News
SpaceX Starship Integrated Flight Test 2: What to Expect
After a one-day delay to replace a failed grid fin actuator, SpaceX is now less than 24 hours from the second test flight of Starship. SpaceX will have a 20-minute launch window that opens at 7:00 AM CT (13:00 UTC).
Making this test flight is Ship 25 and Booster 9. Ship 25 is powered by 6 Raptor engines (3 sea level and 3 vacuum), and Booster 9 is powered by 33 Raptor engines.
Booster 9 features many upgrades over the last booster to take flight, including better engine shielding and a switch from hydraulic thrust vector controls to electric TVC. Ship 25 didn’t see as many upgrades as the booster, and not much has been shared of any major changes that were made. One change to both vehicles was the improvement of the Flight Termination System, which took much longer to destroy the rocket than expected during the first test.
Launch Day
T minus 2 hours before the scheduled liftoff, the SpaceX launch director will give the go for propellant loading. This process will begin at t minus 1 hour and 37 minutes, and at this point, Booster 9 will begin loading with both liquid oxygen and liquid methane.
T minus 1 hour and 17 minutes, liquid methane will begin loading onto Ship 25, followed by liquid oxygen 4 minutes later at t minus 1 hour and 13 minutes.
T minus 19 minutes and 40 seconds, the 39 Raptor engines on Booster 9 and Ship 25 will begin chilling to prepare for the extremely cold fuel to flow through and prevent thermal shock to engine hardware.
T minus 10 seconds, the flame deflector installed after the first IFT will begin flowing water.
Super Heavy Booster 9 static fire successfully lit all 33 Raptor engines, with all but two running for the full duration. Congratulations to the SpaceX team on this exciting milestone! pic.twitter.com/1hzs768vHg
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) August 25, 2023
T minus 3 seconds, Raptor engine ignition begins, and thrust begins to build to allow for liftoff.
LIFT OFF!
T+ 2 seconds, the 2nd Integrated Flight Test should now be officially underway, with Booster 9 thundering away from the orbital launch mount.
Liftoff from Starbase pic.twitter.com/rgpc2XO7Z9
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) April 20, 2023
T+ 52 seconds, Starship and Booster 9 reach Max Q, the area of maximum dynamic pressure on the vehicle will occur here. If (or most) all Raptor engines on Booster 9 are performing nominally, the vehicle will pass through this fairly quickly.
T+ 2 minutes and 39 seconds, Staging. This will be the first time SpaceX has ever attempted hot staging. Almost all of Booster 9 engines will cut out, and Ship 25 will ignite its Raptor engines to separate from the booster. This is all unknown territory from this point on for SpaceX, as the first test flight did not make it this far. SpaceX has yet to clarify how many Ship 25 engines will ignite during this process.
If all goes well, Booster 9 will begin its flip and boost backburn at t+ 2 minutes and 53 seconds, which will last ~54 seconds. Unlike the Falcon 9, the booster is not designed to perform an entry burn.
T+ 6 minutes and 30 seconds after lift-off, Booster 9 will begin its landing burn for a hopeful soft touchdown in the Gulf of Mexico 18 seconds after landing burn ignition. The planned landing area is ~20 miles (32 km) downrange.
Meanwhile, Ship 25 will continue burning its 6 Raptor engines until t+ 8 minutes and 33 seconds, inserted into a sub-orbital trajectory, and then enter a coast phase until its planned reentry North of the Hawaiian islands.
Landing!
At t+ 1 hour and 17 minutes, Starship will begin feeling the effects of the atmosphere, its first real test for the heatshield. If it survives atmospheric entry, Starship will splash down in the Pacific Ocean at t+ 1 hour and 30 minutes after lift off. SpaceX has said Ship 25 will not attempt a landing burn during this test.
If Starship is able to make it past staging, SpaceX will most likely consider this test a success, but it would be a major accomplishment for Ship 25 to survive entry back through the atmosphere and gather important data for the company.
If you have a chance to make it to South Texas or even the other side of the Rio Grande in Mexico, it’ll be a sight you’ll never forget. If you’re watching from home, SpaceX will begin streaming the launch on X and their website 35 minutes before lift-off.
Questions or comments? Shoot me an email at rangle@teslarati.com, or Tweet me @RDAnglePhoto.
News
Tesla faces Full Self-Driving pushback in EU over ‘speeding’
A new report from Reuters claims that a transport authority in Sweden is pushing back against the approval of Tesla’s Full Self-Driving suite because it will travel over speed limits.
The report says the Swedish Transport Administration (TRV) recommends the European Union votes against FSD’s approval. TRV believes it should not be approved until Tesla disables FSD’s ability to speed.
TRV sent a letter to the European Union’s Technical Committee on Motor Vehicles (TCMV), which is set to meet on June 30 to discuss the potential approval of the Tesla FSD suite in the country. Tesla, which has received various approvals in Europe over the past two months, has not provided a comment.
Teslas operating on FSD do travel over the speed limit, depending on the Speed Profile that is chosen. Drivers have the ability to disengage FSD at any point; Tesla specifically states that those supervising the suite are responsible for its actions.
Let’s cut to the chase: humans operating any vehicle speed almost daily in the United States. Realistically, speed limits in the U.S. are more frequently treated as speed minimums. However, other countries are different, and driving behaviors are less aggressive.
TRV believes that “allowing automated systems to systematically exceed legal speed limits…risks undermining both the legal framework and the expected safety benefits of vehicle automation,” the report stated. It’s surprising that Tesla has not received this claim from other countries previously.
This could be a good argument to bring Max Speed back, the setting that previously allowed the driver to choose the absolute fastest the car would travel.
This would still put the responsibility of supervision in the hands of the driver. It would allow the driver to choose whether the car would travel over the speed limit or not, acknowledging that they set the speed, and if they get pulled over, there would be no ability to argue it.
However, it does not seem as if this is something Tesla will do, especially considering many U.S. drivers have requested the feature in an effort to eliminate speeding or at least tone it down. The company has not shown any interest in bringing it back.
Tesla has approvals for FSD in Europe in Estonia, Lithuania, Denmark, the Netherlands, and Belgium.
Elon Musk
Tesla teases greater Grok FSD integration and ‘Banish’ feature ‘in about 3 months’
Tesla is going to let you guide Full Self-Driving with Grok in 3 months, CEO Elon Musk confirmed on X.
The response from Musk, which revealed Tesla plans to allow drivers to effectively control the car and its navigation more explicitly using Grok, puts the feature for about September.
A Tesla owner said that Full Self-Driving is great, but owners should be able to “converse with Grok like we can with an Uber driver.” She then used examples like, “Grok, turn right here,” and “Drop us off right here, we’ll walk due to traffic,” and finally,” Drop at entrance first, then park far away.”
Coincidentally, the final piece of dialogue would also mean features like Banish are potentially on the way soon.
This functionality will be there in about 3 months or so
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 18, 2026
Banish is also referred to as “Reverse Summon,” and would enable the car to self-park while dropping occupants off at their destination.
This would be a great way to improve the overall experience while supervising FSD. Navigation is already a major painpoint that many owners complain about. Manual overrides when a maneuver is requested or canceled (like using the turn signal stalk to override a navigation route), do not always work.
The feature could be especially useful in street parking scenarios in a city, where spots are sometimes tough to come by. Many of us who grab dinner in a more populated area will park a street or two over from wherever we’re going, because sometimes you know that’s the best you will get. If a driver using FSD could say, “Hey Grok, turn right here on Queen St. and park in that open spot on the right,” it could save a lot of confusion FSD might have on its own.
Musk teased that a similar feature was “coming” back in February:
Tesla Full Self-Driving set to get an awesome new feature, Elon Musk says
It is certainly surprising that Tesla is doing it at this point. The company’s more recent moves have been more evident of taking control and inputs away from humans and putting them in the AI’s hands more frequently. The biggest example of this was taking away Max Speed in AI4 cars, giving us Speed Profiles, and not having any input on the fastest speed the car will travel.
Of course, giving navigation preferences to Grok is availble already in Teslas, but not at the drop of a hat. Instead, you can suggest a certain route at the beginning of your drive.
Here’s an example of that from December:
🚨🏈 I am taking my parents and Fiancee to the @Ravens game next weekend and asked @Grok to help me route my @Tesla through a specific neighborhood to reach the correct Lot we will park in.
This is a great example of the new @grok nav integration with the Tesla Holiday Update: pic.twitter.com/rPp4I7q8Yv
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) December 13, 2025
Finally, the original post that Musk responded to mentioned a parking preference after dropping off the occupants, which describes the Banish feature that Tesla has teased for years.
We’re not sure if Musk was responding more to the ability to guide the car with Grok, or whether he also was including Banish in the three-month prediction timeframe.
News
Tesla Cybercab has one important piece that AI4 cars might need for FSD
A close-up image of a Cybercab engineering vehicle in Peabody, Massachusetts, reveals a compact triangular side repeater camera housing equipped with an integrated washer mechanism.
This seemingly small hardware addition could prove to be one of the most critical components for achieving reliable, unsupervised Full Self-Driving (FSD) — not just for the dedicated Robotaxi but potentially for existing AI4-equipped vehicles as well.
The washer system’s importance cannot be overstated in Tesla’s vision-only autonomy approach. Cameras are the sole sensory input for the neural networks powering FSD, constantly interpreting the environment for safe navigation. In real-world conditions, however, lenses quickly accumulate rain, snow, mud, dust, or road spray.
Many of us Tesla owners, especially those who deal with any sort of winter weather at all, know the all-too-common alert that pops up when cameras are obstructed:
Even brief obstructions can drop perception confidence, trigger safety disengagements, or force the vehicle to pull over, although these are relatively rare. Instead, most of the time, the camera will need a wipe from the owner next time they stop the car.
But unlike human drivers who can manually clear their view, a Robotaxi operating 24/7 without a steering wheel or mirrors must maintain pristine vision autonomously. The Cybercab’s side repeater washer delivers targeted cleaning bursts precisely where needed for merging, lane changes, and blind-spot monitoring — functions that demand uninterrupted visibility from the external cameras:
And this is how the side camera and washer look like on a Cybercab. This is from an Engineering vehicle in Peabody MA. pic.twitter.com/Re8VknpmLM
— Tobias Goebel (Unsupervised) (@tpgoebel) June 17, 2026
This hardware directly tackles a known pain point in current FSD deployments. Owners frequently report camera-related alerts during inclement weather, which is understandable, but needs to be solved for a true autonomous experience.
For a production Robotaxi fleet aiming for high utilization and minimal downtime, robust washer systems represent a foundational reliability upgrade; essentially, they’re a must-have. Early sightings suggest the design may extend to rear cameras as well, creating a comprehensive cleaning architecture that keeps the entire vision suite operational in harsh environments.
Without it, even the most advanced neural nets struggle when their “eyes” are compromised.
What Does This Mean for AI4 Cars?
This Cybercab detail raises timely questions for AI4 cars already on the road. While Hardware 4 delivers superior compute and camera resolution compared to earlier versions, production models typically lack dedicated side and rear washers. Tesla has included them on Model Y robotaxis that it is using in the fleet:
Tesla Robotaxi has a highly-requested hardware feature not available on typical Model Ys
As Tesla refines unsupervised FSD for broader release, the gap in environmental resilience becomes evident. Software improvements can help mitigate issues, but they cannot fully replace physical cleaning in heavy rain or muddy conditions. Analysts and owners increasingly speculate that AI4 vehicles may eventually require similar washer retrofits — or a future AI4.5 variant — to match the Cybercab’s all-weather readiness and support the same level of autonomy.
As testing progresses, the Cybercab’s washer mechanism highlights Tesla’s pragmatic focus on real-world robustness. It may well become the hardware piece that determines how quickly and reliably FSD scales from prototypes to everyday vehicles.