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SpaceX installs orbital Starship heat shield prototype with robots
SpaceX has begun large-scale Starship heat shield installation tests with the help of robots delivered last month in a sign that the company has already begun preparing for the rocket’s first orbital flight test campaign.
Designed to eventually replace SpaceX’s workhorse Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy launch vehicles, Starship is a fully-reusable two-stage rocket powered by methane and oxygen-fueled Raptor engines. Just like Falcon 9, Starship’s first stage (known as Super Heavy) will launch the combined spacecraft and upper stage to an altitude of 70 to 100 km (40-65 mi) and velocity of ~2.5 to 3 kilometers per second (1.5-1.9 mi/s). Super Heavy will separate, boost back towards land, and either land back at the launch pad or on a floating platform.
SpaceX already has extensive experience launching, landing, and reusing orbital-class rocket boosters thanks to Falcon 9 and Heavy, which have completed 57 landings and been reused 39 times in less than five years. The Starship upper stage, however, will have to survive orbital-velocity atmospheric reentries some 3 to 5 times faster and exponentially more energetic than Super Heavy boosters. To do so routinely while keeping Starship cost and complexity low and reusability high, SpaceX will have to develop an unprecedentedly effective heat shield that is easier to install, maintain, and reuse than anything that has come before it.
As with all SpaceX programs, the company began Starship heat shield installation development as soon as possible, installing a handful of tiles (presumably early-stage prototypes) on Starhopper as far back as H1 2019. This continued with small hexagonal tile installation tests on Starships SN1, SN3, SN4, SN5, and SN6 throughout 2020. While those coupon tests obviously didn’t involve orbital-class reentry heating or buffeting, they were still useful to characterize the mechanical behavior of heat shield tiles under the stress of cryogenic propellant loading, Raptor static fires, and hop tests.
In 2019, SpaceX even tested a few ceramic Starship heat shield tiles on an orbital Cargo Dragon mission for NASA. The fact that no more orbital Cargo or Crew Dragon tests were acknowledged seems to suggest that the demonstration was a success, proving that the tiles can stand up to the stresses of reentry from low Earth orbit (LEO).
Behind the scenes, SpaceX is assuredly performing extensive laboratory-style tests with tiles and an agreement signed with NASA Ames Research Center confirmed that the company is using the facility’s arcjet to physically simulate the conditions of orbital-velocity reentry. Tests on the scale of a full Starship, however, are an entirely different story.
The first signs of large-scale heat shield installation testing appeared on July 9th when local resident and photographer Andrew Goetsch (Nomadd) captured photos of a test coupon covering half of an entire steel Starship ring. In April 2020, CEO Elon Musk confirmed on Twitter that the current design involved affixed heat shield tiles directly to Starship’s steel hull with steel studs. It’s unclear how exactly the company is installing steel studs directly onto the ~4mm (0.15 in) thick skins of a pressure vessel or if an off -the-shelf solution was available but Nomadd’s July 9th photos explicitly show the process required to refine the settings on the mystery stud installer.
One month after Nomadd’s spotting, three weeks after a robot delivery, and five days after one of those robots – labeled “HEAT SHIELD – was spotted in action, the first large-scale heat shield installation test article was spotted inside one of SpaceX’s several production tents. The team involved clearly had some fun with the process, installing the tiles in the form of a SpaceX “X”.
In retrospect, robots could be a perfect solution for the affordable, high-volume installation of the thousands of heat shield tiles a single Starship will need. Once tolerances are high enough, it’s conceivable that multiple different Starship sections could be individually outfitted with studs and heat shield tiles by robot, inspected by humans, and joined together to form a complete Starship. Humans would likely need to manually install a gap of tiles around the weld lines of those final sections, but the manual installation work would be reduced to a minimum while keeping the required infrastructure dead simple.
Ultimately, a great deal of work remains before SpaceX can even begin to feasibly attempt orbital Starship test flights, but it’s hard not to get excited by the fact that some of that preparatory work has already visibly begun in South Texas.
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Tesla Model Y and Model 3 named safest vehicles tested by ANCAP in 2025
According to ANCAP in a press release, the Tesla Model Y achieved the highest overall weighted score of any vehicle assessed in 2025.
The Tesla Model Y recorded the highest overall safety score of any vehicle tested by ANCAP in 2025. The Tesla Model 3 also delivered strong results, reinforcing the automaker’s safety leadership in Australia and New Zealand.
According to ANCAP in a press release, the Tesla Model Y achieved the highest overall weighted score of any vehicle assessed in 2025. ANCAP’s 2025 tests evaluated vehicles across four key pillars: Adult Occupant Protection, Child Occupant Protection, Vulnerable Road User Protection, and Safety Assist technologies.
The Model Y posted consistently strong results in all four categories, distinguishing itself through a system-based safety approach that combines structural crash protection with advanced driver-assistance features such as autonomous emergency braking, lane support, and driver monitoring.
This marked the second time the Model Y has topped ANCAP’s annual safety rankings. The Model Y’s previous version was also ANCAP’s top performer in 2022.
The Tesla Model 3 also delivered a strong performance in ANCAP’s 2025 tests, contributing to Tesla’s broader safety presence across segments. Similar to the Model Y, the Model 3 also earned impressive scores across the ANCAP’s four pillars. This made the vehicle the top performer in the Medium Car category.
ANCAP Chief Executive Officer Carla Hoorweg stated that the results highlight a growing industry shift toward integrated safety design, with improvements in technologies such as autonomous emergency braking and lane support translating into meaningful real-world protection.
“ANCAP’s testing continues to reinforce a clear message: the safest vehicles are those designed with safety as a system, not a checklist. The top performers this year delivered consistent results across physical crash protection, crash avoidance and vulnerable road user safety, rather than relying on strength in a single area.
“We are also seeing increasing alignment between ANCAP’s test requirements and the safety technologies that genuinely matter on Australian and New Zealand roads. Improvements in autonomous emergency braking, lane support, and driver monitoring systems are translating into more robust protection,” Hoorweg said.
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Tesla Sweden uses Megapack battery to bypass unions’ Supercharger blockade
Just before Christmas, Tesla went live with a new charging station in Arlandastad, outside Stockholm, by powering it with a Tesla Megapack battery.
Tesla Sweden has successfully launched a new Supercharger station despite an ongoing blockade by Swedish unions, using on-site Megapack batteries instead of traditional grid connections. The workaround has allowed the Supercharger to operate without direct access to Sweden’s electricity network, which has been effectively frozen by labor action.
Tesla has experienced notable challenges connecting its new charging stations to Sweden’s power grid due to industrial action led by Seko, a major Swedish trade union, which has blocked all new electrical connections for new Superchargers. On paper, this made the opening of new Supercharger sites almost impossible.
Despite the blockade, Tesla has continued to bring stations online. In Malmö and Södertälje, new Supercharger locations opened after grid operators E.ON and Telge Nät activated the sites. The operators later stated that the connections had been made in error.
More recently, however, Tesla adopted a different strategy altogether. Just before Christmas, Tesla went live with a new charging station in Arlandastad, outside Stockholm, by powering it with a Tesla Megapack battery, as noted in a Dagens Arbete (DA) report.
Because the Supercharger station does not rely on a permanent grid connection, Tesla was able to bypass the blocked application process, as noted by Swedish car journalist and YouTuber Peter Esse. He noted that the Arlandastad Supercharger is likely dependent on nearby companies to recharge the batteries, likely through private arrangements.
Eight new charging stalls have been launched in the Arlandastad site so far, which is a fraction of the originally planned 40 chargers for the location. Still, the fact that Tesla Sweden was able to work around the unions’ efforts once more is impressive, especially since Superchargers are used even by non-Tesla EVs.
Esse noted that Tesla’s Megapack workaround is not as easily replicated in other locations. Arlandastad is unique because neighboring operators already have access to grid power, making it possible for Tesla to source electricity indirectly. Still, Esse noted that the unions’ blockades have not affected sales as much.
“Many want Tesla to lose sales due to the union blockades. But you have to remember that sales are falling from 2024, when Tesla sold a record number of cars in Sweden. That year, the unions also had blockades against Tesla. So for Tesla as a charging operator, it is devastating. But for Tesla as a car company, it does not matter in terms of sales volumes. People charge their cars where there is an opportunity, usually at home,” Esse noted.
Elon Musk
Elon Musk’s X goes down as users report major outage Friday morning
Error messages and stalled loading screens quickly spread across the service, while outage trackers recorded a sharp spike in user reports.
Elon Musk’s X experienced an outage Friday morning, leaving large numbers of users unable to access the social media platform.
Error messages and stalled loading screens quickly spread across the service, while outage trackers recorded a sharp spike in user reports.
Downdetector reports
Users attempting to open X were met with messages such as “Something went wrong. Try reloading,” often followed by an endless spinning icon that prevented access, according to a report from Variety. Downdetector data showed that reports of problems surged rapidly throughout the morning.
As of 10:52 a.m. ET, more than 100,000 users had reported issues with X. The data indicated that 56% of complaints were tied to the mobile app, while 33% were related to the website and roughly 10% cited server connection problems. The disruption appeared to begin around 10:10 a.m. ET, briefly eased around 10:35 a.m., and then returned minutes later.
Previous disruptions
Friday’s outage was not an isolated incident. X has experienced multiple high-profile service interruptions over the past two years. In November, tens of thousands of users reported widespread errors, including “Internal server error / Error code 500” messages. Cloudflare-related error messages were also reported.
In March 2025, the platform endured several brief outages spanning roughly 45 minutes, with more than 21,000 reports in the U.S. and 10,800 in the U.K., according to Downdetector. Earlier disruptions included an outage in August 2024 and impairments to key platform features in July 2023.
Tesla Model Y and Model 3 named safest vehicles tested by ANCAP in 2025
Tesla Sweden uses Megapack battery to bypass unions’ Supercharger blockade
