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Elon Musk teases expendable version of SpaceX’s reusable Starship rocket

(SpaceX)

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SpaceX CEO Elon Musk says that the company could eventually develop an expendable version of its next-generation Starship rocket.

Starship is extraordinarily ambitious. Even before considering the unproven concepts of orbital propellant refilling and full, rapid reusability that are central to the full system, Starship is a beast. The rocket measures 120 meters (~390 ft) tall and is theoretically capable of producing up to 7590 tons (~16.7M lbf) of thrust at sea level. It’s larger, taller, heavier, and more powerful than any other launch vehicle in history. 33 Raptor 2 engines power Starship’s Super Heavy booster – also more than any other rocket.

Once optimized, SpaceX says that Starship can launch up to 150 tons (330,000 lbs) to low Earth orbit while still recovering the orbital ship and suborbital booster for reuse. CEO Elon Musk has stated that Starship reuse will eventually take hours, enabling multiple flights per day for each ship and booster and dropping the marginal cost of each launch to just a few million dollars.

In comparison, SpaceX’s workhorse Falcon 9 rocket uses simpler Merlin 1D engines, has just 10 of those engines to Starship’s 39 Raptors, produces about 10 times less thrust at liftoff, and can launch about 11% as much payload to orbit while expending its upper stage. Even then, Musk reported in mid-2020 that the marginal cost of a Falcon 9 launch was $15 million – impressively low but still a vivid demonstration of just how far Starship has to go.

Starship’s orbital upper stage is roughly the size (and far heavier and more powerful than) as an entire two-stage Falcon 9 rocket. (BocaChicaGal/Richard Angle)

Simply ensuring that Starship can reach orbit at all is a major challenge. Successfully recovering Starship and Super Heavy after the fact may be an even bigger challenge and cannot be fully demonstrated until the rocket can consistently reach orbit. SpaceX won’t be able to reuse Starship until it can consistently recover ships and boosters from orbital launches. And there’s no guarantee that early prototypes will be reusable even if they’re recovered.

Until reusability is demonstrated, every “Starship upper stage” will be functionally expendable whether or not Elon Musk wants it to be. Musk likely means that SpaceX may or may not decide to develop a Starship upper stage custom-built for expendable missions. Such a stage would likely take Starship, remove everything extraneous, and reduce its mass as much as possible. Musk has proposed something similar before, noting that SpaceX could develop a “lightened” version of Starship “with no heat shield or fins/legs” for expendable, interplanetary launches.

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While SpaceX is closer than ever, it has still never attempted an orbital Starship launch or reused a Starship. (SpaceX)

Further to the contrary, SpaceX’s Starbase factory is already building multiple intentionally-expendable Starships. Ship 26 and Ship 27 feature no thermal protection, have no heat shield tiles, and will not be fitted with flaps, making them impossible to recover or reuse. More likely than not, they will be used to test other crucial Starship technologies like orbital refilling and cryogenic fluid management.

Meanwhile, SpaceX’s multibillion-dollar contract to use Starship to return NASA astronauts to the Moon revolves around a depot ship variant that will store propellant in orbit and cannot return to Earth. The first few Starship Moon landers may also be functionally expendable and only used for one astronaut landing apiece. In short, SpaceX already has extensive plans to build variants of Starship that are either fully expendable or can only be reused in orbit.

The Starship variants required for SpaceX’s NASA Moon landing contracts.

Single-use Starships

In early 2023, SpaceX updated the Starship section of its website, revealing that an expendable version of the rocket will be able to launch up to 250 metric tons (~550,000 lbs) to low Earth orbit in a single launch. Saturn V, the next most capable expendable rocket, could launch up to 118 tons (~260,000 lbs) to LEO and cost $1-2 billion per launch. SpaceX publicly advertising the expendable performance of Starship unsurprisingly confirms that the company is considering all of the capabilities its new launch system will offer.

And Starship’s expendable capabilities are significant. Constructed piece by piece over dozens of launches, the International Space Station weighs about 420 tons (~925,000 lbs). Two expendable Starships could launch more usable mass to LEO – truly revolutionary if SpaceX can make Starship launches frequent and routine.

Eric Ralph is Teslarati's senior spaceflight reporter and has been covering the industry in some capacity for almost half a decade, largely spurred in 2016 by a trip to Mexico to watch Elon Musk reveal SpaceX's plans for Mars in person. Aside from spreading interest and excitement about spaceflight far and wide, his primary goal is to cover humanity's ongoing efforts to expand beyond Earth to the Moon, Mars, and elsewhere.

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Elon Musk

Tesla Roadster owners to get “Flying Stunt Mode” and looping track access

Musk says Roadster owners can command the unveiling stunts autonomously, with a Texas looping track.

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Elon Musk says owners of the new Tesla Roadster will be able to ask the car to perform the stunts Tesla showed at its unveiling, with the car doing the driving itself. Musk made the comment Saturday in a reply on X to tech blogger Robert Scoble, and he added a promise of a looping track at Tesla’s Texas headquarters.

Scoble had argued that the person in the Roadster is not really driving it. In his description, the driver operates a computer that tells another computer what to do, with steering, braking and acceleration all handled by wire. Musk answered, “True. You will be able to ask the Roadster to perform any of the tricks shown autonomously, as it will be sentient. Also, we will have a wild looping track (crazier even than Hot Wheels) at our Texas HQ where you can test out your Roadster.”

At the October 15 event outside Waco, the car drove up a curved ramp until it was upside down, flew off on cold gas thrusters, flipped and landed. It also hovered over a Cybercab, Cybertruck, Semi, Model Y and Model 3 while moving. As we noted in our breakdown of the three Roadster configurations, Musk said at the event that the car “literally is just going to puff itself up” to perform the maneuvers whenever an owner wants. Saturday’s reply adds that the car would run them on its own.

Tesla has described some of the hardware that would make that possible. The Roadster uses steer by wire with a yoke, and its cold gas thrusters rely on electric actuators for small adjustments in flight. A fan system under the car creates suction, which Tesla says is strong enough to hold it upside down, a setup we covered in our look at the Roadster’s fan system and thrusters.

Musk did not say when an autonomous stunt feature might arrive, how it would work, or what he means by sentient. He also gave no size, location or opening date for the Texas track. Production is planned for Giga Texas in 2027 or 2028, and Tesla says the car is not approved for public road use. The Rocket version, the one built to fly, is invite only.

The comment follows a week of Musk teasing the event, including his claim that the demo would be a banger, which we covered before the stream. Tesla reports third quarter earnings on October 21, and shareholders can submit and vote on questions through the Say portal until 4 p.m. EDT on October 20, according to our earnings Q&A preview. A question about autonomous Roadster stunts and the Texas track would be a quick way to get specifics from management.

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Elon Musk

How to use Grok Bot to block spam calls and texts

Musk told users to ask Grok Bot to scrub their phone numbers from spam lists.

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Elon Musk has a new use case for Grok Bot, and it is the spam call. On Thursday he replied to an X user named Arash with a short instruction: “Ask your @Grok @Bot to remove your phone number from spam call & text lists!” Arash had said he got tired of the calls, had an AI bot find his number on listing sites and file removal requests, and packaged the process as a free skill for others.

The skill is called Spam-Call Scrubber, which is described to find a phone number on people search sites and data brokers, submits the opt outs, completes the confirmation emails those sites send back, and rechecks on a schedule the user picks. Using it requires the Grok Bot app. The pitch is time saved, since most broker opt outs sit behind separate forms on separate sites.



Musk said Grok Bot now gives each bot its own email address, and that it can detect scam emails. On Thursday he also said SpaceX would make users whole if the bot botches a purchase or leaks a card, then told users to shop away from Amazon after the retailer blocked the agent, as Teslarati reported. The terms of service we reviewed at the time put responsibility for what an agent does on the user.

For Tesla owners, Grok Bot is not just a phone app. Tesla brought Grok Bot into its vehicles on September 22, and we argued earlier this week that the Cybercab’s real advantage may be the errands it runs during a ride. Every Cybercab and the rest of the Model Y Robotaxi fleet has it enabled. The more routine tasks like this one become, the more a rider has reason to hand over something personal in the back seat.

The new Spam-Call Scrubber skill can be downloaded for free and works on sites that honor removal requests, while noting that listings can reappear, and illegal robocallers do not check any registry. Whether Spam-Call Scrubber cuts anyone’s call volume is something the first wave of users will find out, and Musk’s endorsement guarantees that wave is coming.

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Investor's Corner

Tesla’s flying Roadster just revealed something bigger than the car

Analysts say the Roadster demo puts a Tesla and SpaceX merger back on the table.

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Tesla’s new Roadster, upside down and trailing cold gas thruster smoke, flips over a lineup of Tesla vehicles at the Roadster unveiling near Waco, Texas on October 15, 2026. (Image: Tesla)
Tesla’s new Roadster, upside down and trailing cold gas thruster smoke, flips over a lineup of Tesla vehicles at the Roadster unveiling near Waco, Texas on October 15, 2026. (Image: Tesla)

The Roadster unveiling near Waco ended Thursday night, and by Friday morning much of the investor reaction had less to do with the car than with who owns the rocket technology inside it.

Wedbush analyst Dan Ives said the event “puts the Tesla/SpaceX relationship on the table in a tangible way,” pointing to the propulsion, pressure vessel and control hardware sitting on a Tesla product. Gene Munster of Deepwater Asset Management called the demo “a ridiculous display of engineering” with “no commercial value” beyond embarrassing traditional automakers, though he said it showed Musk wants the two companies together.

The more specific forecast came a day earlier from Barclays. Analyst Dan Levy told clients a deal could be announced before Tesla’s annual meeting, which must happen by December 6, and that an announcement in late October or early November could make shareholder approval harder. Barclays expects SpaceX to be the buyer in an all stock deal, with Tesla holders receiving SpaceX shares at a premium, based on market values of roughly $2.1 trillion for SpaceX and $1.5 trillion for Tesla. If nothing lands around the meeting, the bank still sees an announcement within 6 to 12 months.

The Roadster demo just added more weight to merger speculations. Tesla’s demo used cold gas thrusters and pressure tanks of the kind SpaceX uses on Falcon 9, and Musk described the car as a collaboration between Tesla and SpaceX engineers, as we mentioned in our breakdown of the three Roadster configurations.


Musk has not publicly addressed a deal since the event, as far as we have seen. His most direct answer remains the one he gave at the All In Summit, when he said that with so much collaboration, “who can imagine what action one might take” without ruling anything out. Ives has held to a 2027 timeline since his March note, and Musk pushed back on the China piece of the speculation when ARK floated a year end announcement in August.

The next test is Tesla’s third quarter earnings call on October 21. However, we recall in July that Musk told analysts, “we can’t talk about combining companies and that kind of thing on an earnings call,” so a clear answer wouldn’t be expected.

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