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SpaceX’s Starship Mk1 prototype heads to the launch pad – but why?

On October 30th, SpaceX installed half of Starship Mk1 on a new launch mount constructed at its Boca Chica launch pad. (NASASpaceflight - bocachicagal)

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7 years ago

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SpaceX has transported (half of) its Starship Mk1 prototype to its South Texas launch pad for the first time ever, signifying that the company is about to enter a major new stage of testing.

The move, however, raises the question: why is SpaceX transporting only half of Starship Mk1 to the launch pad?

Following SpaceX CEO Elon Musk’s September 28th presentation on Starship, the spacecraft prototype was partially disassembled, having essentially been mocked up to stand as a backdrop at the event. The impact was fairly minor, taking up no more than a few days of work, but Starship Mk1 remains in two large, separate pieces – a curved nose section and the ship’s cylindrical propellant tank and propulsion section.

Starship Mk1’s nose and tail sections were separated on October 1st. (NASASpaceflight – bocachicagal)

A little over a month after Musk’s presentation, SpaceX technicians freed Starship Mk1’s lower tank section from a steel mount and temporarily installed the giant half-spacecraft on framework mounted to a Roll Lift transporter. SpaceX has consistently relied on Roll Lifts for the task of transporting Starship’s massive segments both around and between its Boca Chica, Texas build and launch facilities. This time around, only Starship Mk1’s lower half was loaded onto the transporter before being staged overnight near the main gate of SpaceX’s build site.

Although work continued throughout the night, around dawn on October 30th, transport activity restarted in earnest, with technicians preparing to move Starship. A road closure filed with Cameron County suggested that something would occur on the 30th, with followers speculating that Starship Mk1 would be transported to SpaceX’s South Texas launch pad. As it turned out, that speculation was correct, and (half of) Starship Mk1 was indeed moved to the launch pad and installed atop a new launch mount that was built from scratch in just a few months.

(Half a) Starship on the pad

While it’s undeniably thrilling to see Starship Mk1 head to SpaceX’s Boca Chica launch pad for the first time ever, it remains to be seen why exactly only half of the rocket was transported – no mean feat. Although a great deal of progress has been made over the last month outfitting Starship Mk1 with all the wiring, electronics, plumbing, and other subsystems the prototype will need to function, it’s plainly visible that a significant amount of work remains before Starship will be ready for integrated testing.

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A panorama of Starship Mk1’s business end and tank section. Recent work has focused on outfitting Mk1 with an array of wiring and piping, some of which is visible here. (NASASpaceflight – bocachicagal)
SpaceX has made a huge amount of progress on Starship’s new launch mount over the last 1-2 months, but plenty of work clearly remains before it will be ready for full-scale operations. (NASASpaceflight – bocachicagal)

Most notably, as pictured above, the launch mount frame is certainly more or less complete, but most of the complex plumbing, wiring, and power equipment it will need to serve its function is not obviously present. There is admittedly a possibility that SpaceX will reuse the ‘quick disconnect’ umbilical ports used by Starhopper on Starship Mk1, but that remains to be seen.

Starship Mk1 itself has a ways to go before it will be ready for integrated testing. Near the orange plastic is what is believed to be a large propellant feed line, needed to fuel Starship. Those lines have yet to be closed off. (NASASpaceflight – bocachicagal)

Additionally, Starship Mk1 also has some level of work left before it will be ready for its first propellant loading test, let alone flight. Aside from a large amount of wiring and avionics that still needs to be partially run, harnessed, and connected, Starship’s main liquid oxygen and methane feedlines – needed to fuel the rocket – are largely complete but still unfinished.

There are at least a few obvious possible explanations for SpaceX moving the Starship Mk1 tank section to the launch pad in its partially-finished state. The easiest explanation is that SpaceX wants to perform leak and pressure tests of Starship’s tanks as early as possible, even if that involves testing the rocket without its nose (the host of Mk1’s batteries, power controllers, COPVs, pressurization tanks, and more). It’s not clear that Starship Mk1 is – at present – capable of performing a wet dress rehearsal (WDR), a common aerospace test where a rocket is fully fueled and counts down to launch without actually igniting.

Starhopper performed several wet dress rehearsal tests before its final 150m flight test in August 2019. (LabPadre, 07/14/19)

Instead, SpaceX could potentially perform a pressure (or at least leak) test with a neutral gas (or perhaps liquid nitrogen) just to verify that Starship Mk1 is structurally sound before kicking off cryogenic propellant loading. Additionally, it’s possible that SpaceX could get around Mk1’s incomplete propellant feed lines by attaching pad umbilicals directly to the ends of the incomplete feed lines.

At the same time, it’s possible that SpaceX has decided to finish assembling Starship at the launch pad itself, hinted at when a local photographer captured a number of Mk1’s control surfaces and aero covers being moved around shortly after Starship was moved to the pad. Time will tell. For the time being, SpaceX has no more road closures scheduled (meaning no nose section transport) until November 7th and 8th, followed by another on the 12th.

Stay tuned to find out what transpires!

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Eric Ralph is Teslarati's senior spaceflight reporter and has been covering the industry in some capacity for almost half a decade, largely spurred in 2016 by a trip to Mexico to watch Elon Musk reveal SpaceX's plans for Mars in person. Aside from spreading interest and excitement about spaceflight far and wide, his primary goal is to cover humanity's ongoing efforts to expand beyond Earth to the Moon, Mars, and elsewhere.

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Investor's Corner

Lucid denies rumors of bankruptcy after over 40% stock drop

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5 hours ago

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July 14, 2026

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Credit: Lucid

Electric vehicle maker Lucid Group has denied rumors of an imminent bankruptcy after a report from this morning sent the stock on a dramatic drop on Wall Street, seeing losses of more than 40 percent during trading hours.

Lucid’s Director of Communications, Nick Twork, responded to the report from Eletric-Vehicles.com, which stated the company’s restructuring advisor, AlixPartners, was asked to review two decisions: taking Lucid shares private or filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.

The report also claims AlixPartners told the Lucid board to “concentrate on Gravity production while improving its quality, and to temporarily hold back the Lucid Air, the sedan that has defined the company since its launch.”

Twork said:

Shares rebounded after the response to the report, halving its losses as the trading day neared 3 p.m. Eastern.

Lucid has struggled to get its sales off the ground and into more respectable numbers, but the company is in its early years, when things are hard to begin with. It is also backed by several notable investors, including the Saudi Public Investment Fund (PIF), which has nearly limitless money and likely would not ditch an investment of this size so soon.

Lucid shares were down just 14 percent at the time of publication, a far cry from the 55 percent its losses topped out at during the day.

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Tesla owner attempts resale of Model S Signature Edition for over $260k

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9 hours ago

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July 14, 2026

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Credit: Tesla

A Tesla owner who purchased a Model S Signature Edition, one of the final 250 units of the all-electric flagship vehicle that the company discontinued earlier this year, is attempting to sell the car despite a no-resale clause that prohibits reselling for the first year.

The car is being sold by J&S Autohaus in Ewing, New Jersey, and is priced at $260,490, well above the $159,420 that Tesla sold it for earlier this year.

To those who do not know, the Model S Signature was a highly exclusive, limited-run farewell variant of the Model S Plaid that was produced this year to mark the end of production of both the Model S and Model X, Tesla’s two flagship vehicles.

Limited to just 250 units with invite-only sales, it serves as a collector’s item celebrating the legacy of the Model S, which helped pioneer Tesla’s electric vehicle success since its 2012 launch.

It bundles top-tier performance with bespoke cosmetic and luxury upgrades, plus Tesla’s Luxe Package. Here’s what the Model S Signature has over the typical Model S Plaid:

  • Exclusive Exterior – Unique Garnet Red Paint, matching door handles, gold Tesla “T” badges upfront, gold Plaid and Signature badging at the rear.
  • Premium Interior – White Alcantara upholstery with gold piping/accents, gold Plaid seat badges, Signature-marked door sills, individually numbered dashboard plaque, gold puddle lights, special interior lighting sequence, and a custom Signature key fob.
  • Performance Upgrades – Carbon-ceramic brakes with gold calipers
  • Bundled Luxe Package – Full Self-Driving (Supervised), four years of Premium Connectivity, free lifetime Supercharging
  • Performance Metrics – ~1,020 horsepower, sub-2-second 0-60 MPH, ~390-mile range

Tesla quickly introduced a No Resale Agreement for the Signature Editions of the Model S and Model X, which would penalize the seller for “the amount of $50,000 or the value received as consideration for the sale or transfer, whichever is greater.”

The company continues:

“If you sell or otherwise transfer the ownership of your Model S or Model X, the remainder of the Recommended Maintenance, Wheel and Tire Protection Plan, and Windshield Protection Plan will transfer automatically to the buyer. The Full Self-Driving (Supervised), Free Supercharging and Premium Connectivity will not transfer with the vehicle and will terminate once the ownership of the Model S or Model X is transferred.”

Tesla will likely come after the seller, especially as it has been about two months since Tesla launched deliveries.

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Tesla Full Self-Driving v14.3.5 Early Impressions: new features and early performance

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12 hours ago

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July 14, 2026

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Credit: TESLARATI

Tesla rolled out Full Self-Driving (Supervised) v14.3.5 yesterday, and about fifty miles of driving on the new version has given me enough time to highlight what seems to be strong about the release and what is not.

Additionally, Tesla has added a few new features with this specific update, which we’ll highlight as well.

Tesla Full Self-Driving v14.3.5 Performance

The new update is business as usual. Things seem to be running completely normal and necessary, but there are a few things that we’ve seemed to pick up on based on our own experience with v14.3.5, as well as what other users are seeing.

Initially, it seems to be more aware of its surroundings, making moves that are incredibly courteous to other drives and operating just a tad more reserved than what the suite might have done previously.

We had two instances where it showed this, the first being FSD needing to pass a Flagger Force vehicle that was placing down signage for the day. Their work truck was right at the front corner of a right-hand turn; typically where most cars travel when they take that turn.

FSD v14.3.5 recognized this, slowed down, and took the turn wide with no issues:

Additionally, v14.3.5 backed up for a semi truck that was making a wide turn onto a road my car was on. This is not new, but it seemed to be backing up for courtesy; it didn’t seem completely necessary, but it might have put some peace of mind in the truck driver’s head:

X user Mike P, also a Pennsylvania native like myself, shared three clips of his Tesla running v14.3.5 performing similar maneuvers. He said:

“FSD turns right into a small alley that only fits one car at a time, sees oncoming car, reverses out of alley to make space, realizes oncoming car is actually parking, re-enters alley.”
Check it out here:

It seems like Speed Profiles are still in need of some tweaking; I am adjusting what Speed Profile I’m in frequently, constantly changing it to get it to travel at the correct speed. This was an issue for me on v14.3.4. It seems like they’re just a little inconsistent.

Terrible Parking

Parking attempts on v14.3.5 were not good. There are quite a few people who have said this:

David Moss, the Tesla owner who has taken multiple coast-to-coast drives without any interventions, also has had some issues with parking early on with v14.3.5:

New Features

Tesla has added the ability to open Camera Preview at any time. Previously, it was only available in Park. Here’s what that feature looks like in action:

Check back later this week for a longer review of what we’ve noticed on Full Self-Driving v14.3.5.

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