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SpaceX’s Starship rocket sails through first “flight-like” fueling test
SpaceX’s fully-assembled Starship rocket appears to have sailed through a major wet dress rehearsal test on the first attempt.
With the completion of that test, the next-generation SpaceX rocket has taken a big step toward its first orbital launch attempt. Starship measures around 120 meters (~394 ft) tall and 9 meters (~30 ft) wide, making it the largest rocket ever assembled. It’s designed to launch more than 100 metric tons (~220,000 lb) to low Earth orbit (LEO) in a fully-reusable configuration. At liftoff, Starship’s 33 Raptor engines will produce up to 7590 tons (16.7M lbf) of thrust, making it more powerful than any rocket in history by a large margin.
And on Monday, January 23rd, Starship likely became the heaviest rocket ever after SpaceX fully loaded the vehicle with propellant. Surprising most viewers, SpaceX also appeared to complete the complex test associated with that milestone without running into any major issues.
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
The apparent success is surprising because it simply hasn’t been SpaceX’s approach of choice while developing Starship. Since SpaceX began assembling Starhopper in an empty Texas field in 2018, the Starship program has been almost exclusively managed to prioritize speed and expect failures. The company almost always preferred to build, test, and learn from minimum-viable-product prototypes as quickly as possible, even if that meant that failures were guaranteed.
Because SpaceX expected failures, it learned from them and always had another prototype ready to carry the torch forward. Starship prototypes rarely completed ground or flight tests on the first try, as SpaceX was simultaneously learning – often catastrophically – how to test and operate those vehicles. The culmination of that failure-as-an-option strategy was a series of seven suborbital Starship tests – two short hops of identical prototypes and five launch and landing attempts of five more advanced prototypes between August 2020 and May 2021. On the fifth attempt, after four failures, a full-scale Starship successfully launched to 12.5 kilometers (~41,000 ft), shut off its engines, fell back to Earth, reignited its engines, flipped around, and landed in one piece.
By all appearances, the campaign was the ultimate corroboration of SpaceX’s development strategy. In the second half of 2022, however, SpaceX decided to dramatically change the Starship program’s approach to risk management and systems engineering. Starship testing has become exceptionally cautious over the last several months, as a result.
From fail-fast to slow-and-steady
There is a small chance SpaceX simply got lucky, but Starship’s first fully-assembled wet dress rehearsal test appears to indicate that that caution has paid off. Combined, both stages of the rocket – Ship 24 and Booster 7 – collectively completed dozens of separate proof tests and static fires since mid-2022. They also made it through several far more limited tests while stacked.
Having cautiously characterized each prototype about as well as it possibly could, SpaceX finally pulled the trigger on January 23rd. After hours of conditioning the Starbase, Texas orbital launch site’s giant tank farm, SpaceX opened the floodgates and loaded Ship 24 and Booster 7 with up to 4860 tons (~10.7M lbs) of cryogenic liquid oxygen and liquid methane propellant in about 90 minutes. Once fully loaded, the combined weight of the rocket and propellant likely exceeded 5000 tons (~11M lbs), making Starship the heaviest rocket in history. The next heaviest rockets ever built, Saturn V and N-1, weighed around 2800 tons (~6.2M lbs) fully loaded.
SpaceX was also able to drain Starship and return its propellant to the pad’s ground storage tanks about four hours after filling the rocket.
“Flight-like” testing
The company later confirmed that the test was a “full flight-like wet dress rehearsal,” as suspected, and noted that data gathered from it would “help verify a full launch countdown sequence, as well as the performance of Starship and the orbital pad for flight-like operations.” Parts of the test visible from unaffiliated webcasts like NASASpaceflight’s seemed to confirm as much. Shortly after Starship was fully loaded, for example, SpaceX activated the orbital launch mount’s fire extinguisher system, seemingly practicing the moments before the rocket would otherwise ignite its engines and take flight.
At no point during the wet dress rehearsal did SpaceX appear to enter any kind of hold or abort, indicating that the rocket’s systems were all working well enough together to smoothly complete it on the first try. The only mildly concerning behavior visible during the multi-hour test came shortly after Starship was topped off. Booster 7 opened one of its methane tank gas vents to relieve pressure and instead appeared to vent liquid methane, producing a flammable cloud thousands of feet long. More likely than not, the Super Heavy was slightly overfilled, and the liquid vent was an intentional response to that error. The cloud of methane thankfully did not find an ignition source, and Starship went on to finish the test as planned.
SpaceX has a lot of work left to prepare Ship 24 and Booster 7 for Starship’s first orbital launch attempt. Booster 7 must still complete one or several more static fires, during which it could become the most powerful rocket ever tested. To reduce risk, SpaceX will likely remove Ship 24 while testing Super Heavy, and reassemble the rocket only if Booster 7 passes its tests. SpaceX also needs to repair the pad after static fire testing and work with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to finalize Starship’s first orbital launch license.
But after many false positives, Starship’s successful completion of a wet dress rehearsal on the first try has confirmed that the rocket’s orbital launch debut is – for the first time – actually close at hand.
Tesla Cybertruck Lead Engineer Wes Morrill revealed the company has made several changes to the all-electric pickup, which he calls a “living thing, constantly evolving and improving.”
Cybertruck is manufactured at Tesla’s Gigafactory Texas just outside of Austin, and over the past few years, Tesla has continued to make small changes to the pickup to improve everything from cost, reliability, serviceablility, and manufacturability.
“The finish line isn’t getting to production. A product is a living thing, constantly evolving and improving,” Morrill added.
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Some of those changes are yet to be revealed, but perhaps the most notable one was the change Tesla made to the aero shield that sits underneath the truck. In the past, it was aluminum, but now the Cybertruck is using a self-reinforcing polypropylene.
Morrill said that the polypropylene is “stretched into fibers and then laminated into the form,” and is much more durable, much lighter, and significantly cheaper than aluminum when it is manufactured this way.
It also enabled some improvements in the geometry of the Cybertruck, improving the manufacturing around the bolts and edges, in addition to minor form changes. These all benefitted the Cybertruck in more ways than one: specifically with durability and improved drag.
I was surprised by how interested people were to find out we made a relatively benign change to the Cybertruck aero shield, a part of the car most people never even see. So I’ll share some more details.
Here are two photos, the left is one of the latest trucks off the… pic.twitter.com/F5cZo2CZKf
— Wes (@wmorrill3) September 7, 2026
Typically, Teslas are not necessarily identified by model year because these changes are fluid and occur when the company sees fit to implement them. It is not like other automotive companies, which usually make sweeping manufacturing changes when building a new model year.
Instead, Teslas are recognized by their “generation” or “era.” For example, those with a newer Model Y might refer to their car as a “Juniper.” This is the same with Model 3, as many refer to the new body style as the “Highland.”
Tesla’s manufacturing changes are proof of the company’s constant need to improve its products and move things forward with its vehicles. There is no need to drag one’s feet and wait until next year if the product can be made better right now, and that’s precisely what Tesla did with the Cybertruck.
Elon Musk
Tesla Cybercabs narrowly miss deadly Amazon cargo plane crash
An Amazon cargo plane crash near Miami’s airport stopped feet from dozens of Tesla Cybercabs.
An Amazon Prime Air Boeing 767 cargo jet overran the runway at Miami International Airport on Sunday afternoon, killing five people and injuring five more. The jet, operated by North Carolina based carrier 21 Air as Flight 7598, touched down around 2 p.m. after arriving from San Juan, Puerto Rico, then crossed the airport perimeter, plowed across NW 67th Avenue and struck multiple vehicles before catching fire, according to the Associated Press.
Photos and video from the scene show the aircraft’s nose stopped within meters of a fenced staging lot holding dozens of gold painted Tesla Cybercabs, the steering wheel free robotaxi Tesla began putting on public roads in Austin last week. Miami-Dade Fire Rescue has confirmed the plane struck “multiple vehicles” but has not said whether any Cybercabs were among them, and neither Tesla nor airport officials have addressed the fleet directly.
The Cybercabs had not yet entered commercial service in Miami. Tesla’s existing Robotaxi operation there runs on modified Model Y vehicles and has been unsupervised since Ashok Elluswamy confirmed the detail on X in July.
Footage of the plane crash from earlier today | #ONLYinDADE pic.twitter.com/iGoOtnd6cD
— ONLY in DADE (@ONLYinDADE) September 6, 2026
Elon Musk offered the briefest of reactions. Replying to a Zero Hedge post about the Cybercabs sitting so close to the wreckage, he wrote a single word: “Weird.” He has not commented further, and Tesla has not issued a statement.
The timing puts Tesla’s newest vehicle near an unrelated but highly visible tragedy just days after its Austin debut, a launch that had already drawn scrutiny from federal regulators. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration opened an audit how Tesla certified the Cybercab as compliant with federal vehicle safety standards, a process Teslarati covered after the vehicle’s September 3 launch event. That inquiry concerns the car’s lack of a steering wheel and pedals, not the Miami crash.
Investigators from the FAA and NTSB are focused on the plane, not the parking lot beside it. Flight data reviewed by outlets including Simple Flying show the 767 touched down around 170 knots, well above the 135 to 140 knot range typical for the aircraft, though investigators have not determined a cause. Amazon said it is working with authorities and that its priority is the safety of everyone affected.
Whether any Cybercabs were damaged, and what Tesla plans for the fleet parked near one of the country’s busiest airports, remain open questions.
Tesla has reached a notable benchmark in its autonomous driving program after its Robotaxi fleet surpassed one million miles of unsupervised operation. The company made the announcement during its Cybercab event in Austin on September 3.
Tesla Vice President of AI Ashok Elluswamy told attendees he was happy to report the fleet had achieved one million miles of unsupervised Robotaxi operation as a testament to safety.
The new total marked a sharp increase from the 380,000 unsupervised miles Tesla disclosed during its second-quarter 2026 earnings update in late July.
In roughly six weeks, the company added about 620,000 miles. That acceleration followed Tesla’s decision to remove in-vehicle safety monitors from most of its operations outside the San Francisco Bay Area.
Credit: Tesla
Tesla first launched Robotaxi service in Austin in June 2025 with safety drivers present. It later began fully unsupervised rides and expanded into Dallas, Houston, Miami, Orlando, and Tampa. The San Francisco Bay Area remains the exception, where a safety monitor still rides in the vehicle under California permitting rules.
The company has not released a city-by-city breakdown of the one million unsupervised miles.
The milestone arrived as Tesla began offering public Cybercab rides in Austin. The purpose-built vehicle has no steering wheel or pedals and is designed only for autonomous ride-hailing. Production versions joined the existing fleet of modified Tesla vehicles already operating in the service.
Tesla’s unsupervised mileage is growing at a double-digit weekly rate according to earlier company comments, yet its fleet size remains modest compared with established competitors. Waymo has accumulated more than 200 million fully autonomous rider-only miles. Tesla has described its own unsupervised operations as having recorded zero notable incidents in the period leading up to the July update.
The one-million-mile figure reflects Tesla’s shift from supervised testing to broader driverless service in multiple states. It also highlights the company’s strategy of using both existing Model Y vehicles and the new Cybercab to scale its network.
Credit: Tesla
Whether the rapid recent growth continues will depend on further city expansions, regulatory approvals, and the performance of the purpose-built Cybercab in everyday paid rides. Tesla has not specified how many of the latest miles involved the new vehicle versus the rest of the fleet.
The announcement underscores Tesla’s progress toward a larger robotaxi network while illustrating the remaining gap in total autonomous experience relative to longer-operating rivals.
Tesla Cybertruck engineer reveals new changes in ‘constantly evolving’ pickup
Tesla Cybercabs narrowly miss deadly Amazon cargo plane crash
