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SpaceX execs bullish on BFR as Mars rocket test facilities expand in Texas [photos]
Aerial observations of SpaceX’s McGregor, Texas testing facilities on April 17 revealed an unusually frenetic level of construction and expansion centered around Raptor – the rocket engine intended to power BFR and SpaceX to Mars – and a new test-stand, the purpose of which is currently unknown.
With a minimum of 1200 seconds of hot-fires under its belt, SpaceX’s Raptor propulsion program is likely rapidly approaching the end of what is best described as the experimental phase of testing. While this has not been communicated by SpaceX, it is a logical conclusion following several recent developments. Namely the true beginning of BFR test article fabrication and an impressively bullish level of commitment and confidence in the fully reusable launch system demonstrated in the last few months alone by CEO Elon Musk and President/COO Gwynne Shotwell. While Musk is infamous both within and beyond his companies for painfully impractical development timelines, he demonstrated some level of growing consciousness of that fallibility at 2018’s SXSW, stating that he was working on recalibrating his expectations. Without taking a breath, he reiterated his anticipation for short hop tests of the first full-scale spaceship prototype in the first half of 2019.
SpaceX’s three-bay Raptor test stand as of April 17. The middle bay is currently home to the subscale Raptor test program. (Aero Photo)
While anyone familiar with Musk’s timeline antics may roll their eyes and laugh, far more shocking was Shotwell’s sudden pivot towards a new sense of optimism for the BFR program. At Satellite Conference 2018, the typically reserved and pragmatic executive confirmed beyond any doubt that she had become aggressively bullish on the Mars rocket, stating that she believed the spaceship would be ready for suborbital testing in 2019, while the booster-spaceship system could potentially reach orbit by 2020. Musk and Shotwell’s suggestion that BFR’s first suborbital testing – akin to an extreme version of SpaceX’s Grasshopper and F9R programs – is expected to begin in 2019 meshes well with a recent explosion of activity at Port of San Pedro in Los Angeles, CA, thanks to a combination of land acquisition, successful bureaucracy-wrangling, and the first hints of construction and BFR production. It’s highly unlikely that SpaceX would have chosen to temporarily move BFR prototyping into a giant tent on abandoned dock space rather than waiting for port and city approvals for their permanent port factory if they were not keen on moving full speed ahead with the fully reusable launch vehicle’s development.
SpaceX has completed over 1,200 seconds of firing across 42 main Raptor engine tests. pic.twitter.com/EhxbPjd8Cj
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) September 29, 2017
SpaceX’s Director of Real-Estate Bruce McHugh was less confident when he spoke before Port of San Pedro’s board of commissioners on April 19, although all in attendance expressed a huge amount of excitement at the increasingly likely prospects of a huge SpaceX rocket factory materializing in their neighborhood. Local contractors, economic development representatives, and many other community members were eager for the approval and permitting process to finish up, after which SpaceX is characteristically likely to begin demolition and construction in earnest at Berth 240, the prospective site for the company’s first dedicated BFR factory.
Early phases of in-house BFR structures prototyping is taking shape behind the flaps of a custom-ordered temporary tent, something like 60m long, 30m wide, and ~15m tall at the highest point – half an acre of eccentric but functional space for Mars rocket R&D, in other words. The primary benefit of these facilities’ dock-side locations is the minimization of the transportation hell that SpaceX would have had to suffer through to transport 9m-diameter rocket hardware through downtown Los Angeles – feats that would cost as much as $2.5 million one way each time components had to be moved from the Hawthorne factory to the Port of LA, where it would be finally shipped to Texas or Florida.
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- SpaceX’s first major BFR and BFS fabrication tooling, likely being stored temporarily in a tent at Port of San Pedro. Note the tent framework at the top. (Elon Musk)
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- Just a casual line of car-sized steel segments hanging around outside the BFR tent. (Pauline Acalin)
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- It’s understood that SpaceX will eventually move this work to Berth 240 once more permanent facilities are constructed. (Pauline Acalin)
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- SpaceX’s BFR tent and mandrel, caught on April 14th. (Pauline Acalin)
Speaking at a private talk given to MIT campus members in October 2017, attendees reported that Shotwell stated that although “[BFR’s] composite tanks [would] be a challenge [for SpaceX],” the company was already working on maturing the technologies required, and also noted that SpaceX was “building a larger [version of] Raptor right now.” Half a year later, outsiders have heard nothing of any additional carbon composite propellant tank testing at the new 9m diameter, but the existence of custom-ordered (i.e. very expensive and specialized) composite fabrication tooling of the same diameter as BFR effectively guarantees that SpaceX has settled upon and is confident in its approach to manufacturing the massive composite tankage and structures. Along with a similar line of thought, expensive tooling with a fixed diameter also indicates – albeit with less certainty – that the vehicle’s Raptor propulsion system is not expected to change significantly as BFR marches closer to suborbital and orbital testing. Raptor, in other words, is probably considerably more mature than SpaceX’s composite tankage expertise, itself fairly advanced given the mandrel and additional fabrication tooling already present at Port of San Pedro.
And yet, Shotwell’s most telling display of confidence occurred just a handful of days ago at the TED2018 conference. In a lengthy and fairly well-orchestrated interview with the session’s host Chris Anderson, Shotwell repeatedly and happily made comments indicating that she has become extremely bullish on BFR and BFS in the last several months. In her opinion, BFR (and point-to-point Earth transport) will be deployed “within a decade, for sure.” Prices would nominally be “between business and economy,” or a few thousand dollars per person. Speaking on the trip from Earth to Mars, she estimated a three-month journey with BFR Block 1, “but [SpaceX is] gonna try to do it faster.” She further confirmed that SpaceX intends to build much larger BFRs, meshing with Elon’s suggestions that 2016’s ITS concept is now perceived internally as a sort of BFR Block 2. Perhaps most importantly, she qualified her timeline estimates as “Gwynne-time” when Anderson jokingly deadpanned about the infamous Elon-time. Overall, Shotwell came across as more bullish than she has ever been before on BFR’s development and future prospects, including both point-to-point transport on Earth and crewed missions to the surface of Mars – both of which she expected to begin “within a decade, for sure.” Smirking, she quipped that she was “sure Elon would want us to go faster.”
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- BFR heads to orbit in an updated overview of the Mars rocket. (SpaceX)
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- Note the 2017/early-2018 variant’s single delta-wing and extendable leg pods (silver). (SpaceX)
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- According to Hans Koenigsmann, this vision may actually be incompatible if NASA and the US government are given too much control. (SpaceX)
Not one to end on a quiet note, the typically pragmatic executive finished by describing how she believed that spreading human presence throughout the Sol System was only “the first step [towards] moving to other solar systems and potentially other galaxies; I think this is the only time I ever out-vision Elon.” Interstellar travel and faster-than-light propulsion aspirations aside, Shotwell’s comments mark a fairly incredible shift in attitude toward SpaceX’s far loftier ambitions. Musk seems to be working to recalibrate his timelines to be less naive at the same time as Shotwell’s confidence is steadily growing – the two executives, in other words, appear to be rapidly converging upon a middle ground of pragmatic optimism (that or Musk-time is contagious!).
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- Raptor’s McGregor, TX engine test bays are seen here in April 2018. A subscale Raptor prototype is visible in the center bay. (Aero Photo/Teslarati)
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- A new rocket test-stand takes shape at SpaceX’s McGregor, TX facilities. As of just a few months ago, this site was effectively barren of activity. (April 17, Aero Photo)
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- SpaceX’s Merlin 1D (Vacuum and Sea Level) tests stands, as well as a bay for upper stage static fires. (April 17, 2018 – Aero Photo)
As shown above, the level of construction activity at SpaceX’s Texas testing facilities is fairly impressive and could perhaps be seen as evidence that both Musk and Shotwell are speaking from a place of something approaching pragmatism. While the purpose of the new stand (center) is not yet clear, several aspects indicate that it is unlikely to be more mundane. First, the massive water tower (one that did not exist just a month or two ago, might I add) dwarfs anything found at individual engine or upper stage test stands at the SpaceX facility. It’s possible that the existence of the flame trench alone necessitates the inclusion of such a large water suppression system for damage prevention, but the presence of the blue steel skeleton of a new flame bucket (operational iterations shown on the right) suggests otherwise. For example, the Merlin stands have no such water suppression system: they do use water suppression to avoid damaging the ground systems or the engines themselves, but that water is stored in a large ground-level tank. A tower, however, indicates that SpaceX wants much higher water pressures and flow rates to be available at the new stand, a requirement for significantly more powerful tests akin to SpaceX’s full-up Falcon 9 (and Heavy) test stand – the water towers at the S1 stand and this new stand appear to be identical in size.
In other words, it’s more probable than not that this new stand is being built to support either booster static fires or much larger tests of BFR hardware (perhaps multiple Raptors at once, akin to SpaceX’s very early tests of Falcon 9’s nine Merlins). It could, of course, be used for many different tasks, but only time will tell. Given the sheer level of physical progress made in the BFR program and the swelling confidence of Musk and Shotwell, I certainly know where I’d hedge my bets.
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In a remarkable demonstration of how advanced vehicle technology can intersect with family care and rapid response, a Tesla Model Y equipped with Full Self-Driving (FSD) Supervised helped save a driver’s life during a severe heart attack. The incident, which occurred on November 15, 2025, highlights the life-saving potential of Tesla’s connected ecosystem.
John Brandt, 55, was driving his new 2026 Model Y Launch Edition on Interstate 20 from Atlanta toward Birmingham early that morning. He had recently received the FSD v14.1.3 update. Around 3:50 a.m., he began experiencing severe chest pain. Barely conscious and unable to safely control the vehicle, John managed to call his son, Jack Brandt.
FSD Supervised remained engaged, keeping the car steadily on course while John reached out for help.
As an authorized driver on his father’s Tesla account, Jack quickly sprang into action from his own phone. He located Tanner Medical Center in Carrollton, Georgia—a facility equipped for cardiac emergencies—via Google Maps and shared the destination directly through the Tesla app.
A Model Y driver started experiencing a medical emergency with chest pain mid-drive & called his son.
His son then remotely rerouted the car – which had FSD Supervised enabled – to the nearest hospital & let them know the vehicle was en route. ER staff were standing by on… pic.twitter.com/yi1tHISK9y
— Tesla North America (@tesla_na) June 16, 2026
The Model Y responded immediately, rerouting: it took the next exit, turned around on I-20, navigated local roads, and pulled directly up to the emergency room entrance. Jack also alerted hospital staff that a heart attack patient was en route in a Tesla.
Doctors diagnosed John with a massive STEMI heart attack, requiring immediate intervention on three blocked arteries. They later confirmed that without the swift reroute, John likely would not have survived—whether he had pulled over to wait for an ambulance or attempted to continue driving. He received life-saving treatment and is now recovering fully.
Tesla shared the story on X, including an interview video featuring John and Jack reflecting on the event. John described the terrifying onset of symptoms, while Jack detailed the ease of remote intervention thanks to the app’s features. Only authorized users with vehicle access can change navigation destinations, adding a layer of security and family coordination.
This case underscores Tesla’s emphasis on connectivity and supervised autonomy. Features like remote navigation allow loved ones to assist in real-time emergencies, while FSD handles complex driving tasks reliably. Tesla notes that FSD Supervised requires active driver supervision and is not fully autonomous; this was a specific incident, not a general emergency protocol.
The story has resonated widely, with many praising Tesla’s technology for bridging gaps in critical moments. Jack previously shared details on social media in February 2026, and Tesla’s recent post has amplified its reach. As vehicles become smarter and more connected, such integrations could redefine personal safety on the road—turning cars into proactive partners in health crises.
For Tesla owners, the incident serves as a powerful reminder to add trusted family members as authorized drivers and explore FSD capabilities. While no technology replaces professional medical care, this blend of AI-assisted driving and seamless app control proved invaluable. John’s survival stands as a testament to innovation that prioritizes human life.
In a bold declaration on X, xAI CEO Elon Musk announced that its model will be capable of creating full movies by the end of the year. Quoting an xAI post showcasing a stunning AI-generated trailer for Homer’s The Odyssey, Musk simply stated: “Full movies by the end of the year.”
The quoted video, created entirely with the newly released Grok Imagine Video 1.5, demonstrates the rapid strides in AI video generation. Crafted by creator David Thompson, the 2-minute-plus trailer reimagines the ancient epic in the style of a 1970s classical Hollywood blockbuster. It features 36 meticulously consistent shots that form a cohesive narrative world.
Full movies by the end of this year https://t.co/kkBrngWA0X
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 17, 2026
Its realistic nature is truly mind-blowing, and it’s pretty amazing to think that it cool to think it could create an entire movie soon.
The trailer reimagines The Odyssey as a whole, and opens with a concept board outlining the vision: a retelling of the story using 35mm film aesthetics, classical framing, and other elements.
There are a handful of things that truly outline Grok’s capabilities:
- Scale and Physics: A bloodied Spartan helmet rests on a sandy battlefield amid smoke, marching armies, and flocks of birds. Horses gallop, chariots charge, and warriors clash with believable weight and motion.
- Emotional Depth and Dialogue: Close-ups capture intense expressions, as characters deliver lines like a warrior’s grief-stricken speech on a rocking ship.
- Cinematic Workflow: It’s hard to believe AI created this trailer, as editing and suspense are clearly detailed in this trailer
Now, why is this a big deal? AI has been a real threat to the way movies have been made over the past several decades. It’s no secret that the various AI platforms out there are becoming more capable, but Musk has said that he believes things would be “watchable” by the end of this year, and by the end of 2027, Grok would be able to create “really good” movies.
There are several issues that remain, most notably the ability to remain cohesive throughout the length of a film, energy requirements, copyright questions for training data, and artistic intent. Hollywood has created some of the greatest cinematic masterpieces over the past 100 years, but 2026 could be the year AI not only assists but also independently authors cinema.
Tesla is continuing to push the boundaries of vehicle dynamics, as its latest published patent, US12654505B2, or “Suspension Actuator System for a Vehicle,’ which has finally been pushed through.
The design, which is credited to inventors Brian Lee Doorlag, Avraham Kagan, and Justin Sill, introduces a sophisticated hybrid suspension design that blends active motor-driven control with strategic passive elements to deliver superior ride quality, energy efficiency, and resilience against road imperfections, especially potholes.
Suspension Actuator System for a Vehicle@Tesla‘s US20240383297A1 patent introduces an innovative suspension actuator system that transforms vehicle suspension control through an intelligent combination of active and passive control elements.
By implementing both series and… https://t.co/vRvlOu3Dql pic.twitter.com/2WriXgpOvr
— SETI Park (@seti_park) November 27, 2024
At the heart of the system is an active control element powered by an electric motor. This motor drives a belt connected to a ball nut assembly and threaded screw, which adjusts the effective length of the suspension strut in real time.
By extending or retracting, the actuator can lift or lower the wheel more accurately, which can end up countering road disturbances. Sensors, including accelerometers and wheel position monitors, feed data to a suspension control system that processes inputs and commands the motor instantly.
This active component doesn’t work alone. A low-rate air spring mounts in parallel with the actuator. Its primary role is to offset much of the vehicle’s static weight, dramatically reducing the power demand on the motor.
Without this, the active system would constantly fight gravity, draining energy and generating heat. The air spring handles steady-state loads efficiently, allowing the motor to focus on dynamic adjustments.
Complementing this is a series of passive control elements—a spring and an adaptive damper—placed between the actuator and the wheel. This setup filters high-frequency vibrations before they reach the active motor, preventing it from overworking on minor inputs. The adaptive damper, potentially magnetorheological or valve-controlled, further tunes damping electronically for optimal comfort and stability.
How It Differs from Traditional Suspensions
Traditional passive suspensions compromise between comfort and handling, while pure active systems can be power-hungry and complex. Tesla’s hybrid approach resolves this by delegating tasks: the parallel air spring manages weight and low-frequency body motions, the series elements absorb rapid vibrations, and the active actuator tackles larger, lower-frequency events.
The result is a smoother, more isolated cabin experience. High-frequency road noise and harshness diminish, while the vehicle maintains precise control during cornering or acceleration. Energy efficiency improves, too—lower motor loads mean reduced battery drain, potentially extending range in electric vehicles.
How It Mitigates Potholes Specifically
Potholes are a major challenge because they provide a sudden drop to the wheel plunge, jarring the body of the vehicle, risking damage. The patent explicitly addresses this. Upon detecting a pothole (via sensors or predictive mapping), the control system activates
the motor to retract the strut, effectively pulling the wheel upward to minimize downward excursion. The series spring/damper cushions the impact, while the parallel air spring maintains overall support.
This proactive “wheel retraction” prevents sharp jolts, preserving passenger comfort and protecting components. Integrated with Tesla’s road roughness mapping patents, the system could anticipate potholes from fleet data, enabling preemptive adjustments for even smoother navigation.
Future Implications for Tesla Vehicles
This technology builds on Tesla’s existing adaptive dampers and air suspension that is seen in Cybertruck, but advances toward fully active control. It could roll out to future models, including refreshed Cybertrucks or next-gen vehicles, enhancing both daily drivability and off-road capability. By minimizing power use and complexity, it aligns with Tesla’s goals of efficiency and scalability.
In summary, US12654505B2 exemplifies Tesla’s engineering philosophy: intelligent integration over brute force. This hybrid suspension promises quieter, more comfortable rides and robust pothole defense, potentially setting a new standard for automotive comfort. As Tesla iterates, drivers can look forward to roads feeling far less rough.
Tesla Full Self-Driving and App Connectivity save life in medical emergency
Elon Musk predicts Grok will start to challenge Hollywood by the end of 2026
