughly equivalent to Nvidia’s Hopper class performance in a single system-on-chip (SoC) and Blackwell-level as a dual configuration, but at significantly lower cost and power usage.
Elon Musk is setting high expectations for Tesla AI5 and AI6 chips
Musk highlighted that AI5 “will punch far above its weight” thanks to Tesla’s co-designed AI software and hardware stack, making maximal use of every circuit. While capable of data center training tasks, it is primarily optimized for edge computing in Optimus robots and Robotaxi vehicles.
For AI6, Musk envisions substantial gains. “In the same half reticle and same process node, we think a single AI6 chip has the potential to match a dual SoC AI5,” he explained.
The company is targeting ambitious nine-month development cycles for future chips, allowing rapid iteration to AI7, AI8, and beyond. AI5/AI6 engineering remains Musk’s top time allocation at Tesla, with the CEO calling AI5 “good” and AI6 “great.”
Samsung is expected to manufacture the AI6 chips, following deals worth billions, while AI5 will leverage TSMC and Samsung production. These chips will form the backbone of Tesla’s Full Self-Driving system, enabling safer and more capable autonomy, alongside powering dexterous movements in Optimus bots and efficient inference in expanding data centers.
Tesla to discuss expansion of Samsung AI6 production plans: report
Musk has also restarted work on the Dojo 3 supercomputer project now that AI5 is progressing. Long-term plans include in-house manufacturing via the Terafab facility.
By accelerating chip development with AI tools, Tesla aims to reduce dependence on third-party GPUs and deliver high-performance, energy-efficient solutions tailored to its ecosystem. Success with AI6 could mark a major milestone in Tesla’s journey toward full autonomy and robotics leadership, though timelines remain subject to manufacturing realities.
Elon Musk launches TERAFAB: The $25B Tesla-SpaceXAI chip factory that will rewire the AI industry
Rolls-Royce makes shocking move on its EV future
