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SpaceX CEO Elon Musk posts uncut Raptor, drone videos of Starhopper’s flight test debut
Some two hours after Starhopper’s inaugural untethered flight, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk took to Twitter to post an uncut video showing the ungainly rocket’s launch and landing from the perspective of both a drone and Starhopper’s lone Raptor engine.
As noted by commenters, Starhopper’s first flight also marks perhaps an even more fascinating milestone: it’s technically the first launch ever of a full-flow staged-combustion (FFSC) rocket engine. Whether or not the development hell Raptor required is or was worth it to SpaceX, the company has become the first and only entity on Earth to develop and fly a FFSC engine, beating out the national space agencies of both the United States and Soviet Union, both of which built – but never flew – prototypes.
Instead of inexplicably shelving a mature prototype development and test program, SpaceX iterated through several subscale Raptor prototypes, test-fired the engines for more than 1200 seconds total, used that data to design and build full-scale Raptors, and finally sped into a hardware-rich test campaign with six (soon to be seven) new engines. After SpaceX settled on a full-flow staged-combustion cycle and methane/oxygen (methalox) propellant, Raptor conducted its first full-scale tests all the way back in 2014, performing preburner flow and ignition tests at NASA’s Stennis Space Center.
Two years and many additional subcomponent tests later, SpaceX successfully performed the inaugural static fire test of its first completed subscale Raptor, a huge milestone for any rocket engine. In the 12 months following its first static fire (September 2016), SpaceX performed dozens of static fire tests with several subscale engines, putting the new propulsion system through >1200 seconds of combined testing.
A year after that, SpaceX was still testing subscale engines but the first full-scale Raptor engine was just a few months away from completing assembly in Hawthorne and heading to McGregor to kick off full-scale static fire testing. Indeed, four months after CEO Elon Musk’s September 2018 update, Raptor serial number 01 (SN01) shipped to Texas in late January and successfully ignited for the first time on February 3rd. SpaceX’s finalized full-scale Raptor engine is designed to produce more than 2000 kN (450,000 lbf, 200 tons) of thrust at full-throttle.
Since that inaugural ignition, SpaceX’s propulsion team – perhaps to their detriment, under orders from Musk – pushed SN01 and several of its successors to their limits as quickly as possible, resulting in severe, irreparable damage in several cases. On the other hand, the no-holds-barred, ‘hardware-rich’ (i.e. destructive) test program has allowed SpaceX to relatively quickly solve several major bugs that prevented the engine from passing longer test fires.
Raptor SN05 was originally expected to support Starhopper’s first flight(s) but had to be passed up after suffering damage in one of its final June 2019 acceptance tests. Raptor SN06 became the first engine – likely thanks to tweaks afforded by data gathered from its failed brethren – to pass all of those acceptance tests, leading to its eventual installation on Starhopper in early July.
Raptor’s impressive development culminated on July 25th with the engine’s first untethered flight while attached to Starhopper, a 9m-diameter (30 ft) low-fidelity prototype that is more or less a mobile test stand for the next-generation SpaceX engine. Raptor is now the only FFSC engine in history that has powered a flight-capable vehicle’s launch and landing, even if said flight featured an apogee of just 20-30 meters (65-100 ft).
“In full-flow staged combustion (FFSC), even more complexity is added as all propellant that touches the engine must necessarily end up traveling through the main combustion chamber to eke every last ounce of thrust out of the finite propellant a rocket lifts off with. As such, FFSC engines can be about as efficient as the laws of physics allow any given chemical rocket engine to be, at the cost of exceptional complexity and brutally difficult development.“
SpaceX delays Starhopper’s first flight a few days despite Raptor preburner test success
For more on what exactly makes full-flow staged-combustion engines uniquely capable and challenging to develop, the subject has been covered at length in past Teslarati articles.
According to Musk, the next major challenge facing Starhopper and (presumably) Raptor SN06 is far more ambitious 200-meter (650 ft) hop and flight test that could happen as soon as the first half of August.
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Tesla’s AI Chief just hinted at something big for FSD v14 lite owners
Tesla’s AI chief suggests the newest FSD v14 Lite build may finally go wide release.
Tesla’s head of AI, Ashok Elluswamy, noted on Sunday that the newest FSD v14 Lite build rolling out to Hardware 3 cars is likely the version that goes to wide release, the strongest signal yet that Tesla is near to closing out an early access phase that Hardware 3 owners have waited more than a year for.
Elluswamy made the comment in response to an extensive review from Tesla owner Zack, known on X as @BLKMDL3, who tested software version 2026.20.6.10 and detailed the changes in a lengthy post. “FSD v14 Lite (for Tesla AI3 hardware vehicles) review.
The update restarts a rollout that had stalled after its initial release. Tesla began pushing FSD v14 Lite to Hardware 3 early access drivers on June 29, bringing driving behavior learned on the newer Hardware 4 computer down to the more limited chip that has powered Tesla vehicles built between 2019 and early 2023. That release, as we covered in detail, gave roughly 4 million HW3 vehicles their first meaningful update since being frozen on version 12.6 in early 2025.
Tesla Full Self-Driving v14 ‘Lite’ Release Notes: new capabilities and features
The latest build adds features that bring Hardware 3 closer in line with what Hardware 4 owners already have. FSD can now start directly from park without a brake pedal confirmation, a change Zack called a small but meaningful quality of life improvement. The interface also picks up the blue “P” park icon, approaching destination alerts, and a dedicated Self-Driving app with streak tracking, all details previously exclusive to the AI4 branch of v14, as outlined in Tesla’s original release notes.
The stakes around Hardware 3 go beyond software polish. Tesla sold the Full Self-Driving package for years on the promise that every vehicle equipped with it had the hardware needed to eventually drive itself without supervision. That promise broke down during Tesla’s Q1 2026 earnings call, when Musk acknowledged HW3 cars could not run unsupervised FSD, prompting Tesla to offer trade-in discounts and hardware retrofits alongside the Lite software track.
Tesla confirmed HW3 can’t do Unsupervised FSD but there’s more to the story
Tesla has continued to frame v14 Lite as the primary path forward for the HW3 fleet, telling owners in April that international markets would follow the U.S. rollout once regulatory approvals came through. For now, HW3 owners in the early access group are the only ones running the new build. A broader rollout would mark the second major software delivery to the legacy fleet since Tesla first released FSD v14 to Hardware 4 vehicles, and the first sign since June that the Lite program is still moving rather than stuck in early access limbo.
In a pointed message on X, Elon Musk warned that firms maintaining significant short positions in SpaceX over time face “very low” survival probability.
The statement comes amid post-IPO volatility for the rocket company, now trading under the ticker $SPCX.
The survival probability of firms who maintain a significant short position in SpaceX over time is very low
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 17, 2026
Five weeks after what was described as the largest IPO in history, the stock had fallen roughly 30% from its peak above $2.6 trillion, briefly surpassing Microsoft and Amazon in market value. Short sellers celebrated gains of about $8.7 billion, but Musk’s reply underscores his long-term conviction.
The warning directly echoes a detailed bullish analysis arguing that Starship’s cost reductions could unlock a multi-trillion-dollar space economy. Projects ranging from solar power beamed from orbit and asteroid mining to orbital data centers and Mars terraforming were projected to create over $100 trillion in new market capitalization.
In this vision, SpaceX acts as the essential infrastructure provider, akin to AWS for cloud computing, capturing monopoly-like revenues from launches, crew transport, and data traffic across a rapidly expanding frontier.
This is far from the first time Musk has targeted short sellers. With Tesla, he has repeatedly framed persistent bears as destined for major losses. In July 2024, Musk declared that once Tesla achieves full autonomy and volume production of Optimus robots, “anyone still holding a short position will be obliterated. Even Gates,” referencing Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates’ reported short bets.
Elon Musk reveals what Tesla stock surge could do to Bill Gates
Earlier, in 2018, he taunted shorts that they had “about three weeks before their short position explodes,” a remark followed by sharp stock gains. Musk has also called short selling “value destroying” and once suggested it “should be illegal,” viewing it as betting against innovation and progress.
Critics often dismiss Musk’s optimism as hype, especially when near-term metrics like quarterly deliveries or stock fluctuations disappoint.
Yet his pattern remains consistent: framing short positions against his companies as fundamentally misjudging exponential technological leaps. For SpaceX shorts, the message is clear: betting against multi-planetary ambitions and the infrastructure monopoly they enable carries existential risk for the firms involved.
As Musk and supporters see it, the space economy’s upside dwarfs Earth-bound valuation models, making today’s dips temporary in a decades-long ascent.
Tesla has evidently revealed which of its vehicle models will be the first to receive Starlink integration: the Cybercab.
Tesla’s Santana Row showroom now has a full-fledged display of the Cybercab, with an extensive bit of information hung around an exhibit that seems to reveal the vehicle’s newest feature: an integrated Starlink antenna that will enable secure and reliable internet access during trips.
Credit: @Starscream_SJC | X
Cybercab is geared toward autonomous ride-hailing for one or two passengers. The production units rolling off the lines at Gigafactory Texas are built without steering wheels or pedals, meaning when public rides begin, passengers will not need to interact with a human being or control the vehicle in any way outside of what appears on the center screen for their entertainment during the ride.
Tesla Santana Row will be reopening tomorrow with a full focus on self-driving. Everything in the showroom is about Robotaxi and Cybercab with stats and information about the technology. The Cybercab on display is the production model. pic.twitter.com/yIUYdOGFOp
— Shaun Cassidy (@Starscream_SJC) July 20, 2026
Along the display, Tesla wrote this message about Cybercab:
“Cybercab is built for autonomy. It has no steering wheel, no side mirrors, and no pedals. It goes where you tell it to go and how you want it to, so you can relax along the way. It is hyper aware and responsive to your surroundings, monitoring other drivers, responding to emergency vehicles, utilizing its expertise in the rarest scenarios to help keep you safe.”
Tesla has been teasing a potential Starlink integration for quite some time now. In December, the company hinted at potential Starlink internet terminal integration within its vehicles in a patent that described a vehicle roof assembly with integrated radio frequency (RF) transparency.
The company wrote in its patent application that a new roof design built with materials that differ from the standard metallic or glass elements used in today’s cars would allow it to integrate modern vehicular technologies, in particular, ones that require radio frequency transmission and reception.
Tesla suggested high-strength polymer blends, like Polycarbonate, Acrylonitrile Butadiene Styrene, or Acrylonitrile Styrene Acrylate.
This is the first time we’ve seen Tesla officially confirm the Starlink integration into the Cybercab. It’s not much of a surprise considering the company’s intention behind the Cybercab, which is to make travel autonomous.
Productivity will now be at a maximum during a work-related commute, while the center screen could be utilized for Netflix or potentially even live TV for those who are heading to dinner or to a fun activity.
Tesla’s AI Chief just hinted at something big for FSD v14 lite owners
Elon Musk sends first warning to SpaceX short sellers
