News
SpaceX wants to attempt Starship booster catch during first orbital launch
An updated document submitted by SpaceX to the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has revealed details about the company’s plan for the first Starship booster ‘catch’ attempt.
The document follows a different batch submitted by SpaceX in June 2021, when the company detailed its plans for Starship’s orbital launch debut as background while requesting permission from the FCC to use Starlink dishes for in-flight telemetry. A month earlier, a different request focused on more standard telemetry antennas had already revealed that even if the mission went perfectly, Starship would not fully reach orbit on its first attempted spaceflight. It also confirmed that SpaceX had no intention of recovering the upper stage or Super Heavy booster assigned to Starship’s launch debut – a sort of implicit acknowledgment that success was (then) not expected on the first try.
Twelve months later, SpaceX has submitted an updated overview of Starship’s orbital launch debut in a new request for permission to use multiple Starlink dishes on both stages. While most of the document is the same, a few particular details have changed about Super Heavy’s role in the mission.
This time around, SpaceX says that the Super Heavy booster will “will separate[,] perform a partial return[,] and land in the Gulf of Mexico or return to Starbase and be caught by the launch tower.” Prior to this document, SpaceX’s best-case plans for the first Super Heavy booster to launch never strayed from a controlled splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico – potentially demonstrating that it would be safe to attempt booster recovery on the next launch but all but guaranteeing that the first booster would be lost at sea.
A year later, SpaceX appears to be a bit more confident and wants to leave itself the option to attempt to recover the first Super Heavy booster that launches. However, the company has dramatically complicated the process of testing early Super Heavy and Starship recovery (and thus reuse) by fully removing traditional and predictable landing legs and designing its latest prototypes such that the only way they can be recovered in one piece is with a giant mechanized ‘launch tower’ nicknamed Mechazilla.
The launch tower and its three mobile arms will play a crucial role in all aspects of orbital Starship launches. The first arm swings out to brace Super Heavy for Starship installation and connect the upper stage to power, propellant supplies, and other launch pad utilities. A more exotic pair of arms nicknamed ‘chopsticks’ has a more complex job. On top of using the chopsticks to lift, stack, and demate Starships and Super Heavy boosters and almost any weather and wind conditions, SpaceX wants to use the arms as an incredibly complex and precarious rocket recovery system.
For a booster or Starship “catch,” the rocket will approach the tower, enter the gap between the splayed arms, hover in place while the arms close around it, and eventually come to rest on hardpoints that appear to offer about as much surface area as a coffee table. Based on a simulation of the process shown by Elon Musk, calling it a “catch” is a misnomer, as the arms will mainly move in one dimension (open/close) and can’t actually ‘grab’ the rocket in any real sense. As built and shown, they are closer to a tiny fixed landing platform capable of minor last-second positional adjustments.
Eventually, the chopsticks could shave a small amount of time off of post-recovery processing, removing the need for a crane (or the same arms) to attach to a landed booster or ship. They could also shave off the dry mass required for landing legs, though all interplanetary ships will still need legs. However, they will also inherently make proving their own efficacy a nightmare. By all appearances, the current recovery mechanisms on the arms and the landing hardpoints on ships and boosters mean that a ‘catch’ could fail if either stage is more than a foot or two from a perfect bullseye or rotated a few degrees in the wrong direction. With the method SpaceX has devised, even the tiniest error could easily end with a massive, pressurized, partially-fueled rocket destroying the chopsticks and plummeting a few hundred feet to the ground, guaranteeing an explosion that could damage surrounding infrastructure or start fires that might.
In the event of larger anomalies during a landing attempt, Starship or Super Heavy could accidentally impact the launch tower, damaging or even outright destroying the skyscraper-sized structure. Ultimately, the immense risk posed by any catch attempt means that unless SpaceX has miraculously gotten the design of everything involved nearly perfect on its first try, the company will have to be extraordinarily cautious and expend a large number of ships and boosters to avoid rendering its only Starship launch tower unusable.
At least to some extent, SpaceX likely knows this and Super Heavy would likely need to be in excellent health and perform perfectly during the ascent and boostback portions of its launch debut to be cleared for a catch attempt. Ultimately, Starship’s first orbital launch could end up being even more of a spectacle than it’s already guaranteed to be.
News
Tesla revises new Intervention Reporting system with Full Self-Driving
It is the second revision to the program as Tesla is trying to make it easier to decipher driver and owner complaints, but also to make it easier to report issues within the suite for them.
Tesla has revised its new Intervention Reporting system within the Full Self-Driving suite that now categorizes reasons that drivers take over when the semi-autonomous driving functionality is active.
It is the second revision to the program as Tesla is trying to make it easier to decipher driver and owner complaints, but also to make it easier to report issues within the suite for them.
With the initial rollout of Full Self-Driving v14.3.2, Tesla included a new reporting menu that gave four options for an intervention: Preference, Comfort, Critical, and Other. A slightly revised version of Full Self-Driving with the same ID number then came out a few days later, changing the “Other” option to “Navigation” after numerous complaints from owners.
It appears Tesla has listened to those owners once again and has not only made it smaller and more compact, but also easier to report the issues than previously.
The new menu is now embedded within the request for a Voice Memo from Tesla, and does not block the entire screen, as the second rollout of the menu was:
Thank you Tesla! The new intervention screen is much better! @Tesla_AI pic.twitter.com/1lea9G27N1
— Dirty Tesla (@DirtyTesLa) May 1, 2026
There will likely be one additional revision to the Interventions Menu, as we have coined it here at Teslarati.
Unfortunately, at times, there are no reasons for an intervention at all, but the menu does not give an option to simply disregard the reporting and forces the driver to choose one of the options. We, as well as other notable Tesla influencers, indicated that there is not always a reason for an intervention.
For example, I choose to back into my parking spot in my neighborhood at least some of the time for the reason of charging. I usually hit “Preference” for this, but it sends a false positive to Tesla that there was a reason I took over that I was unhappy with.
Tesla begins probing owners on FSD’s navigation errors with small but mighty change
Instead, I’m simply performing a maneuver that is not yet available to us. When Tesla allows drivers to choose the orientation at which their car enters a parking spot, I and many others won’t have to deal with this menu.
Others are still skeptical that it will help resolve any issues whatsoever and prefer to disregard the menu altogether. It does seem as if Tesla will issue another revision in the coming days to allow this to happen.
Lifestyle
California hits Tesla Cybercab and Robotaxi driverless cars with new law
California just gave police power to ticket driverless cars, including Tesla’s Cybercab fleet.
California DMV formally adopted new rules on April 29, 2026 that allow law enforcement to issue “notices of noncompliance”, or in other words ticket autonomous vehicle companies when their cars commit moving violations. The rules take effect July 1, 2026 and officially closes a regulatory gap that previously let driverless cars operate on public roads with nearly no traffic enforcement consequences.
Until now, state traffic laws only applied to human “drivers,” which meant that when no person was behind the wheel, police had no mechanism to issue a ticket. Officers were limited to citing driverless vehicles for parking violations only. A well-known example came in September 2025, when a San Bruno officer watched a Waymo robotaxi execute an illegal U-turn and could do nothing but notify the company.
Under the new framework, when an officer observes a violation, the autonomous vehicle company is effectively treated as the driver. Companies must report each incident to the DMV within 72 hours, or 24 hours if a collision is involved. Repeated violations can result in fleet size restrictions, operational suspensions, or full permit revocation. Local officials also gained new authority to geofence driverless vehicles out of active emergency zones within two minutes and require a live emergency response line answered within 30 seconds.
Tesla Cybercab ramps Robotaxi public street testing as vehicle enters mass production queue
California’s new enforcement rules arrive at a pivotal moment for Tesla. The company is ramping Cybercab production at Giga Texas toward hundreds of units per week, targeting at least 2 million units annually at full capacity, while simultaneously pushing to expand its Robotaxi service to dozens of U.S. cities by end of 2026. Unsupervised FSD for consumer vehicles is currently targeted for Q4 2026, and when it arrives, Tesla’s fleet may not have a human to absorb legal accountability, under the July 1 rules.
Tesla has confirmed plans to expand its Robotaxi service to seven new cities in the first half of 2026, including Dallas, Houston, Phoenix, Miami, Orlando, Tampa, and Las Vegas, with the service already running without safety drivers in Austin. Musk has said he expects robotaxis to cover between a quarter and half of the United States by end of year.
News
Tesla Model X shocks everyone by crushing every other used car in America
The Model X is one of Tesla’s flagship models, the other being the Model S. Earlier this year, Tesla confirmed it would discontinue production of both the Model S and Model X to make way for Optimus robot production at the Fremont Factory in Northern California.
The Tesla Model X was the fastest-selling used vehicle in the United States in the first quarter of the year, crushing every other used car in America.
iSeeCars data for the first quarter shows that the Model X was the fastest-selling used car, lasting just 25.6 days on the market on average, two days better than that of the second-place Lexus RX 350h. The Cybertruck, Model Y, and Model S, in seventh, ninth, and thirteenth place, respectively, also made the list.
The Model X is one of Tesla’s flagship models, the other being the Model S. Earlier this year, Tesla confirmed it would discontinue production of both the Model S and Model X to make way for Optimus robot production at the Fremont Factory in Northern California.
Tesla brings closure to flagship ‘sentimental’ models, Musk confirms
Bringing closure to these two vehicles signaled the end of the road for the cars that have effectively built Tesla’s reputation for luxury and high-end passenger vehicles.
Relying on the sales of its mass market Model Y and Model 3, as well as leaning on the success of future products like the Cybercab, is the angle Tesla has chosen to take.
Teslas are also performing extremely well as a whole on the resale market. iSeeCars data shows that, “while the average price of a 1- to 5-year-old non-Tesla EV fell 10.3% in Q1 2026 year-over-year, the average price of a used Tesla was essentially flat at 0.1% lower across the same period. Traditional gas car prices dropped 2.8% during this same period.”
Additionally, market share for gas cars has dropped nearly 3 percent since the same quarter last year. Tesla has remained level, while the non-Tesla EV market share has increased 30 percent, mostly due to more models available.
Nevertheless, those non-Tesla EVs have seen their value drop by over 10 percent, while Tesla’s values have remained level.
Executive Analyst Karl Brauer said:
“Used electric vehicles without a Tesla badge have lost more than 10% of their value in the past year. This compares to stable values for Teslas and hybrids, and a modest 2.8% drop for traditional gasoline vehicles.”
Teslas, as well as non-luxury hybrids, are displaying the strongest resistance in the face of faltering demand, the publication says. But the more impressive performance is that of the Model X alone.
Tesla’s decision to stop production of the Model X may have played some part in the vehicle’s pristine performance in Q1. With the car already placed at a premium price point, used models are already more appealing to consumers. Perhaps second-hand versions were more than enough for those who wanted a Model X, and only a Model X.
Tesla revises new Intervention Reporting system with Full Self-Driving
California hits Tesla Cybercab and Robotaxi driverless cars with new law
