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SpaceX begins Starship launch mount installation at historic Pad 39A in Florida
At the same time as SpaceX’s Boca Chica, Texas team is working around the clock to prepare Starship Mk1 for several major tests, the company is building a second dedicated Starship launch complex at Pad 39A and as of November 4th, that construction effort has reached a symbolic milestone.
According to photos taken by local resident and famed rocket and ship photographer Julia Bergeron on a bus tour of Kennedy Space Center (KSC), SpaceX has officially begun to install a large steel structure at Launch Complex 39A, a pad the company has leased from NASA since 2014. Known as a launch mount, the massive structure will one day support SpaceX’s first East Coast Starship and Super Heavy static fires and test flights.

At SpaceX’s Boca Chica, Texas Starship facilities, the company has already made a huge amount of progress fabricating and outfitting a brand new launch mount that will soon support Starship Mk1’s first propellant loading, static fire, and flight tests. The spartan steel structure looks different from anything SpaceX has built in the past for Falcon 9 and is equally unrecognizable alongside the renders of a finished-product launch pad included in an updated Starship launch video.
What is undeniable, nevertheless, is the speed with which technicians have taken the Texas launch mount from a group of unconnected, partially-finished parts to a nearly complete structure with the business half of Starship Mk1 installed on top. SpaceX workers have built the mount, completed a large amount of plumbing to connect it to nearby liquid oxygen, methane, nitrogen, and helium reserves, and installed Starship on the mount in less than two months. The final integration of different prefabricated pieces began barely a month before Starship was moved to the pad, as pictured below.


Two pads, two approaches
Although Boca Chica’s launch mount is quite large, based on Julia’s photos of Pad 39A, Florida’s nascent launch mount is going to be significantly bigger. The section that SpaceX began installing in the first days of November appears already be much taller than the mount in Texas, and it also looks more like a rectangular corner than anything resembling part of Boca Chica’s hexagonal structure.
At the same time, the apparent rectangular corner being worked on in Florida would be a much better fit for the partially-enclosed launch mount structure shown in SpaceX’s official 2019 Starship launch video.

This is all to say that it looks like SpaceX is taking significantly different approaches with its two prospective Starship launch sites, which should come as no surprise in the context of the Starship program. SpaceX is already competitively building multiple Starship prototypes at two separate facilities in Boca Chica, Texas and Cocoa, Florida, a competition that has already produced visible differences between Mk1 and Mk2 prototypes. There’s a good chance that SpaceX intends to preserve that competitive atmosphere with Starship’s launch facilities, not just the rocket itself.
Additionally, it’s clear that Texas and Florida currently serve very different roles in the actual testing of Starship prototypes. Boca Chica has been active in that regard for more than half a year, ranging from the first Starhopper static fire in April to Starhopper’s 150-meter test flight in August. Florida has been almost entirely focused on iterating the build process itself and has already prefabricated nearly two dozen single-weld steel rings that will soon become Starship Mk4.
A step further, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has made it clear that he is pushing for Starship’s first orbital launch to occur in the first half of 2020, an incredibly ambitious target given that the first Super Heavy booster prototype has yet to begin fabrication or assembly of any kind. Regardless, with that ambitious target in mind, SpaceX still needs to try to build a launch facility capable of standing up to a vehicle more powerful than Saturn V unfathomably quickly.
Head in the clouds
More likely than not, SpaceX’s Pad 39A Starship facilities will (attempt to) be that launch facility. An August 2019 environmental impact statement revealed that SpaceX would avoid Pad 39A’s massive flame trench and instead build a separate water-cooled thrust diverter, a technology SpaceX is extremely familiar with.
The diverter will likely have to be larger than anything SpaceX has ever attempted to build and will take a significant amount of time and money to fabricate, but the approach could potentially allow SpaceX to build Super Heavy-rated launch facilities from scratch in just 6-12 months. Put simply, however, SpaceX is not going to want to build a Starship-sized thrust diverter and launch mount in Florida if it will almost immediately have to build a second, larger replacement big enough for orbital launch attempts with Super Heavy.

All things considered, it’s thus reasonably likely that SpaceX’s first draft of Florida Starship launch facilities will immediately jump to something sized for Super Heavy static fires and launches, even if that means it will take much longer to complete. If the pace of launch pad development in Boca Chica is anything to go by, it’s entirely possible that SpaceX will go from breaking ground at Pad 39A (mid-September 2019) to a more or less complete Starship-Super Heavy launch mount in roughly half a year.
Even if it takes more than a year to build, SpaceX could still be ready to attempt Starship’s first orbital launch well before the end of 2020.
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Tesla makes good on its Cybercab promise in just two weeks
Tesla Cybercab riders can now pull up a rear camera view and darken the screen.
Tesla has given Cybercab passengers a way to see what is behind them, along with a way to turn the cabin screen off entirely.
Riders in Austin can now bring up a live rearview camera feed on the Cybercab’s center display in the middle of a trip. Austin rider Ethan McKanna spotted the change late Friday night, posting from a ride that “You can now open the camera to view what’s behind you in Cybercab!” His photo shows a strip of rear camera video across the top of the screen, with another Cybercab following on a bridge. Sawyer Merritt shared the image Saturday and wrote that it “sounds like” there is also a new quiet mode that darkens the entire screen for riders who want to relax, sleep, or avoid a bright display at night.
The camera view goes beyond the rear feed. Tesla UI software engineer Evan, who posts as @CarCoder, replied to McKanna with a tip: “You can also tap it to see more cameras, and swipe it up or down to hide and show.” Until now, the Cybercab only showed its rear and repeater feeds on the “Please Exit Safely” screen at the end of a ride, so passengers could check for cyclists and traffic before opening a door.
Quiet mode surfaced a day earlier. Austin rider Jackson Blatz posted a video Friday morning of the new Robotaxi interface in a Cybercab with the option. Tesla has not published release notes for either feature.
The rear camera view moved quickly from request to release. Earlier this month, Cybercab rider Dan Burkland asked Tesla to let passengers pull up the rear and repeater cameras whenever they want, “especially for peace of mind.” Evan answered “In development,” as Teslarati reported at the time. About two weeks later, riders have it.
The feature fills a gap created by the Cybercab’s design. With no steering wheel, no pedals, no mirrors and no rear window, a passenger has no natural way to glance behind the car. The eight exterior cameras that feed Tesla’s autonomy software were already on board, so the change only required software.
There is also an AI angle to how it was built. Yun-Ta Tsai, a senior staff engineer on Tesla’s AI team, quoted Merritt’s post and wrote that the “(human) camera view tuning is optimized with Grok and implements part of the algorithm by directly programming the fixed-function hardware, so I don’t even need to check the datasheet.” Tsai did not say which part of the algorithm Grok handled. Grok already plays a bigger role inside the vehicle, with Grok Bot now enabled across every Cybercab and the Model Y Robotaxi fleet after Tesla brought the agent into its cars in September.
The two features join a busy week of changes for riders in Austin, which also brought a redesigned Live Activity for iPhone and Apple Watch and live trip sharing. They also arrive as Tesla prepares the Cybercab for life outside its own fleet. On the third quarter earnings call, Lars Moravy said the company is aiming to deliver Cybercabs to customers before the end of 2026. Tesla has not said whether the camera view and quiet mode will also come to its Model Y Robotaxis.
Elon Musk
Tesla shows what Roadster drivers will see on screen before thruster activation
Tesla’s Roadster video reveals a fighter jet inspired cockpit with a 5,500 PSI thruster gauge.
Tesla has given future owners their clearest look yet at the cockpit of its next generation Roadster. In a 34 second video posted to X on Friday afternoon, the company walked through the car’s touchscreen with a caption: “Inspired by fighter jet cockpits, Roadster’s interface was designed around the pilot.”
The clip opens on a black screen with red graphics and a 3D wireframe of the car, which sits beside the Roadster’s squared off yoke. Tapping parts of the model brings up controls for the rear wing, including low drag and high downforce positions, along with a charging page with a charge limit bar and a small music player. A row of tabs along the bottom reads Home, Vehicle, Listen, Climate and Navigate.
Most of the video is spent in Track Mode. The dashboard shows a live circuit map, a list of session lap times, brake and motor temperatures, and pressure and temperature readouts for each tire. A setup page lets the driver pick Auto, Low Drag, High Downforce or Custom aero modes, adjust aero balance and brake balance, and switch stability and traction control off. Along the bottom, a status bar reads “Thruster · 5,500 PSI” next to a “Boost Ready” indicator.
That gauge ties the software to the hardware Tesla showed off near Waco, Texas on October 15. The Thrust and Rocket versions use cold gas thrusters fed by carbon overwrapped pressure vessels, and Tesla lists 0 to 60 mph times of under 0.9 seconds and under 0.59 seconds for them, as Teslarati detailed in its breakdown of the three Roadster configurations. The base Performance car relies on a fan and ground sealing system for grip, and the aero settings on screen match the active wings and suction setup covered in our look at how the Roadster generates downforce.
The Roadster layout is a departure from the rest of Tesla’s lineup. Instead of a map centered screen, the Roadster puts the car itself at the center of the home page, and Tesla’s Roadster page lists two smaller forward displays alongside the main touchscreen. Tesla has not said whether any of the Track Mode telemetry will make its way to the Model 3 Performance or other vehicles.
The interface could still change before deliveries. Elon Musk said at the event that Roadster production will begin in 2028, and Tesla says the flagship Rocket version is not approved for public road use. Reservations are open with a $50,000 payment, while Thrust is listed as a limited release and Rocket is invite only.
Those who want to see the car in person will get their first chance this weekend. The Roadster goes on display in the lobby of the Petersen Automotive Museum in Los Angeles from October 24 to 27, according to Sawyer Merritt, the first time the public will be able to view it up close.
Elon Musk
Tesla reveals Optimus Academy, where robots teach themselves
Tesla has begun building production quality Optimus robots in Fremont and revealed its training plan.
Tesla has started building Optimus on the high volume line it set up inside its Fremont factory, and the company says the robots coming off it are the first that meet the bar for a real product. “The bots coming off this line are the first production-quality bots that we have manufactured,” Tesla wrote in its third quarter shareholder letter, adding that it has “proven that the current manufacturing process for Optimus is suitable for a commercial product.”
The line sits in space that built the Model S and Model X until this spring. Tesla cleared the old vehicle line in 46 days, as Teslarati reported in July, to make room for robot production sized for one million units a year. On Wednesday’s earnings call, Elon Musk said most of the equipment for that capacity is already in Fremont, with output set to climb toward roughly 20,000 robots a week as the line ramps.
Musk described the ramp as a classic S curve. “The growth of Optimus is an S curve, but the initial curve is a shallow slope,” he said. The team is now refining the robot’s AI, electromechanical design, reliability and service life, and Musk expects that work to be finished by the end of next year, when Tesla plans to start delivering Optimus to outside companies for dangerous, repetitive and around the clock jobs.
The most interesting part of the call was how Tesla plans to teach the robots. Its cars send real driving data back to the AI team from millions of vehicles, but Optimus has no fleet like that yet. “A big difference with Optimus versus the cars is we don’t have this vast fleet of cars from which we can gather training data,” Musk said. Tesla’s answer is an Optimus Academy, where 10,000 to 20,000 robots will practice a wide range of tasks and feed what they learn into the next version of the model. Every unit off the Fremont line becomes a source of that training data.
Smarter hardware is on the way too. Tesla plans to put its AI5 chip into Optimus next year, and Musk said a new Optimus video should arrive within one or two months showing the robot completing tasks driven by AI rather than preprogrammed motions. He took aim at rival humanoid demos that only run scripted routines, saying those would not hold up in the real world.
The supply chain is lining up behind the program. In September, Tesla certified Tuopu, Joyson and Sanhua as mass production partners for Optimus components. A far larger Optimus factory is also rising at Giga Texas, where drone footage from Joe Tegtmeyer showed the steel frame nearing completion, and Musk has pegged that plant’s long term target at 10 million robots a year.
Tesla executives also said Optimus production costs are trending toward the expected manufacturing cost of Cybercab, a sign the robot is being engineered for volume from the start. The hands remain the toughest piece of the design, a point Musk also made at the X Takeover event earlier this month, as Teslarati covered at the time, and that is where much of the current engineering effort is focused.