SpaceX
SpaceX’s first Starship engine suffers “expected” damage during Raptor test fire
SpaceX CEO Elon Musk says that the first full-scale Starship engine to be tested has already been pushed to the point of damage less than three weeks after the campaign began, setting the stage for the second full-scale Raptor to take over in the near future.
According to Musk, while most of the damaged pathfinder Raptor’s components should still be easily reusable, the assembly of the second finalized engine is “almost done” and that Raptor will take over near-term testing rather than waiting for repairs to the first engine. This is undoubtedly an extraordinarily aggressive test program, particularly for such a new and cutting-edge rocket propulsion system, but these latest developments are ultimately far more encouraging than they are concerning.
Merlins. The max chamber pressure run damaged Raptor SN 1 (as expected). A lot of the parts are fine for reuse, but next tests will be with SN 2, which is almost done.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 21, 2019
Although the Raptor engine family began integrated subscale static fires way back in September 2016, SpaceX’s propulsion team finalized Raptor’s baseline design and completed assembly, shipment, and an integrated static fire of the first full-scale engine on February 3rd, considerably less than three weeks before Musk took to Twitter. Aside from confirming that the new Raptor had been damaged during its most recent static fire several days prior, Musk indicated that the failure (unsurprisingly) was primarily attributed to the engine reaching the highest chamber pressures yet.
Raptor’s main combustion chamber (the bit directly above the nozzle) has been designed to nominally operate at and reliably withstand extraordinary pressures of 250+ bar (3600+ psi), performance that demands even higher pressures in the components that feed hot methane and oxygen gas into Raptor’s combustion chamber. One prime example hinted at by Musk in a 2018 tweet is its oxygen preburner, used to convert liquid propellant into a high-velocity gas that can then feed a dedicated oxygen turbopump. Aside from the absurdly corrosive environment created by extremely hot gaseous oxygen, the preburner must also survive pressures that could peak as high as 800+ bar, or 12,000 psi.
- SpaceX’s world-class rocket propulsion team has been progressing through early full-scale Raptor tests at an incredible speed. (SpaceX)
- Full-scale Raptor’s first static fire test, February 3rd. (SpaceX)
- Raptor’s business end with a Musk-for-scale. (Elon Musk)
- Starship revealed a trio of Raptor mockups when SpaceX technicians moved the assembly from stand to ground. (NSF – bocachicagal)
- A September 2018 render of Starship (then BFS) shows one of the vehicle’s two hinged wings/fins/legs. (SpaceX)
- BFR (2018) breaks through a cloud layer shortly after launch. (SpaceX)
A lack of technical detail means that it’s hard to know what thrust or main chamber pressure Musk had in mind when referring to exotic alloys that would be needed to survive those pressures, but the performance statistics of a Raptor with a preburner operating at 800+ bar would probably outstrip anything Musk has thus far described. In other words, it’s safe to assume that Raptor has probably not been pushed to those performance levels just yet, although it’s still a distant possibility. More likely is that 800+ bar in the oxygen preburner is an extreme stretch-goal that will take concerted research, development, and optimization to achieve, with Raptor having suffered damage somewhere below those levels while still reaching eye-watering performance figures.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 4, 2019
For an engine as complex as Raptor, there are countless dozens of potential failure modes the appearance of which would come as little surprise for an engine just days into full-scale testing. Above all else, the Raptor test schedule held by SpaceX’s world-class propulsion team – be it self-motivated or driven by reckless management-by-spreadsheet – has been fast-paced in the extreme, taking the first high-performance Raptor ever built from standstill to more than 90% thrust and chamber pressures of almost 270 bar (3900 psi) in – quite literally – less than one week. In the same period of time, more than half a dozen static fire tests (ranging from 1-10 seconds) were performed.
Within a few days of that February 10th milestone, in which Raptor reached chamber pressures comparable with the most advanced modern engines (namely RD-180/190/191), the engine was apparently pushed dramatically higher still, reaching a chamber pressure (and thus thrust) that wrought damage on some of the more sensitive parts of the engine’s plumbing. Despite the fact that the second production Raptor is apparently already “almost done”, Musk suggested that it would already feature changes (of unknown gravity) to mitigate the failure modes experienced by Raptor SN01.
SN2 has changes that should help
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 21, 2019
In an industry where NASA and contractors like Aerojet-Rocketdyne will spend months between static fire tests of Space Shuttle engines that have each literally flown multiple (if not) dozens of missions to orbit and have a demonstrated performance and reliability record that is measured in the hundreds of thousands of seconds, the speed and agility of SpaceX’s Raptor development and test program is breathtaking. What remains to be seen is just how comparably reliable and successful the end results (i.e. operational Raptor) will be, but an attitude that actively accepts and even pursues testing to destruction can ultimately only serve to benefit the finished product at the cost of destroyed hardware and many on-ground lessons learned the hard ways.
Given the immense success of SpaceX’s Merlin family of engines and the aggressive strategy of development and continuous improvement that brought it from Merlin 1A to 1D and MVacD, SpaceX is clearly not fumbling around in the dark when it comes to Raptor R&D.
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Cybertruck
Tesla Cybertruck fleet takes over at SpaceX’s Starbase
Interestingly, the Cybertruck uses the same exterior, a stainless steel alloy, as SpaceX rockets. This synergy between the two companies and their very different products shows a very unified mentality between Musk companies.
Tesla Cybertrucks have taken over at SpaceX’s Starbase facility in Texas, as hundreds of the all-electric pickup trucks were spotted late last week rounding out a massive fleet of vehicles.
The Cybertruck fleet is geared toward replacing gas vehicles that are used at Starbase for everyday operations. The only surprise about this is that it was not done sooner:
Was just visiting. pic.twitter.com/5Q9wPPaeuH
— Derek Li (@derek1ee) October 31, 2025
Deliveries have been going on for a few weeks, as Cybertrucks have made their way across the state of Texas from Austin to Starbase so they could be included in SpaceX’s fleet of vehicles at the facility.
Interestingly, the Cybertruck uses the same exterior, a stainless steel alloy, as SpaceX rockets. This synergy between the two companies and their very different products shows a very unified mentality between Musk companies.
However, there are some other perspectives to consider as SpaceX is utilizing such a massive fleet of Cybertrucks. Some media outlets (unsurprisingly) are seeing this as a move of weakness by both Tesla and SpaceX, as the aerospace company is, in a sense, “bailing out” lagging sales for the all-electric pickup.
It’s no secret that Tesla has struggled with the Cybertruck this year, and deliveries have been underwhelming in the sense that the company was anticipating between 1 million and 2 million orders for the vehicle before it was widely produced.
A lot of things changed with the Cybertruck between its 2019 unveiling and 2023 initial deliveries, most notably, price.
The price of the Cybertruck swelled significantly and priced out many of those who had pre-ordered it. Some have weighed the option of whether this purchase was a way to get rid of sitting inventory.
However, it seems more logical to consider the fact that SpaceX was likely always going to transition to Teslas for its fleet, especially at Starship, at some point.
It doesn’t seem out of the question that one Musk company would utilize another Musk company’s products, especially considering the Cybertruck has been teased as the vehicle that would be present on Mars.
News
SpaceX successfully launches 100th Starlink mission of 2025
With 100 Starlink missions completed for 2025, space enthusiasts have noted that SpaceX has successfully launched 2,554 Starlink satellites so far this year.
SpaceX achieved its 100th Starlink mission of the year on Friday, October 31, marking another milestone for 2025.
A Falcon 9 rocket carrying 28 Starlink broadband satellites successfully lifted off from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California at 4:41 p.m. ET, carrying another 28 Starlink satellites to Low Earth Orbit (LEO).
Falcon 9 booster’s 29th flight
Roughly 8.5 minutes after liftoff, the Falcon 9’s first stage touched down on the drone ship Of Course I Still Love You in the Pacific Ocean. This marked the booster’s 29th flight, which is approaching SpaceX’s reuse record of 31 missions.
This latest mission adds to SpaceX’s impressive 138 Falcon 9 launches in 2025, 99 of which were dedicated to Starlink, according to Space.com. The company’s focus on reusing boosters has enabled this breakneck pace, with multiple launches each week supporting both Starlink’s expansion and external customers.
Starlink’s network continues massive global expansion
Starlink remains the largest active satellite constellation in history, with more than 10,000 satellites launched, nearly 8,800 of which are currently active. SpaceX recently achieved Starlink’s 10,000-satellite milestone. With 100 Starlink missions completed for 2025, space enthusiasts have noted that SpaceX has successfully launched 2,554 Starlink satellites so far this year.
Starlink, which provides high-speed, low-latency internet connectivity even to the world’s most remote areas, has been proven to be life-changing technology for people across the globe. The service is currently operational in about 150 countries, and it currently has over 5 million subscribers worldwide. From this number, 2.7 million joined over the past year.
SpaceX
SpaceX checks off 49 lunar lander milestones in push toward Artemis III
SpaceX has revealed that it has completed 49 major milestones for NASA’s Human Landing System (HLS) program, marking significant progress in the development of the Starship lunar lander that will deliver astronauts to the Moon.
The updates were detailed in SpaceX’s new blog post To the Moon and Beyond, which was recently posted on the private space company’s official website.
As noted by SpaceX, the 49 milestones that were completed by its HLS team were “tied to developing the subsystems, infrastructure, and operations” needed to safely land humans back into the lunar surface. SpaceX noted that it has only received funding on contractual milestones that have been successfully completed, the vast majority of which have been achieved on time or ahead of schedule.
Following are highlights of SpaceX’s completed milestones, as per the company’s post.
For the first time in our existence, we possess the means, technology, and, for the moment, the will to establish a permanent human presence beyond Earth. Starship is designed to make this future a reality → https://t.co/dGAZiB4rr3 pic.twitter.com/WsTg44G3oz — SpaceX (@SpaceX) October 30, 2025
- Lunar environmental control and life support and thermal control system demonstrations, using a full-scale cabin module inhabited by multiple people to test the capability to inject oxygen and nitrogen into the cabin environment and accurately manage air distribution and sanitation, along with humidity and thermal control. The test series also measured the acoustic environments inside the cabin
- Docking adapter qualification of the docking system that will link Starship and Orion in space, an androgynous SpaceX docking system capable of serving as the active system or passive system and based on the flight-proven Dragon 2 active docking system
- Landing leg drop test of a full-scale article at flight energies onto simulated lunar regolith to verify system performance and to study foot-to-regolith interaction
- Raptor lunar landing throttle test demonstrating a representative thrust profile that would allow Starship to land on the lunar surface
- Micrometeoroid and orbital debris testing of shielding, insulation, and window panels, analyzing different material stackups that will be used to protect Starship from impact hazards and harsh thermal conditions
- Landing software, sensor, and radar demonstrations testing navigation and sensing hardware and software that will be used by Starship to locate and safely descend to a precise landing site on the Moon
- Software architecture review to define the schematic of major vehicle control processes, what physical computers they will run on, and software functions for critical systems like fault detection, caution and warning alerts, and command and telemetry control
- Raptor cold start demonstrations using both sea-level and vacuum-optimized Raptor engines that are pre-chilled prior to startup to simulate the thermal conditions experienced after an extended time in space
- Integrated lunar mission operations plan review, covering how SpaceX and NASA will conduct integrated operations, develop flight rules and crew procedures, and the high-level mission operation plan
- Depot power module demonstration, testing prototype electrical power generation and distribution systems planned to be used on the propellant depot variant of Starship
- Ground segment and radio frequency (RF) communications demonstration, testing the capability to send and receive RF communications between a flight-equivalent ground station and a flight-equivalent vehicle RF system
- Elevator and airlock demonstration, which was conducted in concert with Axiom to utilize flight-representative pressurized EVA suits, to practice full operation of the crew elevator which will be used to transfer crew and cargo between Starship and the lunar surface
- Medical system demonstration covering the crew medical system on Starship and the telemedicine capability between the ground and crew
- Hardware in the loop testbed activation for the propellant transfer flight test which uses a testbed with flight representative hardware to run simulations for the upcoming propellant transfer flight test
Ultimately, SpaceX’s message is clear. With its plans for a simplified architecture, the timeframe of the first crewed lunar landing of the current century could happen sooner than expected.
Musk definitely seems determined to prove skeptics wrong, with the CEO declaring on X that Starship will be the vehicle that would pave the way for the buildout of a base on the Moon. “Starship will build Moonbase Alpha,” Musk wrote.
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