News
SpaceX’s second flight-proven Starship makes way for next ‘test tank’
Four days after the rocket’s hop debut, SpaceX has safely returned its second flight-proven Starship prototype to an assembly building for refurbishment, making way for a new ‘test tank’ at the launch pad.
Known as Starship serial number six (SN6), the ~30m (~100 ft) tall prototype became the second full-scale Starship to take flight on September 3rd, following in SN5’s footsteps to reach a similar ~150m (~500 ft) apogee before gently landing. More or less identical to SN5’s own August 4th hop debut, it marked the second hop of an entirely separate Starship prototype in 30 days – a feat almost certainly unprecedented in the history of large-scale rocket development.
Significant work remains to speed up the post-hop process, which appears to currently amount to some ~48 hours of gradual, uncontrolled detanking and depressurization. Regardless, a bit least than four days after a successful launch and landing, Starship SN6 was rolled back to SpaceX’s Boca Chica, Texas production facilities around 9am CDT, September 7th. Just five hours after that, Starship test tank SN7.1 – the second in a planned series of two – was loaded onto the same transporter and shipped down the road to the launch pad.

Since its first hop, over the last 30 days, SpaceX has inspected and refurbished Starship SN5 to help support what CEO Elon Musk has described as “several short hops to smooth out [the] launch process.” SN6’s success (and the intact launch infrastructure it thus left behind) now means that SN5 will almost certainly be reused in the near future. It’s unclear how many hops will be needed for Starship launch operations to be optimized into a smooth process but 4+ (2 x SN5, 2 x SN6) seems to be a safe bet.
However, SN5’s second hop will have to wait. Up next on SpaceX’s South Texas manifest is the fifth in a series of intentionally destructive tank tests, used to qualify (or disqualify) new Starship designs, manufacturing techniques, and materials. Known as Starship SN7.1, this particular test tank is the second in a series of two meant to determine the capabilities of a new steel alloy.
The first tank, SN7, was (successfully) tested to destruction on June 23rd and is believed to have reached record pressures before it failed. Perhaps more importantly, an unintentional leak during one of SN7’s first pressure test attempts proved that the new 304L (-ish) steel alloy it was built out of would make certain failure modes far less catastrophic (i.e. a leak instead of a violent rupture).


SN7 was a single basic test tank: an upper dome, lower dome, and three steel rings. SN7.1 is significantly more complex, adding a skirt section with hold-down clamps at the base and replacing the aft tank dome with a thrust dome and thrust puck (Raptor engine attachment points). SN7 was simply loaded with cryogenic liquid nitrogen and pressurized. SN7.1 – thanks to the addition of a thrust puck and skirt section – will perform similar cryo pressure tests but will also be subject to the simulated thrust of three Raptor engines with a series of hydraulic rams.
As of now, SpaceX has road closures scheduled today and tomorrow (Sept 8th) from 8am to 8pm CDT – tomorrow likely being the earliest opportunity for SN7.1 testing to begin.
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Elon Musk
How to use Grok Bot to block spam calls and texts
Musk told users to ask Grok Bot to scrub their phone numbers from spam lists.
Elon Musk has a new use case for Grok Bot, and it is the spam call. On Thursday he replied to an X user named Arash with a short instruction: “Ask your @Grok @Bot to remove your phone number from spam call & text lists!” Arash had said he got tired of the calls, had an AI bot find his number on listing sites and file removal requests, and packaged the process as a free skill for others.
The skill is called Spam-Call Scrubber, which is described to find a phone number on people search sites and data brokers, submits the opt outs, completes the confirmation emails those sites send back, and rechecks on a schedule the user picks. Using it requires the Grok Bot app. The pitch is time saved, since most broker opt outs sit behind separate forms on separate sites.
Ask your @Grok @Bot to remove your phone number from spam call & text lists!
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 15, 2026
Musk said Grok Bot now gives each bot its own email address, and that it can detect scam emails. On Thursday he also said SpaceX would make users whole if the bot botches a purchase or leaks a card, then told users to shop away from Amazon after the retailer blocked the agent, as Teslarati reported. The terms of service we reviewed at the time put responsibility for what an agent does on the user.
For Tesla owners, Grok Bot is not just a phone app. Tesla brought Grok Bot into its vehicles on September 22, and we argued earlier this week that the Cybercab’s real advantage may be the errands it runs during a ride. Every Cybercab and the rest of the Model Y Robotaxi fleet has it enabled. The more routine tasks like this one become, the more a rider has reason to hand over something personal in the back seat.
The new Spam-Call Scrubber skill can be downloaded for free and works on sites that honor removal requests, while noting that listings can reappear, and illegal robocallers do not check any registry. Whether Spam-Call Scrubber cuts anyone’s call volume is something the first wave of users will find out, and Musk’s endorsement guarantees that wave is coming.
Investor's Corner
Tesla’s flying Roadster just revealed something bigger than the car
Analysts say the Roadster demo puts a Tesla and SpaceX merger back on the table.
The Roadster unveiling near Waco ended Thursday night, and by Friday morning much of the investor reaction had less to do with the car than with who owns the rocket technology inside it.
Wedbush analyst Dan Ives said the event “puts the Tesla/SpaceX relationship on the table in a tangible way,” pointing to the propulsion, pressure vessel and control hardware sitting on a Tesla product. Gene Munster of Deepwater Asset Management called the demo “a ridiculous display of engineering” with “no commercial value” beyond embarrassing traditional automakers, though he said it showed Musk wants the two companies together.
The more specific forecast came a day earlier from Barclays. Analyst Dan Levy told clients a deal could be announced before Tesla’s annual meeting, which must happen by December 6, and that an announcement in late October or early November could make shareholder approval harder. Barclays expects SpaceX to be the buyer in an all stock deal, with Tesla holders receiving SpaceX shares at a premium, based on market values of roughly $2.1 trillion for SpaceX and $1.5 trillion for Tesla. If nothing lands around the meeting, the bank still sees an announcement within 6 to 12 months.
The Roadster demo just added more weight to merger speculations. Tesla’s demo used cold gas thrusters and pressure tanks of the kind SpaceX uses on Falcon 9, and Musk described the car as a collaboration between Tesla and SpaceX engineers, as we mentioned in our breakdown of the three Roadster configurations.
Musk has not publicly addressed a deal since the event, as far as we have seen. His most direct answer remains the one he gave at the All In Summit, when he said that with so much collaboration, “who can imagine what action one might take” without ruling anything out. Ives has held to a 2027 timeline since his March note, and Musk pushed back on the China piece of the speculation when ARK floated a year end announcement in August.
The next test is Tesla’s third quarter earnings call on October 21. However, we recall in July that Musk told analysts, “we can’t talk about combining companies and that kind of thing on an earnings call,” so a clear answer wouldn’t be expected.
News
How Tesla’s Roadster fan system and thrusters are built to dominate the corners
Tesla’s Roadster uses fans, active wings and cold gas thrusters to create grip at any speed.
Tesla’s new Roadster is best known for flipping through the air in Texas, but the technology that matters most for a race track is the stuff that keeps it on the ground. Tesla’s Roadster page describes a multi-mode fan and ground sealing system that acts as a downforce generator, pulling air out from beneath the car. Tesla says it provides enough suction to hold the vehicle upside down, even when stationary.
That is the key difference from the wings and diffusers on a normal supercar. Conventional aero only makes downforce when the car is moving, and it grows with speed, so a car has the least grip in the slow corners and under hard braking. A fan system makes downforce at any speed. Tesla’s patent, which we covered last year, describes fans and deployable skirts that create sealed or partially sealed regions under the car, with the fans extracting air to lower the pressure and increase grip and stability.
Still processing this … the most unreal thing I’ve seen. https://t.co/HtEuvnkZjY
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) October 16, 2026
Tesla pairs that with active wings, a next generation steer by wire system and a Track Mode that lowers the car and changes the suspension, with high downforce and low drag settings for the circuit. To keep weight down, Tesla points to magnesium, titanium and carbon fiber, manual controls and a fixed seat position, which it says lets the car respond to driver inputs almost instantly.
Tesla Roadster: Three configs, one can fly, 0-60 in 0.8 seconds
The cold gas thrusters are the other half. On the Thrust version they sit at the rear and Tesla says they take the car from 0 to 60 mph in under 0.9 seconds, while the Rocket version adds perimeter thrusters for forward, upward and lateral rotational movement. Tesla says the all electric actuators make micro adjustments within a fraction of a second.
Roadster transforms in Track Mode
These aero features aren’t just for looks: they provide the best passive downforce package of any road car (approaching F1 levels!) with wing actuation driven by the @Tesla_Optimus actuator system https://t.co/AqrC4qUga9
— Tesla (@Tesla) October 16, 2026
Musk has been talking about records for years. In June 2019 he said, “We’re going to do things with the new Roadster that are kind of unfair to other cars.” That September, when a follower asked whether the Roadster would beat the Nürburgring production car record, he replied with one word, “Absolutely,” as we reported at the time. In February 2024 he said Tesla had “radically increased the design goals” for the car and that its sub one second 0 to 60 time would be “the least interesting part.”
There are caveats. Tesla has not published a lap time or a verified cornering figure, so the record talk is still a promise rather than a result. Tesla also says the car is not approved for public road use, and the thruster features are limited to the Rocket trim, which is invite only. Fan cars have also been banned or withdrawn before, and getting a sealed underbody to work on a rough public road is a harder problem than on a smooth track. The first real test will be an official lap at a circuit.