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SpaceX stress-tests Starship-catching arms with giant water balloons
SpaceX has begun testing Starbase’s rocket-catching arms with ballast to simulate the weight of Starship and Super Heavy.
SpaceX started the process of proof testing those arms about a week ago, beginning with some basic calibration work. Together, the three arms and launch tower amount to a giant custom-built robot that SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has deemed “Mechazilla.” Controlled with a complex system of hydraulic and electromechanical actuators spread throughout each structure, SpaceX must calibrate all of those devices to enable the full range of motion the arms are meant to be capable of. To do so, SpaceX appeared to actuate both catch arms (also known as “chopsticks”) as far as they were able to move on January 4th, producing data that could be fed back into the system’s control software to properly set limits of motion.
A handful of days later, arm testing continued, with SpaceX lifting the carriage higher than it had traveled before and demonstrating more complex longitudinal movements that required synchronized motion of both arms. On January 9th, SpaceX performed the most ambitious arm testing yet, nearly lifting the arms to the top of their ~140 meter (~460 ft) tall launch tower backbone to simulate the range of vertical motion required to lift and stack Starship and Super Heavy.
SpaceX also installed a temporary frame meant to simulate a Starship or Super Heavy booster, foreshadowing additional testing planned in the coming days. That jig upped the stakes for the longitudinal actuation portion of January 9th’s testing, as anything less than the precise, synchronized movement of both arms could have caused the heavy steel frame to fall hundreds of feet onto a range of equipment and structures directly below it. Thankfully, the arms performed well and returned to their resting position without issue.
On January 11th, SpaceX proceeded to install six ‘water bags’ – three to a side – on the Starship simulator frame. Amounting to giant, heavy-duty water balloons, those bags are routinely used to stress-test large structures and devices by simulating payloads that might be too expensive or inconvenient to use solely for testing purposes. With those seemingly empty bags attached, SpaceX proceeded to move the catch arms up and down the full length of the launch tower at record speed, taking about seven minutes to climb and descend ~120 meters (~400 ft) – averaging a brisk 0.6 mph or 1 km/h.
Here is a video from Giga Texas of this type of mass simulator! pic.twitter.com/uHfah45WVt— Zack Golden (@CSI_Starbase) January 11, 2022
On January 12th, SpaceX filled the balls with water, producing some… interesting… visuals. Ridiculous appearances aside, the six bags SpaceX chose to use could be 20, 35, or 50-ton variants, meaning that all six could weigh anywhere from 120 to 300 tons (264,000-660,000 lb) if fully filled. In other words, perfect for simulating the dry masses of Starship (roughly 80-120 tons) and Super Heavy (150-200+ tons).
SpaceX did appear to fully fill around four of the six bags and partially filled the other two, causing the whole arm structure to visibly sag during the fill process as the weight of the ballast stretched the several-inch-thick steel cable holding the whole device aloft. In the late afternoon, the laden arms lifted around 10-20 meters and rotated left and right, partially demonstrating the process of rotating a lifted Starship or Super Heavy into position for stacking or launch mount installation. They were never lifted high enough to truly demonstrate that ability, though, and were lowered back to the ground soon after.
As of 10pm CST, January 12th, the water bags appear to have been fully drained after their first excursion. It’s likely that load-testing will continue over the next several days or weeks – SpaceX may just want to avoid leaving the arms fully loaded overnight.
Tesla engineers deflected calls from Apple on a daily basis while the tech giant was developing its now-defunct electric vehicle program, which was known as “Project Titan.”
Back in 2022 and 2023, Apple was developing an EV in a top-secret internal fashion, hoping to launch it by 2028 with a fully autonomous driving suite.
However, Apple bailed on the project in early 2024, as Project Titan abandoned the project in an email to over 2,000 employees. The company had backtracked its expectations for the vehicle on several occasions, initially hoping to launch it with no human driving controls and only with an autonomous driving suite.
Apple canceling its EV has drawn a wide array of reactions across tech
It then planned for a 2028 launch with “limited autonomous driving.” But it seemed to be a bit of a concession at that point; Apple was not prepared to take on industry giants like Tesla.
Wedbush’s Dan Ives noted in a communication to investors that, “The writing was on the wall for Apple with a much different EV landscape forming that would have made this an uphill battle. Most of these Project Titan engineers are now all focused on AI at Apple, which is the right move.”
Apple did all it could to develop a competitive EV that would attract car buyers, including attempting to poach top talent from Tesla.
In a new podcast interview with Tesla CEO Elon Musk, it was revealed that Apple had been calling Tesla engineers nonstop during its development of the now-defunct project. Musk said the engineers “just unplugged their phones.”
Musk said in full:
“They were carpet bombing Tesla with recruiting calls. Engineers just unplugged their phones. Their opening offer without any interview would be double the compensation at Tesla.”
Interestingly, Apple had acquired some ex-Tesla employees for its project, like Senior Director of Engineering Dr. Michael Schwekutsch, who eventually left for Archer Aviation.
Tesla took no legal action against Apple for attempting to poach its employees, as it has with other companies. It came after EV rival Rivian in mid-2020, after stating an “alarming pattern” of poaching employees was noticed.
There are a lot of Tesla bulls out there who have astronomical expectations for the company, especially as its arm of reach has gone well past automotive and energy and entered artificial intelligence and robotics.
However, some of the most bullish Tesla investors believe the company could become worth $100 trillion, and CEO Elon Musk does not believe that number is completely out of the question, even if it sounds almost ridiculous.
To put that number into perspective, the top ten most valuable companies in the world — NVIDIA, Apple, Alphabet, Microsoft, Amazon, TSMC, Meta, Saudi Aramco, Broadcom, and Tesla — are worth roughly $26 trillion.
Will Tesla join the fold? Predicting a triple merger with SpaceX and xAI
Cathie Wood of ARK Invest believes the number is reasonable considering Tesla’s long-reaching industry ambitions:
“…in the world of AI, what do you have to have to win? You have to have proprietary data, and think about all the proprietary data he has, different kinds of proprietary data. Tesla, the language of the road; Neuralink, multiomics data; nobody else has that data. X, nobody else has that data either. I could see $100 trillion. I think it’s going to happen because of convergence. I think Tesla is the leading candidate [for $100 trillion] for the reason I just said.”
Musk said late last year that all of his companies seem to be “heading toward convergence,” and it’s started to come to fruition. Tesla invested in xAI, as revealed in its Q4 Earnings Shareholder Deck, and SpaceX recently acquired xAI, marking the first step in the potential for a massive umbrella of companies under Musk’s watch.
SpaceX officially acquires xAI, merging rockets with AI expertise
Now that it is happening, it seems Musk is even more enthusiastic about a massive valuation that would swell to nearly four-times the value of the top ten most valuable companies in the world currently, as he said on X, the idea of a $100 trillion valuation is “not impossible.”
It’s not impossible
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 6, 2026
Tesla is not just a car company. With its many projects, including the launch of Robotaxi, the progress of the Optimus robot, and its AI ambitions, it has the potential to continue gaining value at an accelerating rate.
Musk’s comments show his confidence in Tesla’s numerous projects, especially as some begin to mature and some head toward their initial stages.
Elon Musk
Celebrating SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy Tesla Roadster launch, seven years later (Op-Ed)
Seven years later, the question is no longer “What if this works?” It’s “How far does this go?”
When Falcon Heavy lifted off in February 2018 with Elon Musk’s personal Tesla Roadster as its payload, SpaceX was at a much different place. So was Tesla. It was unclear whether Falcon Heavy was feasible at all, and Tesla was in the depths of Model 3 production hell.
At the time, Tesla’s market capitalization hovered around $55–60 billion, an amount critics argued was already grossly overvalued. SpaceX, on the other hand, was an aggressive private launch provider known for taking risks that traditional aerospace companies avoided.
The Roadster launch was bold by design. Falcon Heavy’s maiden mission carried no paying payload, no government satellite, just a car drifting past Earth with David Bowie playing in the background. To many, it looked like a stunt. For Elon Musk and the SpaceX team, it was a bold statement: there should be some things in the world that simply inspire people.
Inspire it did, and seven years later, SpaceX and Tesla’s results speak for themselves.
Today, Tesla is the world’s most valuable automaker, with a market capitalization of roughly $1.54 trillion. The Model Y has become the best-selling car in the world by volume for three consecutive years, a scenario that would have sounded insane in 2018. Tesla has also pushed autonomy to a point where its vehicles can navigate complex real-world environments using vision alone.
And then there is Optimus. What began as a literal man in a suit has evolved into a humanoid robot program that Musk now describes as potential Von Neumann machines: systems capable of building civilizations beyond Earth. Whether that vision takes decades or less, one thing is evident: Tesla is no longer just a car company. It is positioning itself at the intersection of AI, robotics, and manufacturing.
SpaceX’s trajectory has been just as dramatic.
The Falcon 9 has become the undisputed workhorse of the global launch industry, having completed more than 600 missions to date. Of those, SpaceX has successfully landed a Falcon booster more than 560 times. The Falcon 9 flies more often than all other active launch vehicles combined, routinely lifting off multiple times per week.
Falcon 9 has ferried astronauts to and from the International Space Station via Crew Dragon, restored U.S. human spaceflight capability, and even stepped in to safely return NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams when circumstances demanded it.
Starlink, once a controversial idea, now dominates the satellite communications industry, providing broadband connectivity across the globe and reshaping how space-based networks are deployed. SpaceX itself, following its merger with xAI, is now valued at roughly $1.25 trillion and is widely expected to pursue what could become the largest IPO in history.
And then there is Starship, Elon Musk’s fully reusable launch system designed not just to reach orbit, but to make humans multiplanetary. In 2018, the idea was still aspirational. Today, it is under active development, flight-tested in public view, and central to NASA’s future lunar plans.
In hindsight, Falcon Heavy’s maiden flight with Elon Musk’s personal Tesla Roadster was never really about a car in space. It was a signal that SpaceX and Tesla were willing to think bigger, move faster, and accept risks others wouldn’t.
The Roadster is still out there, orbiting the Sun. Seven years later, the question is no longer “What if this works?” It’s “How far does this go?”
Tesla engineers deflected calls from this tech giant’s now-defunct EV project
Tesla to a $100T market cap? Elon Musk’s response may shock you
