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SpaceX repairing upgraded Starship prototype after first test
SpaceX workers have been spotted repairing the company’s newest Starship prototype in the days after the rocket’s first partial test.
Starship S24 was transported to SpaceX’s Starbase, Texas orbital launch site (OLS) on May 26th after about two and a half months of assembly, marking the first time SpaceX transported a new Starship prototype to a test stand since August 2021. Less than 24 hours later, after attaching Ship 24 to a new test bay located beside the actual ‘orbital launch mount,’ the Starship prototype came to life and began its first proof test.
Unfortunately, while it’s impossible to judge with certainty without official confirmation, Ship 24 either failed to complete that test or did not make it through unscathed.
Known as an ambient or pneumatic proof test, the main goal is to pressurize a Starship or Super Heavy prototype with nonflammable, ambient-temperature nitrogen gas to ensure that the rocket and all its plumbing are structurally sound and working as expected. A successful test would likely require a prototype to reach and sustain flight pressures – up to 8.5 bar (~125 psi) as of 2020 – without exhibiting any significant leaks or problems.
For a while, Ship 24’s first ambient proof test went about as expected, with lots of small vents from its main liquid oxygen (LOx) and methane (LCH4) tanks. No activity was visible at the ship’s nose, where vents and plumbing attach to a pair of small landing (header) propellant tanks. Ship 24 is the first Starship with an upgraded version of those tanks after SpaceX decided to remove the methane header tank from the main methane tank and relocate it directly under the oxygen header tank, which takes up the tip of Starship’s nose.
After an hour or two of testing, a muffled bursting noise different from previous vents was heard, followed by a quieter ‘whoosh’ more akin to a long vent. At the same time as the loud noise was heard, a good dozen or so of S24’s thousands of heat shield tiles were knocked off the section of the hull between the Starship’s main tanks and nose cone. SpaceX depressurized Ship 24 soon after and within a few hours, workers could be seen extracting a pipe from the ship that appeared to have been bent almost in half.
Three days later, workers were spotted guiding apparent replacement pipes into Ship 24. Altogether, it appears that some small section of Ship 24’s internal piping failed catastrophically after it was pressurized during the vehicle’s first pneumatic proof test, knocking tiles loose and possibly damaging other adjacent plumbing. Given the location of that piping inside Ship 24’s nose section, there’s a nonzero chance that the failure occurred when SpaceX attempted to pressurize the Starship’s new header tanks, which would have started by pressurizing the propellant and gas lines leading to them. That would explain the first muffled burst, the subsequent venting sound that slowly faded to nothing, and the loss of heat shield tiles.
It would also explain why SpaceX decided to leave Starship in place and conduct repairs at the pad. Super Heavy Booster 7, which suffered a dramatic plumbing failure during an early proof test, was moved back to one of Starbase’s covered assembly bays for repairs. Had Ship 24’s incident been severe, it would have likely left the pad as well. The fact that Ship 24 did not move indicates that the failure was fairly minor and contained, only impacting some easily-replaceable plumbing.
Additionally, SpaceX appears to have moved Raptor heat shield components and a missing cover for one of Ship 24’s four flaps to the pad since the incident. On top of the team that has been working all weekend to repair the Starship, other sets of workers have set about closing out Ship 24’s ‘raceway’, which protects hundreds of feet of smaller plumbing and cables and a flight termination system that runs from the top to the bottom of the ship’s tanks; and some have begun preparing to fill gaps in Ship 24’s heat shield. Most of that work can be classified as ‘finishing touches’ and none of it would be prioritized if Ship 24 was not in decent shape.
Still, even minor damage is a setback. Ship 24’s next opportunity for redemption is a 10am to 10pm CDT window on Wednesday, June 1st, with backup windows available on Thursday and Friday.
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.
Tesla is expanding its Robotaxi service hours by pushing the time back by one hour, keeping the ride-hailing service operational until 11 p.m., one hour later than previously.
CEO Elon Musk confirmed the change and offered a specific reason the expansion has been gradual: the system still needs to reliably avoid small pets that are difficult to see after dark, as they commonly blend into the color of the road, especially when they’re grey.
The latest adjustment restores only a fraction of the operating window the service once held. When paid Robotaxi rides began in Austin on June 22, 2025, vehicles ran from 6 a.m. to midnight.
In September 2025, Tesla lengthened the day to a 2 a.m. close, producing a 20-hour window that stayed in place for most of the following year. By early August of this year, the cutoff had already been pulled back; an August 26 update formalized hours of 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. across Austin and several other markets.
The October move to 11 p.m. therefore leaves the Austin day one hour shorter than the original launch schedule and three hours shorter than the 2025 peak.
Musk addressed the constraint directly after the announcement. “The main thing we’re trying to solve is making sure that we don’t run over pets when they’re hard to see at night,” he wrote. “Literally trying to avoid grey kittens on grey tarmac in the dark.”
Robotaxi operating hours moved from 10pm to 11pm.
The main thing we’re trying to solve is making sure that we don’t run over pets when they’re hard to see at night. Literally trying to avoid grey kittens on grey tarmac in the dark.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 3, 2026
The example points to a low-contrast perception problem in which a small animal can blend into the road surface under limited lighting.
Tesla’s vehicles rely on cameras and neural-network processing rather than lidar; Musk has previously argued that advanced vision software can extract useful information even in low light by analyzing photon counts, but the pet-detection case remains the stated limiter in later hours.
The modest schedule change arrives alongside faster growth in the purpose-built Cybercab fleet. Texas registration data tracked by observers showed the Austin Cybercab count rising sharply in recent weeks, reaching 169 vehicles after more than 100 were added in a short span.
Tesla has indicated that a broader shift toward 24-hour operation is tied to the upcoming FSD v15 software release expected this month on Robotaxi vehicles. Until that capability is validated for the edge cases Musk described, the company continues to add service time incrementally rather than jumping straight to overnight coverage.
The one-hour extension gives Austin riders a later option for evening trips while the underlying detection work continues.
Elon Musk teases TSMC as potential Terafab partner
Tesla reveals early Robotaxi charging strategy, showing scrappy DNA
