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SpaceX installs rocket-catching arms on Starship’s Florida launch tower
SpaceX has installed a pair of rocket-catching arms on a tower meant to support the first East Coast launches of its next-generation Starship rocket.
The company has been building the second of several planned Starship launch sites for more than three years. Ironically, work on that pad began before the company started building the pad that will actually support Starship’s first orbital launch attempts. Located a stone’s throw from the Gulf of Mexico in Boca Chica, Texas, the first iteration of SpaceX’s Starbase orbital launch site (OLS) is nearly complete and could host Starship’s orbital launch debut in a matter of months. SpaceX began constructing Starship’s Texas launch site in earnest in late 2020.
SpaceX broke ground on Starship’s first Florida OLS in late 2019. But the company went on to radically redesign the rocket and its ground systems, forcing it to entirely abandon about a year of work by the end of 2020. In late 2021, SpaceX finally began constructing the second iteration of Starship’s first Florida pad. OLS #2 is still colocated at Kennedy Space Center’s LC-39A pad, which SpaceX leases from NASA. Pad 39A is the only site currently capable of launching SpaceX’s Crew Dragon astronaut spacecraft or Falcon Heavy rocket, which has complicated its plans to use the same pad for Starship.
The update that's rolling out to the fleet makes full use of the front and rear steering travel to minimize turning circle. In this case a reduction of 1.6 feet just over the air— Wes (@wmorrill3) April 16, 2024
Because of NASA’s trepidation at the thought of a Starship failure indefinitely delaying SpaceX from completing its Crew Dragon or Falcon Heavy contracts for the agency, the company deprioritized Starship’s Florida pad, slowing progress. SpaceX has, nonetheless, made significant progress. In 13 months, SpaceX has created foundations, modified one of Pad 39A’s giant spherical tanks to store cryogenic methane, installed miles of plumbing, built and assembled a second skyscraper-sized Starship launch tower, installed the legs of the pad’s ‘orbital launch mount’ or OLM, installed a water deluge system at the base of the OLM, assembled most of the OLM’s donut-like mount offsite, constructed a new supersized storage tank, and delivered a forest of smaller storage tanks.
Most recently, SpaceX finished building a giant pair of steel arms, transported the arms to Pad 39A, attached them to a wheeled carriage, and installed the structure on Starship’s Florida launch tower. SpaceX employees have nicknamed the arms “chopsticks,” and those arms are integral to what CEO Elon Musk calls “Mechazilla”. Mechazilla refers to the combined launch tower and arms, which SpaceX has designed to grab, lift, stack, and fuel both stages of Starship.
Mechazilla’s simplest part is a third arm that is vertically fixed in place but capable of swinging left and right. The swing arm contains plumbing and an umbilical device that connects to Starship’s upper stage and supplies propellant, gas, power, and connectivity. The tower’s ‘chopsticks’ are far more complex. Giant hinges connect the pair of arms to a carriage that grabs onto three of the tower’s four legs with a dozen skate-like appendages. Those skates are outfitted with wheels, allowing the carriage to roll up and down tracks built into the tower’s legs.
The carriage, which also carries the complex hydraulic systems that allow its bus-sized arms to move, is connected by steel cable to a heavy-duty “draw works” capable of hoisting the multi-hundred-ton assembly up and down the tower. Once finished, the Florida tower’s arms will be able to precisely lift, maneuver, stack, and de-stack Starship and Super Heavy even in relatively windy conditions. At some point in the future, SpaceX may attempt to use its towers and chopsticks to catch Starships and Super Heavies out of mid-air and speed up reuse.
Set to be the largest, most powerful, and most capable rocket in history, Starship is primarily built out of steel and designed to be fully reusable. SpaceX has a long way to go to demonstrate that the 120-meter-tall (~390 ft) rocket can reach orbit, let alone be reused. In theory, though, Starship is meant to launch up to 150 metric tons (330,000 lb) to low Earth orbit (LEO) while still allowing for the recovery and reuse of its suborbital Super Heavy booster and orbital Starship upper stage.
If SpaceX can achieve those figures, Starship will be the most capable rocket in history even with the major performance penalties that full reusability entails. Saturn V, the most capable rocket ever flown, was fully expendable and could launch up to 118 metric tons (~260,000 lb) into orbit.
Due to NASA’s concerns about the risks that Starship launches from Pad 39A could pose to SpaceX’s Falcon and Dragon operations at the same site, the company’s next-generation rocket may have to wait until 2024 or 2025 for its first Florida launch. With the first Florida Mechazilla now close to completion, it’s likely that Pad 39A’s Starship launch site will be ready and waiting as soon as NASA gives SpaceX the green light.
Investor's Corner
Tesla unfolded its first European “folding Supercharger”
Tesla’s folding Supercharger just arrived in Europe and it changes how fast charging expands.
Tesla’s Folding Unit Supercharger has officially landed in Europe, with the company teasing a new installation in its effort for a broader rollout targeting major motorway rest stops across the European continent in Q3 2026. The arrival marks a notable shift in how Tesla is thinking about network expansion, moving from hardware performance alone to engineering the logistics chain itself.
While Tesla did not reveal the exact location for the new folding Supercharger in Europe, the photo shared on X heavily suggests that this maybe somewhere in Norway. Historically, whenever Tesla rolls out an entirely new infrastructure architecture in Europe, whether it was the original Supercharger stalls years ago or these brand-new modular V4 “Folding Units”, Norway is almost always the designated launch pad because of its unmatched EV adoption rate and supportive infrastructure
The Folding Unit, introduced in March 2026, is a factory pre-assembled V4 charging station built on an industrial hinge system mounted to a heavy-duty concrete base. The entire assembly arrives on site ready to unfold and connect. Tesla confirmed the units feature telescopic light poles specifically designed for easy transportation and fast on-site deployment, a detail that signals how carefully the logistics chain has been engineered alongside the hardware itself. The design allows 33% more stalls per delivery truck, cuts installation time roughly in half, and reduces overall deployment costs by more than 20% compared to traditional installations.
Tesla’s newest “Folding V4 Superchargers” are key to its most aggressive expansion yet
Tesla also noted telescopic light poles which provide benefits over traditional Supercharger installations that require fixed-height poles that are awkward to ship, slow to position on site, and often require separate crews and equipment to erect before charging hardware can even be staged. By engineering poles that compress for transit and extend on arrival, Tesla has removed one of the quieter bottlenecks in the physical deployment process. Every hour saved on a light pole installation is an hour redirected toward getting stalls energized. At scale, across dozens of new sites per quarter, those hours add up to a meaningful acceleration in how quickly a location goes from approved permit to serving its first customer.
Each Folding Unit pairs a single V4 power cabinet with eight charging posts. The V4 cabinet delivers up to 500 kW per stall for passenger vehicles and up to 1.2 MW for the Tesla Semi, supporting twice the stalls per cabinet at three times the power density of its predecessor. Longer cables make every new station immediately usable by non-Tesla vehicles, a priority as Tesla continues opening its network to Ford, GM, Rivian, Hyundai, Stellantis, and others.
As Teslarati reported when the Folding Unit was first unveiled, Tesla’s Gigafactory New York produced its final V3 Supercharger cabinet in March 2026 after more than seven years and 15,000 units, completing a full pivot to V4 production. The European arrival of the folding design is the next chapter in that transition.
Faster and cheaper deployment means Tesla can justify building in markets and corridors that were previously too expensive to serve, filling the coverage gaps that have slowed EV adoption outside major urban centers.
First Folding Unit Superchargers in Europe 🇪🇺 https://t.co/KNfYWJukkL pic.twitter.com/YR1udIpH1i
— Tesla Charging (@TeslaCharging) June 10, 2026
Tesla has stunned by gaining yet another approval for its Full Self-Driving suite in Europe, its second in two days and its fifth overall.
Belgium will be the latest country to allow Tesla owners to utilize FSD on public roads in Europe, joining a quickly growing list that started with the Netherlands, Lithuania, and Estonia.
On Tuesday, Denmark announced its approval of the FSD suite, which has now been followed by Belgium just one day later.
The country’s Minister of Mobility, Annick De Ridder, announced the approval on her X account, stating that she had just signed the approval of Tesla FSD. It now goes to the country’s homologation department for the last step of the approval process.
De @Tesla community houdt hier al geruime tijd de vinger aan de pols over de toelating voor de FSD-technologie op onze Vlaamse en Belgische wegen.
Uit waardering voor jullie niet-aflatende interesse (en aanmoediging 😉), krijgen jullie hierbij de primeur: ik heb net de toelating… pic.twitter.com/Yrps4OHTj8— Annick De Ridder (@AnnickDeRidder) June 10, 2026
The Belgian approval is one of mighty importance because it truly shows how quickly countries in Europe could greenlight the FSD suite consecutively. Approvals are already coming in relatively quickly, which is a great sign.
Perhaps the next big development that could come from FSD approvals in Europe is an approval from a country like England, Italy, France, Spain, or Germany. It would be something to see how FSD would perform in a major European metro, such as London, Barcelona, Madrid, Paris, Rome, or Berlin.
Getting Full Self-Driving in Spain and England will be such huge milestones for Tesla. I am so excited to see how FSD performs in Madrid, Barcelona, and London, specifically.
The ultimate test will always be Mumbai or New Delhi. Excited for India’s eventual approval! https://t.co/paw9Ch1qmL pic.twitter.com/9RdDERVSSJ
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) June 9, 2026
Full Self-Driving does an excellent job of roaming around major U.S. cities like New York and Los Angeles, but other high-profile international cities of significance would truly mark a line in the sand for Tesla, which can simply enable any vehicle in its customer-owned fleet to run FSD with the correct approvals.
SpaceX CEO Elon Musk recently confronted worries about orbital data centers and launching satellites in mass quantities in space, as some voiced concerns about crowding.
Musk’s SpaceX plans to combat the issue of needing data centers by launching them into space instead of taking up valuable real estate on Earth. It has been a major point of SpaceX’s future, including its looming IPO, which could be the largest ever.
In a recent interview filmed at SpaceX’s Starlink terminal factory in Bastrop, Texas, Elon Musk directly addressed concerns that deploying large numbers of AI satellites for orbital data centers could crowd Earth’s orbit. His message was straightforward and reassuring: space is vast beyond human intuition.
“Space is really big,” Musk said. “It’s not like space is gonna get crowded. Space is enormous. If you actually look at it relative to the Earth, the satellites are so tiny you can’t even see them.” He emphasized that even zooming in makes a satellite appear large, but from a planetary perspective, they are minuscule specks.
Elon on concerns that AI satellites will crowd space:
“Space is really big. It’s not like space is gonna get crowded. Space is enormous. If you actually look at it relative to the earth, the satellites are so tiny you can’t even see them.” https://t.co/Mvr7NpL25Q pic.twitter.com/5Fi629Rii7
— Sawyer Merritt (@SawyerMerritt) June 8, 2026
Musk pointed to SpaceX’s real-world experience operating roughly 10,000 Starlink satellites as evidence that large constellations can be managed safely. “We’ve got a pretty good idea of how to operate just really large constellations and do it safely,” he noted. SpaceX remains the only operator with meaningful experience at this scale, giving the company unique insight into tight orbital packing without compromising safety
The discussion highlighted SpaceX’s plans for “AI1” satellites—essentially orbiting racks of AI compute powered by massive solar arrays and cooled via radiative panels in space’s vacuum.
These satellites leverage proven Starlink V3 technology, making them simpler to design than communications satellites. A first-generation unit targets around 150 kW peak power, with a 70-meter wingspan for solar panels and radiators. Laser links will connect them to each other and the Starlink network, delivering low-latency access (on the order of a few milliseconds from low-Earth orbit).
FCC accepts SpaceX filing for 1 million orbital data center plan
Musk framed orbital data centers as a practical solution to Earth’s constraints on AI growth. Ground-based facilities face power shortages, water demands for cooling, and grid limitations. In space, constant sunlight (no day-night cycle), vacuum radiative cooling, and abundant solar energy offer clear advantages.
Production will ramp up at an expanded “Gigasat” factory in Bastrop, with solar manufacturing already underway and full AI satellite output expected at reasonable volume by the end of 2027. Starship’s rapid, high-volume launch capability, aiming for multiple flights per hour, will make massive deployment feasible.
Critics sometimes raise risks like space debris or Kessler syndrome, but Musk’s response underscores scale: even a million satellites would represent an imperceptible fraction of available orbital volume when viewed against Earth’s size. SpaceX’s automated collision avoidance and deorbiting designs for Starlink further mitigate concerns.
This vision ties into broader ambitions. Musk sees orbital AI compute as a step toward harnessing more of the Sun’s energy, advancing humanity on the Kardashev scale from a Type 0 civilization toward Type 1 and eventually Type 2. By moving power-hungry data centers off-planet, SpaceX aims to unlock orders-of-magnitude more compute while preserving Earth’s resources.
Musk’s comments should ease public anxiety. With proven operational expertise, incremental engineering, and the immensity of space itself, orbital data centers represent not overcrowding, but smart expansion into the final frontier.
Tesla unfolded its first European “folding Supercharger”
Tesla stuns with another FSD approval in Europe, its second in two days
