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SpaceX preparing giant crane to assemble Starship’s first Florida launch tower
SpaceX has begun staging and assembling parts of a giant crane it will soon need to stack Starship’s first East Coast launch tower and install other major launch pad components.
The presence of the base of that crane at SpaceX’s NASA Kennedy Space Center (KSC) Launch Complex 39A was visually confirmed by NASASpaceflight.com photographers during a weekly aerial tour of the area on June 3rd. Four days later, Teslarati photographer Richard Angle observed more major crane components on their way to Pad 39A, including the crane’s cabin.
More likely than not, the crane SpaceX or its contractor has begun assembling at 39A is a Liebherr LR 11350, the same kind of crane the company used to assemble Starship’s first orbital launch site and tower in South Texas. In fact, given how few LR 11350s there are in existence, it’s entirely possible that it’s the exact same crane. Assembly of that crane began around April 2021 and took a month and a half, at which point it was finally ready to lift an extended boom long enough to assemble a tower almost 500 feet (~150 meters) tall.
Pad 39A’s Starship launch tower is expected to be very similar to Starbase’s, although it will undoubtedly carry over numerous design changes thanks to lessons learned while building and outfitting the first tower. In fact, SpaceX has already assembled five of the nine individual sections that will eventually be stacked to form that tower, and one such change is already obvious. Instead of stacking each tower section as soon as its barebones framework is complete, SpaceX is taking a more methodical approach to its second launch tower. In an apparent attempt to limit the amount of work that needs to be done at Pad 39A itself, each of those segments is being thoroughly outfitted with secondary structures (ladders, doors, walkways, frames, raceways, etc.) before stacking.
SpaceX may even pre-install most of the thousands of feet of plumbing needed to connect a Starship to ground systems located around 90 meters (~300 ft) below it. Once stacked, each section – including all those partial propellant and gas lines – will still need to be joined together, but that process should be far easier than fully installing all the systems the tower needs to do its job. Outfitting Starbase’s launch tower, for example, took SpaceX around half a year and, to some extent, is still ongoing 11 months after the final stack. That likely explains why Starship’s 39A tower section assembly appears to be taking more time. With any luck, partially combining the outfitting and section assembly stages will significantly expedite final assembly, as far less work will need to be done at extreme heights or require a skyscraper-sized crane.
Through Starbase, SpaceX has already demonstrated the ability to stack a Starship launch tower from its unoccupied concrete base to its final height of ~145 meters (~475 ft) in about two months flat. While SpaceX will have to slalom its way around Pad 39A’s busy launch manifest, there’s no reason to believe that Starship’s first Florida launch tower won’t be stacked at least as quickly.
Aside from the arrival of crane parts, SpaceX has also made great progress on the Starship launch site itself. In the last few weeks, the company appears to have completed several significant concrete pours on the tower base. SpaceX has also installed all six of the pedestal-like orbital launch mount’s legs after months of foundation work. Elsewhere at Cape Canaveral, a different team has made excellent progress assembling the massive donut-like platform that will sit on top of those legs. Due to its extreme weight (possibly around 300 metric tons, per Elon Musk’s comments on the Starbase mount), the same LR 11350 crane will also be needed for that major installation milestone.
Plenty of parts are still missing, of course. Four tower sections still need to be assembled. Starship’s first Florida launch tower will need its own set of two ‘chopstick’ arms for lifting and (maybe) catching Starship and Super Heavy, as well as a third swinging quick-disconnect arm to connect Starship to ground systems. Aside from delivering several new tanks, SpaceX has also made no apparent progress on adding a massive methane propellant farm to Pad 39A, and it’s possible that the pad’s oxygen farm will also need to be expanded. Propellant storage has proven to be a major headache for SpaceX at Starbase.
Nonetheless, SpaceX is making great progress on most of the most difficult parts of Starship’s first Florida launch site, and there’s a good chance that just like its launch mount, work on the pad’s tower arms is already underway somewhere offsite. A great deal of work remains to be done but SpaceX is still well on its way to launching Starships out of Kennedy Space Center in the not-too-distant future.
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Tesla has started to deploy the 2026 Summer Update to owners across its fleet, and among the biggest changes are improvements to Navigation, a new startup animation for the Model 3 and Model Y, Caraoke scoring, and new capabilities for Grok.
As the update has started making its way to some cars, we can now see a few of the features operating in real-time. We will show you what some of the new features look like in this article, along with some additional details on what changed.
Not all of the new features in the 2026 Summer Update have quite made an appearance, but some of them have, so we’ll show those here:
New Animation Screen for 3/Y
Tesla is rolling out a new startup animation for Tesla Model 3 and Model Y owners. This is present in Launch Edition and Performance Model 3 and Model Y, but other trim levels do not have anything like this.
The new animation screen on Model 3/Y with the 2026 Summer Update
Apparently color will also be customizable: pic.twitter.com/wSdwggtG3S
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) July 27, 2026
Owners can adjust the color associated with the startup animation to suit their preferences. It is a surprise that more automakers do not focus on this animation for their vehicles; it can be a great first impression piece and make the car immediately feel more luxurious.
Tesla has included this on more premium trims, but it is nice to see it on the Model 3 and Model Y.
Grok Improvements
Grok can now adjust more things in the car outside of the Navigation system. Now, drivers can adjust anything from climate to driving settings by simply speaking to the AI assistant in the car:
@Tesla‘s AI assistant (Grok) with its new vehicle commands in action.
Set the climate, your destination and vehicle settings all in one go! pic.twitter.com/0bBTqaAk6G
— Not a Tesla App (@NotATeslaApp) July 28, 2026
You don’t even have to push a button, either. Instead, you can just say “Hey, Grok,” if you have it enabled. That feature rolled out with the 2026 Spring Update just a few months back.
This is a great feature, especially pertinent for the Robotaxi platform, as there will be no buttons inside the Cybercab when it eventually starts giving rides to the public. It also broadens Grok’s capabilities, which were relatively limited in terms of vehicle setting adjustments beforehand.
Tesla briefly offered one Robotaxi part in its Parts Catalog for your personal car, only to remove it just a short time after it was first noticed.
Tesla’s Robotaxi camera washer apparatus was briefly available for purchase on the company’s Online Parts Catalog. The camera washer was first noticed on Model Y Robotaxi vehicles about six months ago in Austin.
🚨 Tesla looks to have installed Camera Washers on the side repeater cameras on Robotaxis in Austin
pic.twitter.com/xemRtDtlRR— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) January 23, 2026
First noticed by Not a Tesla App, the Camera Washer entries appeared for the new “Juniper” Model Y under a category called “Halo,” which has also now disappeared. Interestingly, Halo probably is related to Tesla’s internal “Project Halo,” which was a project that aimed to retrofit customer-owned Model Ys into functional Robotaxis.
This hardware addition would likely be required for the vehicle to operate as a Robotaxi, as the Camera Washer seems to be a non-negotiable part of the vision-based system Tesla utilizes for self-driving efforts.
However, this part has since been removed and is no longer visible on the EPC.
Now the true question lingers: Why would Tesla add this Camera Washer to the Model Y parts catalog? Is it planning to make it available for owners to utilize on their own cars for personal use, or will it become a prerequisite for Robotaxi operation in customer-owned cars?
While discussing the upgrade options for Hardware 3 vehicles during the Q1 Earnings Call, Tesla CEO Elon Musk had said that the company could establish small, satellite shops that would upgrade cameras and self-driving computers. Perhaps this same strategy could be utilized for vehicles that want to be included in Robotaxi but do not have the correct hardware.
AI4 is currently represented as capable of unsupervised self-driving, and the same was said about HW3 at one point, only for Tesla to admit last quarter that it would, unfortunately, not be possible. Perhaps AI4 vehicles might need this camera washer as a prerequisite, just as HW3 cars will need that camera and computer upgrade.
This could be the first hint of that’s where we are headed.
Tesla has started rolling out a broader change to the ride experience for its Robotaxi fleet by silencing turn signals, but the change is certainly polarizing.
Tesla has generally made it clear that its purpose-built ride-hailing platform, Robotaxi, will cater to the rider in nearly every way possible. This includes having climate preferences, music, and other personal settings loaded up in the car as the rider enters.
But Tesla is taking it a step further by muting turn signal chimes altogether, a change that appears to be a way to make the ride more peaceful:
Tesla has finally turned off the blinker/turn signal noises in their Model Y Robotaxis.
This is a small update, but will definitely be noticeable for riders. It didn’t really make much sense to leave the turn signal sound on when it’s Unsupervised. pic.twitter.com/ITwx60PAMO
— Sawyer Merritt (@SawyerMerritt) July 27, 2026
However, there are a handful of people who are not thrilled about this change. Turn signals are a conditioned part of the human mind for those who ride in a car regularly.
Taking a turn without one feels strange and odd, and not hearing it click while activated could set off some alarms for riders, who might use the noise as confirmation that other drivers know of their intention to turn.
I kind of like it being on, threw me off when riding with Zoox who has had it disabled
— Dan Burkland (@DBurkland) July 27, 2026
Turn signal noises are still audible in customer cars, so if you use FSD in your personal vehicle, you will still hear the turn signal.
The move is certainly one that is unique, but not one that separates it from other ride-sharing services. In a normal car, the clicking sound confirms to the driver that the blinker is active. In a fully driverless Robotaxi, that feedback serves no purpose for passengers, other than peace of mind.
Tesla unlocks in-car web conferencing to extend Google Meet, Teams and beyond
Tesla Summer Update begins rolling out: a look at the new features
