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SpaceX to mature Starship Moon landing and orbital refueling tech with NASA’s help
NASA has announced 19 technology partnerships between the agency’s many spaceflight centers and 13 companies, including SpaceX, Blue Origin, and more. This round of Space Act Agreements (SAAs) shows a heavy focus on technologies and concepts that could benefit exploration of the Moon and deep space more generally, including lunar landers, food production, reusable rockets, and more.
Put simply, all 19 awards are great and will hopefully result in tangible products and benefits, but SpaceX has a track record of achievement on the cutting edge of aerospace that simply has not been touched over the last decade. As such, the company’s two SAAs are some of the most interesting and telling, both ultimately focused on enabling Starship launches to and landings on the Moon and any number of other destinations in the solar system. Perhaps most importantly, it signals a small but growing sect within NASA that is willing and eager to acknowledge Starship’s existence and actively work with SpaceX to both bring it to life and further spaceflight technology in general.
One agreement focuses specifically on “vertically land[ing] large rockets on the Moon”, while the other more generally seeks to “advance technology needed to transfer propellant in orbit”, a feature that Starship’s utility would be crippled without. In this particular round of SAAs, they will be “non-reimbursable” – bureaucratic-speak for a collaboration where both sides pay their own way and no money is exchanged. SpaceX’s wins ultimately show that, although NASA proper all but refuses to acknowledge Starship, the many internal centers it is nothing without are increasingly happy to extend olive branches towards the company and its ambitious next-generation rocket.
“SpaceX of Hawthorne, California, will work with NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida to advance their technology to vertically land large rockets on the Moon. This includes advancing models to assess engine plume interaction with lunar regolith.”
“SpaceX will work with Glenn and Marshall to advance technology needed to transfer propellant in orbit, an important step in the development of the company’s Starship space vehicle.”
NASA, July 30th, 2019
Giant rockets on the Moon
SpaceX’s first SAA centers around studying the task of landing Starship – a “large rocket” – on the Moon and attempting to understand just how the Moon’s powdery regolith (i.e. inorganic topsoil) will respond when subjected to the plume of a Raptor engine. Put simply, the task of landing a spacecraft as massive as Starship has never been attempted on the Moon, and the process itself – irrespective of any potential surprises from plume-regolith interaction – poses some obvious challenges.
In the most basic sense, Starship is massive. According to the vehicle’s circa. 2018 dimensions, it will stretch 55m (180 ft) from nose to tail, be 9m (30 ft) in diameter, and weigh (per 2017 specs) ~85 tons (190,000 lb) empty and upwards of ~1350 tons (2.95 million lbs) fully fueled. For reference, that is almost 80% as tall and more than 2.5 times as heavy as an entire Falcon 9 rocket. In the history of lunar exploration, Apollo’s Lunar Module (LM) – including landing and ascent stages – is the heaviest vehicle to have ever landed on the Moon, weighing a maximum of 5500 kg (12,100 lb) at landing (Apollo 17).
As such, an expendable Starship landing on the Moon with zero propellant for a possible return to Earth would easily break the record for landed mass by a factor of 10-20, while a Starship landing with enough delta V to simply return to lunar orbit – let alone land back on Earth – could easily up that to 30-50x.
Aside from the mass of Starship, there is also the question of how to gently land the spacecraft in the first place. Lunar gravity is roughly 1/6th of Earth’s, meaning that, say, 200 tons (i.e. Raptor’s thrust) would equate to more than 1200 tons of effective thrust on the Moon, a more than 10:1 thrust-to-weight ratio. For reference, the Apollo Lunar Module descent stage was powered by an engine with ~10,000 lbf (4.5 tons) of thrust that could throttle as low as ~1000 lbf (0.45 tons), meaning that even in lunar gravity conditions, the LM could have a thrust-to-weight ratio less than 1. For the purpose of safely landing on the Moon and ensuring a gentle landing, that is an extremely desirable thing to have.
Much like Falcon 9’s upper stage features cold-gas nitrogen thrusters to settle its propellant before MVac ignition, Starship will likely need a similar system, and it’s possible that that system could be used to gently land Starship and tweak its velocity in the final stages of a Moon landing. This study will likely be used in part to figure out what exactly the optimal method of landing Starship is.
How to Refuel Your Starship
Finally, SpaceX’s second NASA SAA focuses on developing the immature technology of in-orbit propellant transfer, an absolute necessity for Starship to simultaneously be fully reusable and capable of landing significant payloads on other planets (or moons). Ever since SpaceX CEO Elon Musk first revealed the company’s Mars-bound launch vehicle in 2016, it has incorporated in-orbit refueling as a foundational feature.
Due to the additions required for full reusability, Starship will essentially need to be launched into Earth orbit and then quickly refueled anywhere from 1 to 10+ times depending on the ultimate destination and the mass of the cargo being delivered. This is not to say that Starship will be useless without refueling – according to SpaceX VP of Sales Jonathan Hofeller, Starship will be capable of launching more than 100 tons (220,000 lb) to low Earth orbit and 20 tons (44,000 lb) to geostationary transfer orbit (GTO), more than enough to satisfy every commercial demand currently in existence.
However, with one or several refueling missions, Starship should be able to turn 100 tons to LEO into 100 tons to the surface of Mars or dozens of tons to the surface of the Moon. Put simply, with reliable and fast refueling, Starship goes from being a major step forward in reusable spaceflight to the key to the solar system and to radically affordable deep spaceflight.
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Tesla has announced it has hit a major milestone with Full Self-Driving subscriptions, shortly after it said it would exclusively offer the suite without the option to purchase it outright.
Tesla announced on Wednesday during its Q4 Earnings Call for 2025 that it had officially eclipsed the one million subscription mark for its Full Self-Driving suite. This represented a 38 percent increase year-over-year.
This is up from the roughly 800,000 active subscriptions it reported last year. The company has seen significant increases in FSD adoption over the past few years, as in 2021, it reported just 400,000. In 2022, it was up to 500,000 and, one year later, it had eclipsed 600,000.
NEWS: For the first time, Tesla has revealed how many people are subscribed or have purchased FSD (Supervised).
Active FSD Subscriptions:
• 2025: 1.1 million
• 2024: 800K
• 2023: 600K
• 2022: 500K
• 2021: 400K pic.twitter.com/KVtnyANWcs— Sawyer Merritt (@SawyerMerritt) January 28, 2026
In mid-January, CEO Elon Musk announced that the company would transition away from giving the option to purchase the Full Self-Driving suite outright, opting for the subscription program exclusively.
Musk said on X:
“Tesla will stop selling FSD after Feb 14. FSD will only be available as a monthly subscription thereafter.”
The move intends to streamline the Full Self-Driving purchase option, and gives Tesla more control over its revenue, and closes off the ability to buy it outright for a bargain when Musk has said its value could be close to $100,000 when it reaches full autonomy.
It also caters to Musk’s newest compensation package. One tranche requires Tesla to achieve 10 million active FSD subscriptions, and now that it has reached one million, it is already seeing some growth.
The strategy that Tesla will use to achieve this lofty goal is still under wraps. The most ideal solution would be to offer a less expensive version of the suite, which is not likely considering the company is increasing its capabilities, and it is becoming more robust.
Tesla is shifting FSD to a subscription-only model, confirms Elon Musk
Currently, Tesla’s FSD subscription price is $99 per month, but Musk said this price will increase, which seems counterintuitive to its goal of increasing the take rate. With that being said, it will be interesting to see what Tesla does to navigate growth while offering a robust FSD suite.
News
Tesla confirms Robotaxi expansion plans with new cities and aggressive timeline
Tesla plans to launch in Dallas, Houston, Phoenix, Miami, Orlando, Tampa, and Las Vegas. It lists the Bay Area as “Safety Driver,” and Austin as “Ramping Unsupervised.”
Tesla confirmed its intentions to expand the Robotaxi program in the United States with an aggressive timeline that aims to send the ride-hailing service to several large cities very soon.
The Robotaxi program is currently active in Austin, Texas, and the California Bay Area, but Tesla has received some approvals for testing in other areas of the U.S., although it has not launched in those areas quite yet.
However, the time is coming.
During Tesla’s Q4 Earnings Call last night, the company confirmed that it plans to expand the Robotaxi program aggressively, hoping to launch in seven new cities in the first half of the year.
Tesla plans to launch in Dallas, Houston, Phoenix, Miami, Orlando, Tampa, and Las Vegas. It lists the Bay Area as “Safety Driver,” and Austin as “Ramping Unsupervised.”
These details were released in the Earnings Shareholder Deck, which is published shortly before the Earnings Call:
🚨 BREAKING: Tesla plans to launch its Robotaxi service in Dallas, Houston, Phoenix, Miami, Orlando, Tampa, and Las Vegas in the first half of this year pic.twitter.com/aTnruz818v
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) January 28, 2026
Late last year, Tesla revealed it had planned to launch Robotaxi in Las Vegas, Phoenix, Dallas, and Houston, but Tampa and Orlando were just added to the plans, signaling an even more aggressive expansion than originally planned.
Tesla feels extremely confident in its Robotaxi program, and that has been reiterated many times.
Although skeptics still remain hesitant to believe the prowess Tesla has seemingly proven in its development of an autonomous driving suite, the company has been operating a successful program in Austin and the Bay Area for months.
In fact, it announced it achieved nearly 700,000 paid Robotaxi miles since launching Robotaxi last June.
🚨 Tesla has achieved nearly 700,000 paid Robotaxi miles since launching in June of last year pic.twitter.com/E8ldSW36La
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) January 28, 2026
With the expansion, Tesla will be able to penetrate more of the ride-sharing market, disrupting the human-operated platforms like Uber and Lyft, which are usually more expensive and are dependent on availability.
Tesla launched driverless rides in Austin last week, but they’ve been few and far between, as the company is certainly easing into the program with a very cautiously optimistic attitude, aiming to prioritize safety.
Investor's Corner
Tesla (TSLA) Q4 and FY 2025 earnings call: The most important points
Executives, including CEO Elon Musk, discussed how the company is positioning itself for growth across vehicles, energy, AI, and robotics despite near-term pressures from tariffs, pricing, and macro conditions.
Tesla’s (NASDAQ:TSLA) Q4 and FY 2025 earnings call highlighted improving margins, record energy performance, expanding autonomy efforts, and a sharp acceleration in AI and robotics investments.
Executives, including CEO Elon Musk, discussed how the company is positioning itself for growth across vehicles, energy, AI, and robotics despite near-term pressures from tariffs, pricing, and macro conditions.
Key takeaways
Tesla reported sequential improvement in automotive gross margins excluding regulatory credits, rising from 15.4% to 17.9%, supported by favorable regional mix effects despite a 16% decline in deliveries. Total gross margin exceeded 20.1%, the highest level in more than two years, even with lower fixed-cost absorption and tariff impacts.
The energy business delivered standout results, with revenue reaching nearly $12.8 billion, up 26.6% year over year. Energy gross profit hit a new quarterly record, driven by strong global demand and high deployments of MegaPack and Powerwall across all regions, as noted in a report from The Motley Fool.
Tesla also stated that paid Full Self-Driving customers have climbed to nearly 1.1 million worldwide, with about 70% having purchased FSD outright. The company has now fully transitioned FSD to a subscription-based sales model, which should create a short-term margin headwind for automotive results.
Free cash flow totaled $1.4 billion for the quarter. Operating expenses rose by $500 million sequentially as well.
Production shifts, robotics, and AI investment
Musk further confirmed that Model S and Model X production is expected to wind down next quarter, and plans are underway to convert Fremont’s S/X line into an Optimus robot factory with a capacity of one million units.
Tesla’s Robotaxi fleet has surpassed 500 vehicles, operating across the Bay Area and Austin, with Musk noting a rapid monthly expansion pace. He also reiterated that CyberCab production is expected to begin in April, following a slow initial S-curve ramp before scaling beyond other vehicle programs.
Looking ahead, Tesla expects its capital expenditures to exceed $20 billion next year, thanks to the company’s operations across its six factories, the expansion of its fleet expansion, and the ramp of its AI compute. Additional investments in AI chips, compute infrastructure, and future in-house semiconductor manufacturing were discussed but are not included in the company’s current CapEx guidance.
More importantly, Tesla ended the year with a larger backlog than in recent years. This is supported by record deliveries in smaller international markets and stronger demand across APAC and EMEA. Energy backlog remains strong globally as well, though Tesla cautioned that margin pressure could emerge from competition, policy uncertainty, and tariffs.
Tesla hits major milestone with Full Self-Driving subscriptions
Tesla confirms Robotaxi expansion plans with new cities and aggressive timeline
