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SpaceX rolls first Starship booster hardware to launch site
While destined to remain on the ground, SpaceX has rolled Starship booster hardware to its Boca Chica, Texas launch pad for the first time.
Back in March, SpaceX completed the process of stacking Super Heavy booster number 1 (BN1), creating what amounted to the largest rocket booster ever assembled. Plans and designs ultimately changed during that several-month process, leading SpaceX to write off the first completed Starship booster structure as a “pathfinder” and scrap it before it could complete a single test. As a result, BN1 never made it to SpaceX’s nearby launch and test facilities and was unceremoniously cut into pieces days later.
Ten weeks after that development, SpaceX is well into the process of stacking its first flightworthy Super Heavy booster (BN2 or BN3) and has officially delivered the first real booster hardware to the launch site for crucial qualification testing.
While only a ‘test tank,’ BN2.1’s arrival at SpaceX’s South Texas launch facilities is an undeniable sign that the company has finally settled on some sort of firm design for Starship’s first-stage booster – at least enough for a custom test article to be worth the time, effort, and money to build and test. BN2.1 is the eighth custom test tank built by SpaceX in the last ~18 months but it’s the first such test article to center around hardware specific to Super Heavy.
Technically, thanks to the fact that Starship and Super Heavy are built out of the exact same steel rings, baffles, and stringers with almost identical production hardware, all past test tanks – and even full Starships – simultaneously mature large portions of Starship’s booster.
Super Heavy requires several unique parts and sections, though. Unlike Starship, which is designed to ultimately have six Raptor engines installed, the ship’s booster will have anywhere from 29 to 32 Raptors and have to withstand almost five times the mechanical stress. That necessitates a drastically different thrust structure for Super Heavy, as well as all additional structural elements to support the 20 Raptor engines – compared to three on Starship – that will mount to the interior wall of its skirt rings.
Beyond Super Heavy’s thrust puck, the booster also requires a much larger transfer tube to feed far more liquid methane through its oxygen tank, a custom dome to connect to that transfer tube, and a custom forward dome and ring section to support four vast grid fins.
BN2.1 is never going to (intentionally) fly and is just a single test tank, which rules out installing actual engines. Now routine, SpaceX’s solution to that challenge of qualifying new hardware without risking catastrophic pad damage has involved building short ‘test tanks’ that are then filled with nonexplosive liquid nitrogen (LN2) and mechanically stressed with hydraulic rams instead of actual engines. Thus far, that process has seemingly been successful time and time again and has helped SpaceX qualify new steel alloys, thinner skin, new welding techniques, and new ‘thrust puck’ designs for Starship.
SpaceX has also tested early full-scale prototypes with the same hydraulic ram systems as a further hedge against quality assurance or fluke design issues that might not have been caught with test tanks. Whether or not BN2.1 is successful, it’s safe to assume that SpaceX will put its first flightworthy Super Heavy booster through a similar thrust puck stress test before attempting wet dress rehearsals or static fires.
Wasting no time at all, SpaceX has already scheduled road closures for what is likely BN2.1’s first round of tests no earlier than (NET) 12pm to 8pm CDT (17:00-03:00 UTC) on Monday, June 7th, with backup windows on the 8th and 9th. Stay tuned to find out if Super Heavy’s thrust puck survives its first nine-engine thrust puck shuck.
News
SpaceX Starship Flight 13 faces wrath of the Texas skies
SpaceX pushed Starship Flight 13 to Friday, blaming weather instead of the previous engine issues.
SpaceX called off Thursday’s launch attempt of Starship Flight 13, pushing the mission to Friday because of weather tied to Tropical Storm Bertha. The company confirmed the delay on X, noting “Now targeting Friday, July 24 for Starship’s thirteenth flight test, due to weather. A key objective for the flight test is to get clear imagery from the ground of Starship’s heatshield as it flies at a higher dynamic pressure during ascent, which won’t be possible with today’s weather conditions.”
This is the second delay for Flight 13 in two weeks. SpaceX first tried to launch the mission on July 16, but the countdown ended in an automated abort at T-0 when four of Super Heavy Booster 20’s 33 Raptor engines failed to ignite. Musk said at the time that two Raptors would need to be removed and replaced, as Teslarati reported. The company spent the following week destacking Ship 40 and Booster 20, swapping engines, and running leak checks before restacking the vehicle on Pad 2 Wednesday night, according to Spaceflight Now’s live coverage.
Unlike the engine problem, Thursday’s delay has nothing to do with the hardware. SpaceX wants clean footage of Starship’s heat shield captured from the ground as the vehicle flies through max dynamic pressure, something the storm’s cloud cover over South Texas would not allow. The company said visibility should improve for Friday’s attempt, with the same 90 minute window opening at 5:45 p.m. CT.
Flight 13 will be the second outing for the V3 versions of Starship and Super Heavy, following their debut on Flight 12 in May. The mission carries 20 production Starlink V3 satellites, the first time SpaceX has flown operational satellites rather than mass simulators on Starship. Six of those satellites are fitted with cameras to inspect the heat shield from a different angle during ascent, giving engineers a second data source beyond the ground imagery the weather is currently blocking.
Booster 20 will attempt a boostback burn and a splashdown landing burn in the Gulf of America, while Ship 40 follows a suborbital trajectory toward a landing in the Indian Ocean. The flight plan largely mirrors Flight 12, though the booster will run a more aggressive ascent burn after max Q this time, and the ship’s heat shield includes load sensing tiles meant to measure stress at the higher dynamic pressure SpaceX is targeting.
If Friday’s attempt succeeds, Flight 13 could be the last suborbital test in the program. SpaceX is already looking to push for an orbital flight on Flight 14.
Tesla stock (NASDAQ: TSLA) endured one of its sharpest single-day declines in years on July 23, tumbling approximately 14.5 percent and closing near $320 after opening the session around $374. The drop erased more than $140 billion in market value amid heavy trading volume and left the shares at multi-week lows.
The sell-off followed the company’s second-quarter 2026 results, released the previous evening. Tesla reported record revenue of $28.2 billion, up 26 percent year over year, driven by a Q2-record 480,126 vehicle deliveries. Energy storage deployments also rose strongly.
Tesla (TSLA) Q2 2026 earnings results: miss on EPS, beat on revenue
Yet profitability disappointed sharply. Operating income fell 57 percent to $398 million, compressing the operating margin to just 1.4 percent. Non-GAAP earnings per share came in at $0.33, well below the roughly $0.53 analysts had expected. Free cash flow turned negative by $1.1 billion as capital expenditures surged 142 percent to $5.8 billion, largely tied to accelerated spending on artificial intelligence, robotics, and autonomous systems.
The losses on capex were expected, as Tesla said it would be spending heavily in 2026.
Investors also reacted to lingering uncertainty surrounding key product timelines. During the Earnings Call, management reiterated ambitions for Robotaxi deployment and the Optimus humanoid robot, but offered limited new concrete milestones, renewing questions about execution pace that have long accompanied Tesla’s ambitious roadmap.
The magnitude of the decline places it among Tesla’s more severe one-day percentage losses since its 2010 initial public offering. Historically, the two largest single-day drops (split-adjusted) remain September 8, 2020, when shares fell 21.1 percent amid broader market volatility and valuation concerns, and January 13, 2012, with a 19.3 percent plunge during the company’s early growth struggles.
Other notable declines include an 18.6 percent drop on March 16, 2020, at the onset of pandemic-related market turmoil. Thursday’s move ranks roughly ninth on the all-time list but stands out as the steepest in more than a year.
Despite the short-term pain, Tesla’s long-term trajectory has repeatedly recovered from such volatility. The latest results underscore both the strength of its core automotive and energy businesses and the near-term costs of heavy investment in next-generation technologies.
Elon Musk clapped back at France’s decision to withhold the approval for Tesla’s Full Self-Driving (FSD) Supervised system, projecting a clear and blunt message to French Transport Minister Phillippe Tabarot, after he publicly rejected the technology in its current form.
Tabarot outlines several concerns with Tesla Full Self-Driving in a detailed video statement, where he said, “The safety trade-offs are not yet sufficient to authorize it as it currently stands,” he said. He emphasized that FSD is not a true self-driving system and that the driver remains fully responsible.
Key issues Tabarot also brought up included allowing speeding when surrounding traffic exceeds limits and what he believes are insufficient guarantees of driver attention during complex urban maneuvers such as lane changes, intersections, and roundabouts.
Delaying the approval of FSD in France will cost lives
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 22, 2026
While acknowledging technological progress and France’s support for autonomous innovation, Tabarot stressed that deployment must prioritize road safety. He noted ongoing technical discussions with Tesla, the Netherlands, and other European partners, with further ecosystem meetings planned for the fall.
Musk’s rebuke highlights the human cost of regulatory caution. Tesla’s latest safety reports provide compelling data supporting accelerated adoption. In the most recent 12-month period, vehicles using FSD (Supervised) recorded one major collision per approximately 5.1 million miles driven, dramatically better than the U.S. national average of one crash per 698,000 miles.
Even Tesla vehicles driven manually with active safety features outperform the average by a wide margin. These figures come from billions of real-world miles of telemetry, showing FSD vehicles involved in far fewer incidents than both manual Teslas and the broader U.S. fleet.
Critics argue Tesla’s comparisons require careful scrutiny regarding reporting thresholds and fleet demographics, yet the data consistently positions FSD as a potential lifesaver. With road fatalities remaining a leading cause of death worldwide, Musk contends that proven safer technology should not face prolonged bureaucratic hurdles.
France’s measured approach reflects the broader European regulatory caution, which many, especially Musk, have been critical of in the past. However, as autonomous systems from Tesla and competitors like Waymo demonstrate superior safety in independent studies, pressure is mounting for harmonized approvals.
Musk’s warning carries the belief that every month of delay may equate to avoidable tragedies on European roads.
SpaceX Starship Flight 13 faces wrath of the Texas skies
Tesla stock tumbles after earnings, one of its sharpest single-day declines
