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SpaceX’s Starbase environmental review delayed another month
The FAA says that it will take at least another month to complete a crucial environmental review of orbital Starship launches from SpaceX’s South Texas Starbase facilities.
The agency now expects that Starbase’s Programmatic Environmental Assessment (PEA) will be completed no earlier than March 28th, 2022, delaying the process at least another four weeks on top of an initial delay from December 31st, 2021 to February 28th, 2022. However, while the FAA gained some infamy for repeatedly delay SpaceX Starbase launch operations in late 2020 and early 2021, there is growing evidence that other US government agencies – not the FAA itself – are primarily responsible for most of the review’s delays.
Namely, information acquired through a Freedom Of Information Act (FOIA) request indicates that US Departments of Fish and Wildlife Services (FWS) and National Parks Services (NPS) are the primary sources of recent delays and the only real sources of discord this late in the process. As an example, as of the end of October 2021, the NPS had a list of at least 31 comments on SpaceX’s Starbase Draft PEA, each of which would have required a detailed response and additional back-and-forth to refine each response. The critiques and requests cover virtually every aspect of orbital Starship launches from Starbase, including FAA launch license details, recent SpaceX land acquisitions, impacts on a local Civil War battlefield landmark, pad lighting, air quality, noise, paint colors, road closures, Raptor thrust, contingency plans, and more.
Meanwhile, in a general review, the Department of the Interior (DOI) – speaking on behalf of the FWS and NPS – raised concerns about “launch site blast area hazards, closure of FWS and NPS lands, environmental justice (EJ) concerns, NHPA Section 106 and 110(f), [endangered] species, air quality emissions, and climate change impacts. It’s difficult to say how many of the concerns raised are actually serious. For example, the point repeatedly made by the DOI, FWS, and NPS is that hypothetical emissions from a natural gas power plant SpaceX proposed to build in its Draft PEA would violate EPA rules.
However, since that draft was published, there is growing evidence that SpaceX is behind a brand new power distribution line set to connect Boca Chica and Brownsville, Texas. The new lines appear to be sized to provide Starbase with enough power to entirely preclude the need for the construction of any dedicated power plants on site. Only a backup power source of some kind would be necessary. Assuming SpaceX is actually behind the development, it’s difficult to believe that the company hasn’t communicated that change of plans to the FAA and other Starbase PEA stakeholders.
As another example, the Fish and Wildlife Services’ own list of complaints includes the bizarre request that SpaceX increase its estimate for the number of failures that will occur during future Starship testing fivefold from 10% (already an extremely pessimistic figure) to 50% because “[nine] of 16 tests or hops that have occurred [at Starbase]…resulted in some type of anomaly with fire or debris.” While true that many of SpaceX’s developmental Starship tests have resulted in major failures or explosions, the FWS appears to fundamentally misunderstand the purpose of those failures and SpaceX’s approach to development, which is to learn from failures and prevent their reoccurrence. Something would have to go terribly wrong for half of all future Starship ground and flight tests to result in failure when SpaceX’s goal is to develop Starship into a reliable launch vehicle – not to futilely test prototypes forever.
Ultimately, it remains to be seen if SpaceX and the FAA will be able to secure the DOI, FWS, and NPS approvals required to finish the Starbase PEA. If the parties can’t come to some kind of agreement, SpaceX may be forced to effectively restart the environmental review process from scratch and pursue a more thorough Environmental Impact Statement (EIS). Completing an EIS could easily take years, potentially forcing SpaceX to give up on South Texas as a site for regular orbital Starship launches.
While CEO Elon Musk recently implied that SpaceX would never abandon Starbase and might use the site as a sort of dedicated research and development facility, it’s difficult to believe that the cost of operating and maintaining an entire Starship factory and orbital launch site would make sense from a programmatic or financial perspective given that SpaceX appears likely to build a Florida Starbase for East Coast Starship launches. SpaceX already has full environmental approval to launch 24 Starships per year from its Kennedy Space Center Pad 39A facilities.
Starlink is launching a new beta path for ordinary property owners and local operators to turn a single Starlink kit into a small shared-access business for passive income.
Under the Starlink for Communities program, a host installs one dish and router setup in a location with nearby demand: an apartment complex, campground, rural crossroads, or event site. Neighbors or local users can buy short-term passes rather than full individual subscriptions, giving the Starlink provider a potential path to passive income.
Hour, day, and week passes cover one device. A month pass covers up to four. Starlink handles account creation, payments, access controls, and the satellite link itself. The host’s role is mainly placement, power, and basic upkeep, with earnings tied to each paid connection.
Big news! SpaceX is introducing a new @Starlink for Communities program that lets you earn money by providing Starlink internet to your neighbors or people nearby, who can pay for access by the hour, day, week, or month.
Neighbors pay for the access they need, while the person… pic.twitter.com/DtOUs0Ekvt
— Sawyer Merritt (@SawyerMerritt) October 1, 2026
The model echoes the passive-income vision long attached to Tesla’s Robotaxi plans, and it seems like it’s something Musk has hinted toward in the past as he believes AI will make the need to work relatively optional. In both cases, the platform owns the hard parts of matching, billing, and network management, while an individual supplies a physical asset that sits idle much of the time.
A Starlink host’s dish can serve multiple nearby users without each household buying and installing its own terminal. A Tesla owner, under the stated Robotaxi concept, would leave a vehicle enrolled in the fleet during unused hours so the car generates rides while the owner is at work or asleep.
Both arrangements convert under-utilized hardware into a revenue stream. They also let the company scale coverage or capacity without owning every endpoint.
Differences are practical. A Starlink kit is a fixed, relatively low-cost terminal whose main constraint is local congestion and line-of-sight. A Tesla Robotaxi is a mobile, high-value vehicle whose earnings depend on demand density, utilization rates, insurance, cleaning, and charging.
Starlink’s program is already accepting host applications in multiple countries and describes the revenue split as ongoing. Tesla’s owner-network version remains more aspirational.
The company currently operates a limited company-controlled robotaxi service in select areas and has solicited interest from fleet buyers for Cybercab vehicles, while private Full Self-Driving owners have not yet been able to dispatch their own cars for paid rides at scale.
Tesla primes Cybercabs for 4K streaming and high bandwidth gaming with Starlink integration
Starlink is a satellite broadband service operated by SpaceX that uses a constellation of low-Earth-orbit satellites to deliver internet to locations where terrestrial broadband is slow, expensive, or absent. It has grown to millions of subscribers worldwide by selling direct residential, mobile, and enterprise terminals, and have become widely available at a wide array at retail locations like Target and Best Buy.
The Communities program extends that reach by letting hosts resell short bursts of capacity to people nearby, while also providing high-speed internet access to those who are simply around a Starlink user.
Tesla just upgraded its headlights through a software update, making them even better without any physical or hardware upgrade.
Tesla’s latest software update is quietly improving nighttime driving for a small number of owners. Version 2026.38 includes a new capability called Dynamic Headlight Leveling.
The feature automatically adjusts the aim of the low beams in response to driving conditions and nearby traffic, with the goal of giving the driver more usable light on the road while reducing glare for oncoming vehicles and traffic ahead.
2026.38 just dropped.
Model 3 gets Dynamic Headlight Leveling — low beams auto-aim around traffic for max visibility, less glare. Model 3 / Y (AMD HW3) also pick up sharper Tesla visuals + an enhanced park scene on the center display.
Legacy Intel cars get Supercharger Site… pic.twitter.com/45ac4AH6Vs
— Frunk To Trunk (@FrunkToTrunk) September 30, 2026
Unlike Tesla’s matrix high-beam system, which selectively dims individual LED segments to create shadows around other cars, Dynamic Headlight Leveling physically tilts the low-beam projectors. Internal motors respond to changes in vehicle pitch.
When the car accelerates hard, climbs a steep grade, or carries extra weight in the rear, the headlights can otherwise point higher than intended. The software counters that movement in real time so the beam stays aimed at the road surface rather than into the eyes of other drivers.
Early indications reveal the update is reaching a limited set of vehicles, including certain Model 3 and Cybertruck examples in the United States and the United Arab Emirates. The rollout does not appear tied to a single hardware revision, and Tesla has not published a broader schedule. It is simply a common waiting game until your car receives it.
The change arrives against a backdrop of wider complaints about headlight glare. Some earlier Model 3 and Model Y vehicles were the subject of an NHTSA recall related to excessive low-beam glare; the software adjustment offers a potential mitigation for cars equipped with the necessary leveling hardware. It does not replace adaptive high beams where those are already available, nor does it alter the basic low-beam pattern itself.
Instead, it keeps an existing beam pointed where it is most useful.
For drivers who have received the update, the system requires no new settings or user input. The headlights simply respond as road conditions and traffic change. As the feature reaches more vehicles, it adds another example of Tesla using over-the-air software to refine existing hardware rather than waiting for a new model year. Nighttime visibility and reduced glare for others are the practical results owners are expected to notice first.
Lifestyle
Tesla teases “Halloween Mode” update with Optimus rising from a graveyard
Tesla’s Halloween teaser hides a covered vehicle and an Optimus hand rising from the ground.
Tesla has started teasing a Halloween software update for its vehicles, with a short clip on X that reads, “Halloween is coming.” The clip opens on a glowing pumpkin before pulling back to the car’s center touchscreen, where the usual parked visualization has been replaced by a graveyard scene, and the vehicle draped with a white sheet so it reads as a cartoon ghost.
Halloween is coming pic.twitter.com/lM3ASUeOqX
— Tesla (@Tesla) October 1, 2026
The second detail is a robotic hand clawing its way out of the dirt like a zombie, which looks to be the hand of Tesla’s latest Optimus V3 humanoid robot. While Tesla still has not formally shown Optimus Gen 3 walking around in service, renders pulled from Tesla’s Android app last month gave the clearest look yet, including far more refined hands that Tesla has said carry 22 degrees of freedom. The hand has been the hardest part of the program. Musk has called it the majority of the robot’s engineering difficulty, and Tesla’s patents describe a design driven by tendons with the actuators moved into the forearm.
Tesla Optimus V3 hand and arm details revealed in new patents
Optimus also has a Halloween track record. Last October the robot handed out candy in Times Square, and a costumed “zombie” Optimus shuffled around the Tesla Diner in Los Angeles on Halloween night.
On the software side, Tesla’s 2025 Holiday Update expanded Santa Mode with a Santa sleigh, snowmen, snow effects, and a festive lock chime, so it wouldn’t be too far fetched if we saw something similar but themed for a Halloween Mode.
Starlink launches Communities Program for passive income through internet sharing
Tesla just made its headlights even better through a software update
