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A SpaceX Starship rocket could take to the sky for the first time later this week

SpaceX has scrubbed a Starship static fire attempt for the third time as evidence grows that the ship's first flight could come as early as this week. (NASASpaceflight - bocachicagal)

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6 years ago

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SpaceX has scrubbed its latest Starship static fire test for the third time since Friday but if another attempt succeeds within the next few days, a full-scale Starship prototype could lift off for the first time later this week.

SpaceX has attempted to perform a Starship static fire every day for the last three days without any luck, foiled by what must be mild technical issues and some extreme South Texas weather. That static fire – set to be Starship serial number 4’s (SN4) third – is required because SpaceX chose to replace the rocket’s installed Raptor engine (SN18) around 10 days ago after completing two successful tests on May 4th and 5th. Installed a few days after SN18 was removed, Starship and Raptor SN20 must now perform their own integrated static fire to ensure the complex systems are working properly.

Since SN4’s last test, SpaceX teams have been swarming the Starship prototype day and night, installing new COPVs (composite overwrapped pressure vessels; used to store high-pressure gas), new plumbing, and more. The specific purposes of all those in-situ changes can only be speculated at but what is clear is that SpaceX is preparing Starship SN4 for the first attempted flight test of a full-scale prototype, following in the footsteps of Starhopper’s bizarre but successful July and August 2019 hops. As SN4’s third Raptor static fire has slipped, though, so has that flight test. While the FAA has yet to officially publish a license for the 150m (~500 ft) Starship hop, NOTAMs (Notices to Airmen) filed recently suggest that that license and hop could come any day now.

Most recently, a NOTAM was filed on May 18th for what is likely Starship’s 150m hop test on Thursday, May 21st. Filed before SN4’s May 18th static fire test was aborted twice, that proposed May 21st hop test will almost certainly be delayed at least as long as the static fire that needs to precede it and is also dependent upon the FAA officially licensing the flight. The fact that NOTAMs are being filed for that flight strongly suggests that SpaceX and the FAA or in the late stages of hammering out a license, a process that can often involve a great deal of back-and-forth and compromise for experimental rocket launches.

Regardless, if or when Starship SN4 finally manages to fire up its new Raptor engine, it could be just a matter of days after that SpaceX attempts the first true Starship flight test. If everything goes according to plan, the ~30m (~100 ft) tall stainless steel rocket will lift off under the power of a single asymmetrically installed Raptor engine, capable of producing up to 200 metric tons (~450,000 lbf) of thrust with cryogenic liquid methane and oxygen propellant.

Starship SN4 is pictured beside the now-retired Starhopper test article on April 23rd. (NASASpaceflight – bocachicagal)

After lifting off from its ad-hoc South Texas launch mount, Starship SN4 will attempt to reach a peak altitude of 150m (~500 ft) and descend back down for a soft landing on an adjacent concrete pad, just like Starhopper did around nine months ago. A lot could go wrong: aside from using steel more than three times thinner than Starhopper’s, Starship SN4 will also be debuting an entirely new kind of landing leg, will be flying with asymmetric thrust, and will likely be using autogenous pressurization — all new challenges for SpaceX.

Nevertheless, there are also reasons for confidence. SpaceX has already successfully pressurized Starship SN4 all the way to 7.5 bar (~110 psi, sufficient for uncrewed orbital flight), performed multiple wet dress rehearsals and two Raptor static fire tests, and even tested what appears to be a new kind of cold gas thruster needed for roll control. Most importantly, even if Starship SN4 is destroyed during its next static fire or inaugural flight attempt, Starship SN5 is nearly at the same stage of completion and should be ready to take the reins almost immediately after the potential demise of its predecessor. With Crew Dragon’s inaugural NASA astronaut launch scheduled on May 27th, the rest of the month is set to be quite the event.

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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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Tesla Semi lands the biggest electric truck deal in U.S. history

Tesla leads a record 2,500 truck order, but not every truck will be a Semi.

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16 hours ago

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September 22, 2026

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Tesla has landed the largest electric truck order in U.S. history. ZET SCALE, a new alliance of shippers and carriers, named Tesla its primary manufacturer on Tuesday for an initial order of 2,500 electric Class 8 trucks. The deal alone would nearly double the number of electric heavy trucks operating in the country.

According to the press release from Catalyst Mobility, the nonprofit formerly known as CALSTART, Kenworth, RIDE and Volvo were also selected as secondary manufacturers that carriers can pick if their operations call for it. No split between the four brands has been published, so the exact number of Semis in the order is not yet known.

Tesla won the top slot through a competitive request for proposals. The alliance, which Catalyst Mobility runs with the Smart Freight Centre, scored bidders on price, range, charging capability and production capacity. Pooling freight demand from founding shippers, including Microsoft and PepsiCo, let every truck maker bid lower than it would for a single fleet. “The Tesla Semi is designed for lower cost per mile operations than diesel,” said Dan Priestley, director of the Tesla Semi program, as noted in the press release.

The financing is built to pull in carriers who have avoided electric trucks. ZET Financial is issuing the purchase order for all 2,500 units and will place them with fleets through a fair market value lease. The trucks will be deployed over the next few years across 10 freight hubs in Los Angeles, Stockton, Bakersfield, Seattle and Tacoma, Houston, Dallas, San Antonio, Chicago, Atlanta, and the Newark and New York area. ZET SCALE says the first order is only the opening round, with a longer term goal of 10,000 trucks or more.

Even if Tesla ends up with only a majority share, it would still be the biggest Semi deal to date. Einride’s 500 unit order in August was the previous record, and WattEV’s 370 truck order in May was the largest California deal at the time. Einride’s CEO has since said he expects all 500 trucks delivered by the end of 2027.

The announcement lands two days before Tesla formally inaugurates its Semi factory in Nevada on September 24. The 1.7 million square foot plant sits next to Gigafactory Nevada’s 4680 cell lines and is designed for 50,000 trucks a year.

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Tesla integrates Grok Bot into its vehicles for the ultimate personal assistant

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1 day ago

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September 22, 2026

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Credit: Grok

Tesla has expanded Grok from an in-car chatbot into a hands-free work assistant. On September 22, Tesla officially launched Grok Bot capability, confirming that drivers can now manage email, calendars, files, chats, and tasks by voice and then hand more ambitious errands to the AI-fueled productivity cheat code.

Grok itself is built by xAI. The new car features split into two layers: Connectors link Grok to outside accounts. Grok Bot, currently limited to SuperGrok Heavy subscribers, can complete multi-step tasks such as placing a usual coffee order, booking a reservation, or scheduling an appointment. It truly puts the driver in a nearly complete hands-free driving and productivity setting, with ironically the only task truly requiring your hands being to touch the “Start Self-Driving” button.

We were granted access to Grok Bot’s Tesla integration a few weeks back, and we’ve been able to do a handful of things with it. On a handful of occasions, we’ve used it to order food and have it ready for pickup slightly later into the evening; we’ve managed to pick up groceries after a day of errands with Grok Bot, and outside of the car, it’s helped with budgeting and even my fantasy football draft.

Tesla shows another way to utilize it: in their demo, a driver says “Hey Grok,” asks the assistant to check an inbox, and hears that a message concerns a weekend reservation. Grok then scans the calendar, reports no conflicts, and confirms the Tahoe trip is clear. It can also add check-in details to a road-trip itinerary. The point is not novelty chat. It is keeping eyes on the road, or on Full Self-Driving, while the car handles the paperwork of a trip:

This Grok rollout is not a gadget add-on as much as it is Tesla’s thesis in software form: the car should stop being a machine you operate and start being a room you occupy.

Connectors and Grok Bot treat the cabin as an office that happens to move, and that has truly been Tesla’s intention for years now. The car has slowly become an extension of a home more than a vehicle. Inbox, calendar, groceries, takeout, and reservations become voice work, not dashboard chores that you need to do before you get in your car.

Responsibility shifts from the driver to the stack, and as many Tesla owners rely on FSD for travel, Grok Bot now handles the monotony of dinner reservations or appointments.

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Elon Musk

X changed how everyone gets paid, and this lawsuit shows why

X sued a Bitcoin account network over fake payouts as its creator pay model shifts

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1 day ago

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September 22, 2026

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Elon Musk’s X has taken a Bitcoin-focused engagement ring to court, and the case doubles as a receipt for how differently the platform pays creators today. The company filed suit in the High Court of England and Wales against Vivek Kumar Sen and Zamyang Sherpa, alleging the pair ran six accounts, including @Vivek4real_, @Bitcoin_Teddy and @TrendingBitcoin, as one coordinated operation to fake the kind of engagement that used to translate directly into money.

According to the filing, first reported by Gizmodo, the accounts posted near identical “BREAKING” crypto headlines seconds apart, in one case 11 seconds, then had three more handles like, reply to and repost the material to manufacture what X called “a false appearance of genuine, human communication and interaction.” X says the scheme pulled in at least £207,384, about $278,000, and pegs its own investigation and remediation costs at another £75,000. The accounts were suspended August 18. X general counsel James Burnham announced the case on X last weekend, writing that the company “will act forcefully to protect our platform and the earnings of genuine creators.” Musk’s own reaction, posted shortly after, was three words: “Don’t mess with 𝕏.”

The timing lines up with a a recent update to how X pays its creators. The program these accounts allegedly gamed, Creator Revenue Sharing, launched in mid 2023 and paid out based on how much a post got engaged with. Originality was never part of the formula, which is exactly how the platform ended up flooded with recycled clips, copy pasted “BREAKING” posts and replies engineered purely to farm reactions from paying subscribers.

X tried patching the model more than once, including an April cut to aggregator payouts and a March regional weighting change that Musk personally paused hours after it was announced. X retired Creator Revenue Sharing for good on September 7 and opened its replacement, Original Content Rewards, the next day.

The new math is stricter. Payouts now come only from qualified impressions, meaning unique Home Timeline views from Premium subscribers where at least half the post is visible, and replies no longer count toward eligibility at all. Copied posts, reuploaded media and reposts without meaningful changes are explicitly excluded. Allegra Jacchia, senior product manager for Creators at SpaceXAI, which now runs X’s product and AI work following xAI’s acquisition of the platform, put it bluntly, saying the goal is to reward creators who bring original ideas and perspective, “not those who have become best at gaming the system.”

Read that way, the lawsuit isn’t really about six crypto accounts. It’s X putting a dollar figure on what the old incentive structure cost, then suing to collect it right as the new one goes live. For live updates on how the case and the new rewards program shake out, follow @Teslarati on X.

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