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SpaceX's "Christmas tree" is a Raptor engine for the holidays
SpaceX CEO Elon Musk showed off a holiday-themed Raptor engine “Christmas tree” with its very own star on top. Musk noted via a tweet that the company’s Starship propulsion team is “making great progress” building, testing, and refining the Raptor engines that will one day propel the next-generation rocket to Earth orbit and beyond.
On December 13th, Musk revealed that SpaceX is preparing to ship the 17th completed Raptor engine to the company’s McGregor, Texas rocket test and development facilities, the site of several dedicated test stands for the Starship engine. Likely one of the most complex rocket engines ever designed, built, or tested, Raptor relies on an exotic combustion cycle, referring to the specifics of how engines turn their propellant into meaningful thrust.
Raptor uses what is known as full-flow staged combustion (FFSC) and is the first FFSC engine to graduate beyond ground testing and actually fly, thus far having completed two flight tests in July and August 2019 as part of SpaceX’s Starhopper test campaign. In simple terms, the FFSC cycle aims to extract as much energy from a rocket’s propellant as efficiently as possible, resulting in what is theoretically the most efficient possible chemical propulsion from a given fuel and oxidizer combination.
Due to the sheer complexity required to achieve full-flow staged combustion, the engine type is incredibly rare and only two other (once) functional examples exist – one developed by Soviet engineers in the 20th century and the other built, tested, and inexplicably scrapped by NASA in the 2000s. In fact, the Soviet RD-270 engine’s thrust-to-weight ratio is likely second only to SpaceX’s own Merlin 1D engine, an absolutely spectacular achievement for a propulsion bureau operating in the late 1960s.
RD-270 had major development challenges and would likely have taken years of additional hardware-rich (i.e. destructive trial and error) testing to produce an engine actually capable of reliable flight. Before the program was cancelled in 1970, 22 engines were tested and no single RD-270 survived to perform a fourth static fire, a testament to the immense challenge of FFSC engines.
SpaceX appears to have had a much better go of it with Raptor, although many, many engines have definitely been destroyed or irreparably damaged since the full-scale engine’s February 2019 static fire debut. SpaceX CEO Elon Musk says that the 17th completed Raptor engine is almost ready to head to McGregor, Texas to kick off development and acceptance testing.
It remains to be seen when exactly Raptor engines will be mature and reliable enough to perform the 3-10 minute burns needed to send a Starship to orbit, let alone the Moon or Mars, but Musk appears confident that SpaceX is making great progress along those lines.
Per photos and info posted by NASASpaceflight.com earlier today, Raptor engine SN15 is already installed on a recently-reactivated McGregor test stand ahead of its first rocket-related test in almost half a decade.
Formerly used to test Falcon 9 first stages before SpaceX built a new stand for Falcon 9 and Heavy, that tripod stand has been reactivated for the sole purpose of supporting vertical Raptor engine static fire testing, which Musk says will simplify and expedite development by making test conditions much more flight-like. As of now, all subscale and full-scale Raptor engine static fire testing has been performed at horizontal test stands in McGregor, apparently resulting in wear and behavior that would not likely appear if engines were tested vertically.
SpaceX has gone through the same process with its Merlin engine programs, beginning with horizontal testing (far easier and simpler) but ultimately building a number of dedicated vertical test bays to ensure that engine acceptance and development tests can be performed under more flight-like conditions.
According to NASASpaceflight, SpaceX may have already fired up Raptor SN15 on its reactivated tripod test stand earlier this week, kicking off Raptor’s first Starhopper-free vertical static fire testing. It’s now unclear where the twin horizontal Raptor test bays will fit into future engine testing given Musk’s comments. More importantly, every completed Starship and Super Heavy rocket will require several dozen new Raptor engines and every one of those engines will likely need to pass acceptance testing (including static fires) in McGregor before they can be installed on a launch vehicle.
SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket already requires 10 engines per new booster and upper stage, a test burden SpaceX has only managed with the help of two Merlin 1D stands and one Merlin Vacuum stand, all vertical. In other words, it’s safe to say that the reactivated tripod stand is likely just the first of several vertical Raptor test stands to come.
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Tesla ends Full Self-Driving purchase option in the U.S.
In January, Musk announced that Tesla would remove the ability to purchase the suite outright for $8,000. This would give the vehicle Full Self-Driving for its entire lifespan, but Tesla intended to move away from it, for several reasons, one being that a tranche in the CEO’s pay package requires 10 million active subscriptions of FSD.
Tesla has officially ended the option to purchase the Full Self-Driving suite outright, a move that was announced for the United States market in January by CEO Elon Musk.
The driver assistance suite is now exclusively available in the U.S. as a subscription, which is currently priced at $99 per month.
Tesla moved away from the outright purchase option in an effort to move more people to the subscription program, but there are concerns over its current price and the potential for it to rise.
In January, Musk announced that Tesla would remove the ability to purchase the suite outright for $8,000. This would give the vehicle Full Self-Driving for its entire lifespan, but Tesla intended to move away from it, for several reasons, one being that a tranche in the CEO’s pay package requires 10 million active subscriptions of FSD.
Although Tesla moved back the deadline in other countries, it has now taken effect in the U.S. on Sunday morning. Tesla updated its website to reflect this:
🚨 Tesla has officially moved the outright purchase option for FSD on its website pic.twitter.com/RZt1oIevB3
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) February 15, 2026
There are still some concerns regarding its price, as $99 per month is not where many consumers are hoping to see the subscription price stay.
Musk has said that as capabilities improve, the price will go up, but it seems unlikely that 10 million drivers will want to pay an extra $100 every month for the capability, even if it is extremely useful.
Instead, many owners and fans of the company are calling for Tesla to offer a different type of pricing platform. This includes a tiered-system that would let owners pick and choose the features they would want for varying prices, or even a daily, weekly, monthly, and annual pricing option, which would incentivize longer-term purchasing.
Although Musk and other Tesla are aware of FSD’s capabilities and state is is worth much more than its current price, there could be some merit in the idea of offering a price for Supervised FSD and another price for Unsupervised FSD when it becomes available.
Elon Musk
Musk bankers looking to trim xAI debt after SpaceX merger: report
xAI has built up $18 billion in debt over the past few years, with some of this being attributed to the purchase of social media platform Twitter (now X) and the creation of the AI development company. A new financing deal would help trim some of the financial burden that is currently present ahead of the plan to take SpaceX public sometime this year.
Elon Musk’s bankers are looking to trim the debt that xAI has taken on over the past few years, following the company’s merger with SpaceX, a new report from Bloomberg says.
xAI has built up $18 billion in debt over the past few years, with some of this being attributed to the purchase of social media platform Twitter (now X) and the creation of the AI development company. Bankers are trying to create some kind of financing plan that would trim “some of the heavy interest costs” that come with the debt.
The financing deal would help trim some of the financial burden that is currently present ahead of the plan to take SpaceX public sometime this year. Musk has essentially confirmed that SpaceX would be heading toward an IPO last month.
The report indicates that Morgan Stanley is expected to take the leading role in any financing plan, citing people familiar with the matter. Morgan Stanley, along with Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, and JPMorgan Chase & Co., are all expected to be in the lineup of banks leading SpaceX’s potential IPO.
Since Musk acquired X, he has also had what Bloomberg says is a “mixed track record with debt markets.” Since purchasing X a few years ago with a $12.5 billion financing package, X pays “tens of millions in interest payments every month.”
That debt is held by Bank of America, Barclays, Mitsubishi, UFJ Financial, BNP Paribas SA, Mizuho, and Société Générale SA.
X merged with xAI last March, which brought the valuation to $45 billion, including the debt.
SpaceX announced the merger with xAI earlier this month, a major move in Musk’s plan to alleviate Earth of necessary data centers and replace them with orbital options that will be lower cost:
“In the long term, space-based AI is obviously the only way to scale. To harness even a millionth of our Sun’s energy would require over a million times more energy than our civilization currently uses! The only logical solution, therefore, is to transport these resource-intensive efforts to a location with vast power and space. I mean, space is called “space” for a reason.”
The merger has many advantages, but one of the most crucial is that it positions the now-merged companies to fund broader goals, fueled by revenue from the Starlink expansion, potential IPO, and AI-driven applications that could accelerate the development of lunar bases.
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Tesla pushes Full Self-Driving outright purchasing option back in one market
Tesla announced last month that it would eliminate the ability to purchase the Full Self-Driving software outright, instead opting for a subscription-only program, which will require users to pay monthly.
Tesla has pushed the opportunity to purchase the Full Self-Driving suite outright in one market: Australia.
The date remains February 14 in North America, but Tesla has pushed the date back to March 31, 2026, in Australia.
NEWS: Tesla is ending the option to buy FSD as a one-time outright purchase in Australia on March 31, 2026.
It still ends on Feb 14th in North America. https://t.co/qZBOztExVT pic.twitter.com/wmKRZPTf3r
— Sawyer Merritt (@SawyerMerritt) February 13, 2026
Tesla announced last month that it would eliminate the ability to purchase the Full Self-Driving software outright, instead opting for a subscription-only program, which will require users to pay monthly.
If you have already purchased the suite outright, you will not be required to subscribe once again, but once the outright purchase option is gone, drivers will be required to pay the monthly fee.
The reason for the adjustment is likely due to the short period of time the Full Self-Driving suite has been available in the country. In North America, it has been available for years.
Tesla hits major milestone with Full Self-Driving subscriptions
However, Tesla just launched it just last year in Australia.
Full Self-Driving is currently available in seven countries: the United States, Canada, China, Mexico, Australia, New Zealand, and South Korea.
The company has worked extensively for the past few years to launch the suite in Europe. It has not made it quite yet, but Tesla hopes to get it launched by the end of this year.
In North America, Tesla is only giving customers one more day to buy the suite outright before they will be committed to the subscription-based option for good.
The price is expected to go up as the capabilities improve, but there are no indications as to when Tesla will be doing that, nor what type of offering it plans to roll out for owners.
Tesla ends Full Self-Driving purchase option in the U.S.
Musk bankers looking to trim xAI debt after SpaceX merger: report
