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SpaceX’s first two Super Heavy boosters making good progress towards test debuts
SpaceX is making good progress on Starship’s first two Super Heavy boosters, both of which could potentially be ready for their first major test campaigns before the end of the year.
On November 19th, some ten weeks after the process began, SpaceX craned Super Heavy B5’s methane (LCH4) tank on top of its oxygen (LOx) tank, marking the end of major structural assembly for the 69m (~225′) tall booster. A team of welders has since been working around the clock to weld the two tanks together and complete a transfer tube that routes methane propellant down through B5’s oxygen tank.
Two days prior, CEO Elon Musk shared a photo of SpaceX’s other Super Heavy booster (B4) which has been slowly progressing towards test readiness for more than three months. It’s unclear why SpaceX has been so sluggish to prepare Super Heavy B4 for testing but with B5 finally approaching the finish line, the company will soon find itself in a position where it will need to decide which booster to proceed with towards the program’s near-term end goal: the first orbital Starship test flight.
Once Booster 5’s two halves are welded together, only a few things will set it and Booster 4 apart. In recent weeks, SpaceX’s slow progress on Super Heavy B4 relented a bit as technicians began closing out the booster’s raceway (a conduit for plumbing, wiring, and avionics) with basic covers. More importantly, SpaceX also began reinstalling Raptor engines and installing heat shielding around those engines for the first time. In the photo Musk published on November 17th, that heat shield is easily visible and there are signs that it will ultimately enclose the entire outer ring of 20 Raptor Boost engines above their nozzles.
Once complete, that shield will theoretically protect each engine’s nest of sensitive plumbing and wiring during static fires; ascent, boostback, and landing burns; and – most importantly – reentry. Unlike Falcon boosters, which always perform a ~30-second, three-engine ‘reentry burn’ to slow down and cushion the blow of reentry heating, SpaceX plans to recover steel Super Heavy boosters without reentry burns. In theory, that should making booster recovery more efficient, allowing another dozen or so tons of propellant to go towards sending Starship to orbit instead of landing.
As of November 17th, SpaceX has reinstalled all 29 Raptor engines on Booster 4, partially finished the outer ring of Raptor heat shields, and set the stage for more heat shielding around its 9 center engines and the gap between those inner and outer Raptors. Shielding the Raptor Center engines in a way that still seals off Super Heavy’s aft will be even more challenging given that all nine need to be able to freely gimbal to vector their thrust, while the outer ring of 20 Raptor Boost (RB) engines are fixed in place. At pace of work established over the last few months, it will likely take SpaceX several more weeks to finish that heat shield and install seven ‘aerocovers’ over racks of sensitive equipment installed around Booster 4’s base.
Super Heavy Booster 5, on the other hand, has taken a slightly different path through assembly. Unlike Booster 4, which first rolled out as little more than a giant steel tank with Raptors half-installed, SpaceX appears to have installed most of Booster 5’s external plumbing, wiring, equipment racks, and maybe even the start of its Raptor heat shield during assembly instead of after. Perhaps as a result, SpaceX has taken more than ten weeks to stack Booster 5 versus 2.5 weeks for Booster 4. But given that Booster 4 still doesn’t appear to be complete some 18 weeks after its assembly began, there’s a chance that Booster 5 will ultimately take 4-6 weeks less to reach initial test readiness.
If SpaceX does complete Super Heavy B5 well ahead of B4’s schedule, it will soon find itself with two test-ready Starship boosters but only one orbital-class stand with which to test them, potentially forcing the company to make some interesting decisions.
Elon Musk
SpaceX Board has set a Mars bonus for Elon Musk
SpaceX has given Elon Musk the goal to put one million people on Mars.
SpaceX’s board approved a compensation plan for Elon Musk that ties his pay directly to colonizing Mars and building data centers in outer space. The details surfaced this week after Reuters reviewed SpaceX’s confidential registration statement filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, making it one of the first concrete looks inside the company’s financials ahead of a public offering.
The pay package will reportedly award Musk 200 million super-voting restricted shares if the company hits a market valuation milestone, with the most ambitious targets going further. To unlock the full award, SpaceX would need to reach a $7.5 trillion valuation and help establish a permanent human settlement on Mars with at least one million residents. Additional incentives are tied to developing space-based computing infrastructure capable of delivering at least 100 terawatts of processing power.
SpaceX wins its first MARS contract but it comes with a catch
Long before SpaceX filed anything with the SEC, Elon Musk had already spent years framing Mars colonization as an insurance policy against human extinction. The philosophy traces back to at least 2001, when Musk first began researching Mars missions independently, before SpaceX even existed. By 2002 he had founded the company with Mars as the stated long-term goal.
In a 2017 presentation at the International Astronautical Congress, Musk outlined the specific vision that still underpins SpaceX’s architecture today. He described a self-sustaining city on Mars requiring roughly one million people to become viable, the same number now written into his compensation package.
SpaceX’s Starship, still in active development, was designed from the ground up to support the eventual colonization of Mars. Musk has stated publicly that getting the cost per ton to Mars below $100,000 is necessary to make mass migration economically feasible. Everything from Starship’s payload capacity to its full reusability targets flows from that single constraint. One can say that Musk’s latest compensation package has put a formal valuation on Mars for the first time.
SpaceX is targeting an IPO around June 28, Musk’s birthday, at a valuation of approximately $1.75 trillion. Between the Mars rover contract, the Golden Dome software group, Space Force satellite launches, and now a pay structure built around interplanetary colonization, SpaceX has become the single most consequential contractor in American space and defense. The IPO will put a public price tag on all of it for the first time.
Earlier this week, we wrote a story on how Tesla is launching a new Supercharging Queue system to mitigate problems between drivers when there is a wait to charge.
Rather than potentially having people end up in a physical conflict, Tesla’s approach is to determine who is next to charge based on geographic data.
Tesla launches solution to end Supercharger fights once and for all
But some companies, notably Tesla’s biggest rival in China, BYD, are taking a different approach, focusing on charging speeds rather than how they will manage delays.
BYD’s approach, especially with its tests of ultra-fast “Flash Charging” technology, is to eliminate the length of a charging session. At the heart of this strategy is BYD’s second-generation Blade Battery paired with 1,500-kW Flash Chargers.
Real-world FLASH Charging in action.
⚡ 10% → 70% in 5 minutes
⚡ 10% → 97% in 9 minutesIntroducing BYD’s 2nd Generation Blade Battery + FLASH Charging Technology.
20,000 stations will bring faster, safer, and smarter EV charging across China by the end of 2026. pic.twitter.com/uzQC8q1xGf
— BYD (@BYDCompany) March 9, 2026
Unveiled earlier this year, the system charges compatible vehicles from 10 percent to 70 percent state of charge in just five minutes and from 10 percent to 97 percent in nine minutes.
Real-world demonstrations on models like the Yangwang U7 and Denza Z9 GT have shown the tech delivering roughly 250 miles (400 kilometers) of range in just five minutes. This would essentially match or beat the time it takes to fill a gas tank.
Sometimes, gas pumps get congested, and there are lines. You rarely see conflicts at pumps because filling up a tank rarely takes more than five minutes.
Tesla’s fastest Supercharger build currently is the v4, which can deliver up to 325 kW for Cybertruck and 250 kW for other models, but there are “true” sites that are capable of up to 500 kW. This enables speeds of up to 1,000 miles per hour, or 1,400 miles for 350 kW-capable vehicles.
The breakthrough stems from BYD’s vertically integrated ecosystem: a new 1,000-volt architecture, 10C charging rates, and proprietary silicon-carbide chips that minimize internal resistance while protecting battery health.
The company plans to install 20,000 Flash Charging stations across China by the end of 2026, with thousands already operational and global expansion eyed for Europe and beyond later this year.
Early rollout targets popular models, including upgrades to high-volume sellers like the Seal and Sealion series, bringing five-minute charging to mainstream prices around 100,000 yuan (about $14,000).
This approach contrasts sharply with Tesla’s software solution. Tesla’s Virtual Queue uses geofencing and the app to assign turns at crowded sites, addressing driver disputes and idle time. It’s a clever fix for today’s network realities.
Yet, BYD’s philosophy is simpler: make charging so fast that waits barely exist. A five-minute stop becomes as convenient as a gas-station visit, reducing station dwell time, easing grid strain, and lowering range anxiety for long trips.
For consumers, the difference is potentially tangible. They’ll spend more time driving and less time parked. It is just another way Tesla and BYD are pushing one another to improve the overall experience of EV ownership.
News
Tesla wins big as NHTSA drops three-year, 120k unit probe against Model Y
In all, 120,089 Model Ys were impacted, but in two cases, drivers reported the complete detachment of the steering wheel from the steering column while the vehicle was in motion. NHTSA’s initial review revealed that the vehicles had been delivered without the critical retaining bolt that secures the steering wheel to the splined steering column.
A probe into over 120,000 2023 Tesla Model Y units has been closed by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). The probe ends without the agency requiring any action from Tesla.
The probe, designated PE23-003, opened in March 2023 and stemmed from just two consumer complaints involving low-mileage Model Y SUVs.
In all, 120,089 Model Ys were impacted, but in two cases, drivers reported the complete detachment of the steering wheel from the steering column while the vehicle was in motion. NHTSA’s initial review revealed that the vehicles had been delivered without the critical retaining bolt that secures the steering wheel to the splined steering column.
NHTSA has ended a probe into over 120,000 Tesla Model Y vehicles after claims that the steering wheel could detach from the steering column due to a missing retaining bolt
There is no action needed by Tesla pic.twitter.com/YpAO3bKugA
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) April 28, 2026
Factory records showed each car had undergone an “end-of-line” repair at Tesla’s facility, during which the steering wheel was removed and reinstalled. The bolt was apparently omitted after the repair, leaving only a friction fit between the wheel and column to hold it in place temporarily.
According to NHTSA documents, this friction fit maintained the connection during initial low-mileage driving until forces during normal operation caused the wheel to detach. Both vehicles that were impacted were repaired under warranty with no injuries reported, and no additional incidents surfaced during the agency’s three-year review.
After analyzing manufacturing processes, complaint data, and field reports, NHTSA concluded the issue was isolated to those two post-repair vehicles rather than indicative of a systemic defect in Tesla’s production or quality control.
The closure means the agency has determined no recall or further enforcement is warranted for this specific missing-bolt condition.
This outcome marks the second NHTSA investigation into Tesla closed without action this month, as a recent probe into the company’s “Actually Smart Summon” feature was also resolved in April.
The two resolutions provide some relief for Tesla amid the continuous and somewhat unfair regulatory scrutiny of its vehicles, including open inquiries into driver assistance systems.
Importantly, the closed probe does not involve or affect Tesla’s separate May 2023 voluntary recall of certain 2022-2023 Model Y vehicles. That recall addressed a different issue—steering-wheel fasteners that were installed but not torqued to specification—prompted by a service technician’s observation of a loose wheel during unrelated repairs.
Tesla identified a small number of related warranty claims and proactively addressed the matter without NHTSA mandate.
The Model Y remains one of the world’s best-selling vehicles, and Tesla continues to refine its lineup, including the recent “Juniper” refresh. While federal oversight of the electric vehicle pioneer remains intense, this decision underscores that isolated manufacturing anomalies do not always translate into broader safety defects requiring recalls.
SpaceX Board has set a Mars bonus for Elon Musk
Tesla’s biggest rivals fights charging wait times with a modern approach
