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SpaceX Starship passed “cryo proof” test for the first time and here’s what’s next
Elon Musk says a SpaceX Starship prototype has passed a critical “cryo proof” test for the first time, opening the door for the rocket to move on to even bigger tests.
Late on April 26th, SpaceX’s South Texas team (and possibly a console team in California) readied the fourth full-scale Starship prototype (SN4) for its second major test. Known as a cryogenic proof test, it began less than 24 hours after the rocket completed a room-temperature gas pressure test to check for leaks and verify that the pressure vessel was sound. Musk quickly confirmed that Starship SN4 passed through that “ambient proof test” without issue.
For the cryo proof test, room-temperature nitrogen gas was replaced with ultra-cold liquid nitrogen, serving as a chemically neutral (i.e. non-explosive) simulant for Starship’s liquid oxygen and methane propellant. After a few hours of partial loading and offloading cycles meant to ensure that Starship’s valves and propellant supply hardware was working as intended, SpaceX controllers fully filled the rocket with some ~1000 metric tons (2.2 million lb) of liquid nitrogen. Once full, a hydraulic ram setup was activated to exert forces akin to Raptor engines operating at full thrust. After several prior failures, Starship SN4 thus became the first to survive the ordeal and graduate into the next stage of testing.
According to CEO Elon Musk, that next step will be a static fire test with a lone Raptor engine installed. Able to produce at least 200 metric tons of thrust (~450,000 lbf) at full throttle, Raptor is an exceptionally efficient methalox (methane/oxygen) rocket engine designed by SpaceX to power Starship and its Super Heavy booster. Methane and oxygen was chosen in large part because of the relative potential ease of its extraction and refinement on Mars.
Per Musk, that static fire could occur within the next six or so days, meaning that SpaceX will likely install a functional Raptor engine on a full-scale Starship for the first time ever within the next day or two. Before a static fire can be performed, though, another significant test or two will have to be completed.
Known as a wet dress rehearsal (WDR), the first of those tests will be similar to April 26th’s cryo proof but with the neutral liquid nitrogen placed by real liquid oxygen and methane propellant. This is much riskier than the cryo proof in the sense that if a tank failure were to occur or a fire to accidentally start, 1000+ tons of highly-pressurized propellant could easily create a massive explosion and fireball, destroying or damaging much of the surrounding pad equipment. The WDR could potentially be rolled into another Raptor engine test that would verify its preburner performance.
To operate, Raptors first take liquid oxygen and liquid methane into separate parts of the engine and rapidly heat them to turn them into high temperature gas. Those preburners then send that hot gas to separate turbopumps that spin up and allow the engines to keep supplying themselves with large quantities of propellant, followed by the process of actually igniting the engine itself with a complex series of blowtorches.
If the preburner and turbopump spin-up test is successful, SpaceX can then move on to the actual static fire. Featuring a single Raptor engine, Starship SN4 will hopefully become the first full-scale rocket to safely operate a flight-grade engine since SpaceX began full-scale tests in November 2019. If successful, that static fire could pave the way for Starship SN4 to perform a Starhopper-style 150m (500 ft) hop test as early as May 2020 – a hop that would be powered by a single Raptor engine according to Musk.
Starship SN5 will reportedly be the first ship to both have a nosecone installed and three Raptor engines installed if SN4 has a very successful few weeks and that new ship is perhaps just 5-10 days from being fully assembled. In short, things are about to get very busy and very exciting at SpaceX’s South Texas Starship factory and launch pad.
Elon Musk
Elon Musk’s X will start using a Tesla-like software update strategy
The initiative seems designed to accelerate updates to the social media platform, while maintaining maximum transparency.
Elon Musk’s social media platform X will adopt a Tesla-esque approach to software updates for its algorithm.
The initiative seems designed to accelerate updates to the social media platform, while maintaining maximum transparency.
X’s updates to its updates
As per Musk in a post on X, the social media company will be making a new algorithm to determine what organic and advertising posts are recommended to users. These updates would then be repeated every four weeks.
“We will make the new 𝕏 algorithm, including all code used to determine what organic and advertising posts are recommended to users, open source in 7 days. This will be repeated every 4 weeks, with comprehensive developer notes, to help you understand what changed,” Musk wrote in his post.
The initiative somewhat mirrors Tesla’s over-the-air update model, where vehicle software is regularly refined and pushed to users with detailed release notes. This should allow users to better understand the details of X’s every update and foster a healthy feedback loop for the social media platform.
xAI and X
X, formerly Twitter, has been acquired by Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence startup, xAI last year. Since then, xAI has seen a rapid rise in valuation. Following the company’s the company’s upsized $20 billion Series E funding round, estimates now suggest that xAI is worth tens about $230 to $235 billion. That’s several times larger than Tesla when Elon Musk received his controversial 2018 CEO Performance Award.
As per xAI, the Series E funding round attracted a diverse group of investors, including Valor Equity Partners, Stepstone Group, Fidelity Management & Research Company, Qatar Investment Authority, MGX, and Baron Capital Group, among others. Strategic partners NVIDIA and Cisco Investments also continued support for building the world’s largest GPU clusters.
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Tesla FSD Supervised wins MotorTrend’s Best Driver Assistance Award
The decision marks a notable reversal for the publication from prior years, with judges citing major real-world improvements that pushed Tesla’s latest FSD software ahead of every competing ADAS system.
Tesla’s Full Self-Driving (Supervised) system has been named the best driver-assistance technology on the market, earning top honors at the 2026 MotorTrend Best Tech Awards.
The decision marks a notable reversal for the publication from prior years, with judges citing major real-world improvements that pushed Tesla’s latest FSD software ahead of every competing ADAS system. And it wasn’t even close.
MotorTrend reverses course
MotorTrend awarded Tesla FSD (Supervised) its 2026 Best Tech Driver Assistance title after extensive testing of the latest v14 software. The publication acknowledged that it had previously criticized earlier versions of FSD for erratic behavior and near-miss incidents, ultimately favoring rivals such as GM’s Super Cruise in earlier evaluations.
According to MotorTrend, the newest iteration of FSD resolved many of those shortcomings. Testers said v14 showed far smoother behavior in complex urban scenarios, including unprotected left turns, traffic circles, emergency vehicles, and dense city streets. While the system still requires constant driver supervision, judges concluded that no other advanced driver-assistance system currently matches its breadth of capability.
Unlike rival systems that rely on combinations of cameras, radar, lidar, and mapped highways, Tesla’s FSD operates using a camera-only approach and is capable of driving on city streets, rural roads, and freeways. MotorTrend stated that pure utility, the ability to handle nearly all road types, ultimately separated FSD from competitors like Ford BlueCruise, GM Super Cruise, and BMW’s Highway Assistant.
High cost and high capability
MotorTrend also addressed FSD’s pricing, which remains significantly higher than rival systems. Tesla currently charges $8,000 for a one-time purchase or $99 per month for a subscription, compared with far lower upfront and subscription costs from other automakers. The publication noted that the premium is justified given FSD’s unmatched scope and continuous software evolution.
Safety remained a central focus of the evaluation. While testers reported collision-free operation over thousands of miles, they noted ongoing concerns around FSD’s configurable driving modes, including options that allow aggressive driving and speeds beyond posted limits. MotorTrend emphasized that, like all Level 2 systems, FSD still depends on a fully attentive human driver at all times.
Despite those caveats, the publication concluded that Tesla’s rapid software progress fundamentally reshaped the competitive landscape. For drivers seeking the most capable hands-on driver-assistance system available today, MotorTrend concluded Tesla FSD (Supervised) now stands alone at the top.
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Elon Musk’s Grokipedia surges to 5.6M articles, almost 79% of English Wikipedia
The explosive growth marks a major milestone for the AI-powered online encyclopedia, which was launched by Elon Musk’s xAI just months ago.
Elon Musk’s Grokipedia has grown to an impressive 5,615,201 articles as of today, closing in on 79% of the English Wikipedia’s current total of 7,119,376 articles.
The explosive growth marks a major milestone for the AI-powered online encyclopedia, which was launched by Elon Musk’s xAI just months ago. Needless to say, it would only be a matter of time before Grokipedia exceeds English Wikipedia in sheer volume.
Grokipedia’s rapid growth
xAI’s vision for Grokipedia emphasizes neutrality, while Grok’s reasoning capabilities allow for fast drafting and fact-checking. When Elon Musk announced the initiative in late September 2025, he noted that Grokipedia would be an improvement to Wikipedia because it would be designed to avoid bias.
At the time, Musk noted that Grokipedia “is a necessary step towards the xAI goal of understanding the Universe.”
Grokipedia was launched in late October, and while xAI was careful to list it only as Version 0.1 at the time, the online encyclopedia immediately earned praise. Wikipedia co-founder Larry Sanger highlighted the project’s innovative approach, noting how it leverages AI to fill knowledge gaps and enable rapid updates. Netizens also observed how Grokipedia tends to present articles in a more objective manner compared to Wikipedia, which is edited by humans.
Elon Musk’s ambitious plans
With 5,615,201 total articles, Grokipedia has now grown to almost 79% of English Wikipedia’s article base. This is incredibly quick, though Grokipedia remains text-only for now. xAI, for its part, has now updated the online encyclopedia’s iteration to v0.2.
Elon Musk has shared bold ideas for Grokipedia, including sending a record of the entire knowledge base to space as part of xAI’s mission to preserve and expand human understanding. At some point, Musk stated that Grokipedia will be renamed to Encyclopedia Galactica, and it will be sent to the cosmos.
“When Grokipedia is good enough (long way to go), we will change the name to Encyclopedia Galactica. It will be an open source distillation of all knowledge, including audio, images and video. Join xAI to help build the sci-fi version of the Library of Alexandria!” Musk wrote, adding in a later post that “Copies will be etched in stone and sent to the Moon, Mars and beyond. This time, it will not be lost.”
Elon Musk’s X will start using a Tesla-like software update strategy
Tesla FSD Supervised wins MotorTrend’s Best Driver Assistance Award
