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SpaceX Starship launch tower stacked to full height ahead of ‘Mechazilla’ transformation
Update: After an aborted attempt on Tuesday, SpaceX has successfully installed the ninth and final section of Starship’s South Texas ‘launch tower, completing what amounts to the backbone of what CEO Elon Musk has described as a rocket-catching “Mechazilla.”
With the tower now stacked to its full ~145m (~475 ft) height, SpaceX can begin the process of outfitting it with a complex system of bus-sized actuating arms, propellant plumbing for Starship, hydraulic systems, and a network of cables and pulleys. It’s also believed that the tower structure itself will need to have each of its nine bolted steel sections welded together and all four of its steel ‘legs’ filled with concrete. However, it’s not out of the question that SpaceX will be able to activate the launch tower – albeit with a very basic degree of initial functionality – with just a few more weeks of work.
After a burst of activity and custom part deliveries, SpaceX appears to be almost ready to start turning Starship’s vast launch tower into what CEO Elon Musk has described as a “Mechazilla.”
Over the last few weeks, a number of new components have begun to quickly take shape, offering the first real glimpse of what SpaceX’s latest (hopeful) innovation might look like and how it could function. Earlier this year, Musk revealed plans to forgo landing legs entirely on earthbound Super Heavy boosters – and, potentially, Starships – by using a giant tower with arms to quite literally catch the rockets out of the air.
Those unintuitive plans have triggered wild speculation as the aerospace fans that follow SpaceX closely attempted to imagine what such a solution might look like – often engaging in a sort of vague back-and-forth with Musk himself as the CEO occasionally replied to fan-made depictions and renders.
Months after the reveal, though, parts of that tower’s rocket-manipulation mechanisms have begun to arrive on a near-constant stream of flatbed trucks and something is being assembled on a concrete pad previously used as a Starship landing zone. Two distinct structures are in work at the LZ: one a large framework assembled out of banana yellow metal tubes and the other a (for now) flatter black structure being assembled out of prefabricated components reminiscent of crane parts and trusses.
Now standing some 135m (~440 ft) tall, SpaceX’s Starship ‘launch tower’ has also been assembled from 9 different segments with what looks like six vertical rails running most of the length of three of its four rectangular legs. Since they were first spotted months ago, it’s long been assumed that those tracks will support some kind of elevator-like carriage meant to cling to the tower’s exterior. That carriage would then be outfitted with at least three (and probably five or more) large arms capable of catching, stabilizing, and fueling Starship.
Over the last week or so, SpaceX has also been hard at work completing the ninth and final section – believed to be the roof – of the launch tower. In the last few days, that four-legged tower section has been outfitted with an interesting appendage that itself was then fitted with several massive sheaves (i.e. pulleys). That hardware will likely become part of a high-power pulley system that will pull the arm carriage up and down the tower, allowing it to grab, lift, and catch Starships and Super Heavy boosters.
By all appearances, SpaceX is preparing to install the launch tower’s last prefabricated section, likely raising the tower to its final ~145m (~475 ft) height. It’s possible that a crane of some kind will be permanently installed on top of the tower but it currently looks like SpaceX intends to rely exclusively on the tower’s arms to install, stack, stabilize, fuel, and (maybe) catch Starship and Super Heavy.
Tesla’s two recently-defunct flagship models, the Model S and Model X, are getting a big upgrade, according to the company’s Head of AI, Ashok Elluswamy.
Older Hardware 3 Model S and Model X vehicles have been the last major holdouts in Tesla’s Full Self-Driving v14 Lite rollout, and that wait now appears to be ending.
Tesla brings closure to flagship ‘sentimental’ models, Musk confirms
At Tesla’s Cybercab launch, AI chief Ashok Elluswamy told Ryan McCaffrey that he thought the S and X build “was supposed to go out last week.” Evidently, Elluswamy expects the suite to be rolled out to those HW3 Model S and Model X very soon:
For my @Tesla friends – and specifically Model S & X owners with HW3 who are waiting on FSD v14 Lite – I spoke to @aelluswamy at the Cybercab launch, & when I asked for an ETA on v14 Lite for S/X owners, he said, “Oh, I thought it was supposed to go out last week.”
So: soon! 🙌
— Ryan McCaffrey (@DMC_Ryan) September 7, 2026
Those cars are not the current Model S and Model X, which already ship with Hardware 4. They are the pre-refresh flagships built around Tesla’s older Autopilot computer, often called HW3 or AI3.
Tesla stopped putting that computer in new vehicles years ago, which is why owners treat these S and X cars as a closed generation. Model 3 and Model Y vehicles on the same computer began receiving v14 Lite in late June 2026 and saw a wider North American expansion in July. South Korea followed as an early international market. The S and X versions of the same software never joined that wave.
v14 Lite is Tesla’s way of squeezing the current v14 driving stack onto hardware that cannot run the full AI 4 model. The company describes the process as distillation: behaviors learned on the newer computer, including reinforcement learning and offline models, are compressed so the older chip and cameras can use them as a guide.
Early descriptions put the distilled network at roughly 15 percent of the original size. The result is still supervised Level 2 driving. Tesla has been clear that HW3 cannot support unsupervised Full Self-Driving or robotaxi operation because of memory and bandwidth limits.
The feature list is what made the wait so frustrating for S and X owners, as plenty of new features are to be shipped with it.
Official notes for the first Lite build, firmware 2026.20.5.1, added parking, unparking, and reversing; arrival options for a parking lot, street, driveway, or curbside; speed profiles that stay available at all times; and start-from-park engagement. Tesla also claimed better handling of merges, forks, pedestrians, traffic lights, and cut-ins, plus fewer false slowdowns and smoother lane centering.
A mid-July follow-on build, 2026.20.6.10, added more of the Hardware 4 interface, including a standalone Self-Driving app and the ability to start a trip from Park without a brake-pedal confirmation.
Elluswamy called that version the one “likely going to wide release.”
That wide release already reached most other HW3 cars in the United States and Canada. International timing still depends on regional validation and regulatory approval. For S and X owners, the remaining work appears to be model-specific validation rather than a new software stack.
There is no official Tesla changelog or build number for those two models yet, only Elluswamy’s offhand timeline. Some HW3 drivers who already have Lite report large gains over v12.6; others have described new indecision or phantom braking. The next test will be whether the same software lands cleanly on the older flagships that have waited the longest.
Yesterday, we reported on Tesla Cybertruck getting some major adjustments from a manufacturing standpoint in an effort to make the all-electric pickup more cost-effective, more reliable, more serviceable, and more easily produced.
Tesla Cybertruck engineer reveals new changes in ‘constantly evolving’ pickup
One of those changes was the addition of a self-reinforcing polypropylene aero shield that sits underneath the truck. Previously, Tesla utilized aluminum for this, but the self-reinforcing polypropylene was more durable while also being cheaper and lighter.
Tesla has revealed another small change it made to the Cybertruck, and it has to do with the side repeater cameras.
Tesla does not wait for a new model year to improve its vehicles. On September 8, Cybertruck lead engineer Wes Morrill posted side-by-side photos of an updated side repeater camera housing now rolling off the line at Gigafactory Texas.
The triangular camera pod mounted on the front fender looks almost identical at first glance. A closer look reveals a revised contour that uses the air already flowing around the truck to keep the lens clearer in rain and road spray.
The side repeater camera was updated – the version on the left is the newer part which uses passive geometry to create airflow disturbance that better keep water off the lens while driving. No cost penalty, just pure vision improvement. pic.twitter.com/wAbXtcL1Jf
— Wes (@wmorrill3) September 8, 2026
The side repeater cameras sit in an exposed position on the Cybertruck’s angular stainless-steel body.
In wet weather, they readily collect water droplets that can degrade the image Autopilot and Full Self-Driving use for lane changes and blind-spot monitoring. Early production trucks sometimes left owners wiping lenses by hand or accepting temporary restrictions on driver-assistance features.
Tesla has added washers to cameras on certain other models and on Cybercab prototypes, but those active systems add cost, complexity, and extra potential leak points.
The new housing solves the problem with passive geometry. Subtle changes in the surround create localized airflow disturbances as the vehicle moves. Those eddies physically push water droplets away from the optical surface. Morrill called the result “pure vision improvement” achieved at “no cost penalty.” Once the production mold is updated, every subsequent part costs the same as the original.
The advantages compound quickly. Clearer cameras in rain improve the reliability of driver-assistance features precisely when they are needed most. The design consumes no extra energy and introduces no new failure modes.
New Cybertrucks built after the tooling changeover receive the updated part automatically. Some owners of trucks delivered as late as June 2026 have already confirmed they received the revised housing. Retrofit questions have appeared in replies, and the cameras appear electrically compatible, though Tesla has not announced an official service program.
A few millimeters of reshaped housing will not make headlines the way a new battery pack does, but these changes are incremental and increase the Cybertruck’s effectiveness as a vehicle over time.
This improvement illustrates how Tesla continues to refine the Cybertruck after volume production began. Better wet-weather vision, zero added cost, and no extra hardware add up to a meaningful gain in everyday usability and safety.
Tesla is rolling out a new version of its Full Self-Driving suite to some owners that comes with the massive addition of a safety feature.
Tesla is rolling out Automatic Collision Evasion with the 2026.27.6 Software Update, which started rolling out to some vehicles last night. We received the update, along with Full Self-Driving v14.3.9, as well as v14.2 Lite, which has identical release notes as the previous version and seems to have some refinements and improvements in behavior and performance.
🚨 Tesla FSD v14.3.9 is rolling out as well as 2026.27.6 which includes Automatic Collision Evasion
Brand new safety features from a software update. My Tesla gets better everytime I get one of these pic.twitter.com/ctrMiQXWhM
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) September 8, 2026
However, most of the attention has fallen on the Automatic Collision Evasion feature, which we covered in an article last week.
The function will activate Full Self-Driving to “try to keep your vehicle safe and then continue driving. It can engage in the following situations while you are driving manually:
- Scenario 1: A frontal collision is imminent and braking alone may not avoid it.
- Scenario 2: Your vehicle detects that you are not sufficiently attentive to the road (for example, reaching toward the back seat), or that Full Self-Driving (Supervised) may have been unintentionally disengaged.”
Essentially, FSD will take over when the vehicle determines you are not paying sufficient attention or are heading toward a potential collision. The addition of this feature is incredibly useful as distracted driving is a major issue in today’s world.
Along with the new safety feature is Tesla FSD v14.3.9, which has no additional release notes compared to the previous version, but in my first drives, my first impression is that operation is great, and parking is still sort of a pain point.
Just took a 15-mile round trip to the gym and back
Pretty on par with what FSD is nowadays – really good. Not enough time to see what’s good and what’s bad, but these first rides on any version feel shockingly good. They’re all pretty identical https://t.co/WN1qTg4bhE
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) September 9, 2026
Additionally, Tesla v14.2. Lite has arrived. A great review of that is available here:
— Zack (@BLKMDL3) September 9, 2026
The addition of an Automatic Collision Evasion feature is similar to that of other collision avoidance systems that are used by companies like Hyundai, Kia, and Genesis. These programs typically utilize radar and camera sensors to apply emergency brakes autonomously, though evasive steering in a manual driving mode is pioneered primarily by Tesla’s newest addition.
Tesla’s two defunct flagship models are getting a big upgrade
This tiny Tesla Cybertruck adjustment has big advantages
