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SpaceX Starship nails ‘flip’ maneuver in explosive landing video
Update: SpaceX has published a video taken near the launch pad of Starship nailing an exotic ‘flip’ maneuver shortly before a hard landing destroyed the rocket.
Both the company, test directors, and CEO Elon Musk have all made it abundantly clear that despite the explosive end, Starship SN8’s maiden flight was a spectacular success, proving that the rocket is capable of performing several previously-unproven maneuvers and surviving the associated stresses. Notably, according to tweets posted by Musk not long after, Starship SN8 performed almost perfectly, failing a soft landing (already proven by SN5 and SN6) solely because of low pressure in the rocket’s secondary ‘header’ fuel tank.
For unknown reasons, that tank or its associated plumbing were unable to maintain the pressure needed to feed Raptor with enough propellant, resulting in fuel starvation mid-burn. A lack of fuel and surplus of oxygen effectively turned the landing engine into a giant oxygen torch, melting the copper walls of its combustion chamber (hence the green plume). Had the header tank maintained the correct pressure, SN8 would have very likely landed intact (or at least had a much softer landing).
In simpler terms, it seems that Raptor isn’t to blame for Starship SN8’s failed landing and fixing a pressurization problem will be dramatically faster and easier than rectifying a rocket engine design flaw.
In perhaps the most spectacular aerospace demonstration since Falcon Heavy’s 2018 debut, SpaceX’s first full-size Starship prototype came within a hair’s breadth of sticking the landing after an otherwise successful ~12.5 km (7.8 mi) launch debut.
To quote SpaceX’s test director, heard live on the company’s official webcast moments after Starship serial number 8 (SN8) exploded on impact, “Incredible work, team!” For most, praise shortly after a rocket explosion could easily feel nonsensical, but in the context of SpaceX’s iterative approach to development, a Starship prototype failing just moments before the end of a multi-minute test can be considered a spectacular success.
Chock full of surprises, Starship SN8 ignited its three Raptor engines for the third time and lifted off at 4:45 pm CST (UTC-6) on the program’s high-altitude launch debut.
About 100 seconds after liftoff, already representing the longest-known ignition of one – let alone three – Raptor engines, one of those three engines appeared to shut down, causing the two remaining engines to gimbal wildly in an effort to retain control. Another two minutes after that, one of those Raptors also shut down, leaving one engine active. That one engine continued to burn for another minute and a half, producing just enough thrust to more or less maintain Starship SN8’s altitude at apogee while performing a bizarre horizontal slide maneuver.
Finally, at a bit less than five minutes after liftoff, Starship cut off all Raptor engines and began falling back to earth. Looking spectacularly similar to fan-made renders and CGI videos of the highly-anticipated ‘skydiver’ or ‘belly-flop’ maneuver, Starship – belly down – spent around two minutes in a rock-solid freefall, using four large flaps to maintain stability.
Around 4:52 pm, Starship SN8 performed exactly as expected, igniting one – and then two – Raptor engines while fully parallel to the ground to complete an aggressive 90-degree flip, transitioning into vertical flight for an attempted landing. Unfortunately, although it’s difficult to judge what was intentional and what was not, things began to go wrong after that point -visible in the form of one of the two reignited Raptors flashing green before shutting down.
At the same time, the plume of the lone remaining engine flashed an electric green, quite literally consuming its copper-rich internals in an unsuccessful attempt to slow Starship down. According to SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, Raptor performed “great” throughout the launch and landing attempt, with the bright-green plume likely explained by extremely oxygen-rich combustion caused by low “fuel header tank pressure.”
Regardless of the specific cause, Starship SN8 smashed into the ground around 10-20 seconds early, traveling about 30 m/s (~70 mph) too fast. To be clear, in SpaceX’s eyes, the test – primarily focused on demonstrating multi-engine ascent, freefall stability, header tank handover, engine reignition, and a flip-over maneuver – was a spectacular success, completing almost every single objective and seemingly doing so without any major issues.
Clocking in at an incredible (and unexpected) ~400 seconds (~6.5 minutes) from liftoff to explosion, it’s difficult to exaggerate the sheer quantity of invaluable data SpaceX has likely gathered from SN8’s sacrifice. Thanks to SN8’s primarily successful debut, SpaceX’s Starship test and launch facilities (minus the rocket’s remains on the landing zone) appear to be almost completely unharmed, likely requiring only minor repairs and refurbishment. Further, Starship SN9 is effectively complete and patiently waiting a few miles down the road, ready to roll to the launch pad almost as soon as SpaceX has understood the cause of SN8’s hard landing.
Stay tuned for more analysis, photos, and videos as the dust settles.
Elon Musk has acknowledged that early discussions with Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) could bring the company into his ambitious Terafab semiconductor project, signaling a possible partnership with the world’s leading contract chipmaker.
Musk confirmed that early talks are underway, but as of right now, they are “just discussions.” There is no confirmation of a deal nor dismissal of the possibility of one, leaving open the prospect of one of the largest advanced-chip collaborations under discussion in the U.S.
@wholemars Just discussions, but something may come of it
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 3, 2026
The report that speculated on potential discussions between Terafab and TSMC comes from Tim Culpan, who outlined a few ways the collaboration could operate. One is TSMC using the project as an “anchor customer” for future facilities in Texas, potentially contributing process expertise, operational know-how, or capacity while Terafab provides capital, long-term purchase commitments, or both.
Tesla and SpaceX jointly developed the Terafab project, with Intel already participating on the tech side. Elon Musk announced the project in March, and it intends to produce more than one terawatt of AI compute capacity annually once fully built.
Company statements place the first phase at approximately $16.8 billion in cost, with later filings pointing to a total that could reach well into the tens of billions across multiple stages.
Intel joined the effort in April 2026 and is expected to supply its 14A manufacturing process for the full-scale plant.
Musk has said existing suppliers, including Samsung and TSMC, remain important for near-term needs; Tesla already has production arrangements with Samsung for AI5 and AI6 chips, but that future demand from Optimus robots, Cybercab vehicles, and planned space-based data centers will eventually exceed what the global industry can currently deliver.
Terafab is positioned as the long-term answer to that projected shortfall, and Tesla did something similar during COVID to avoid a chip shortage. This is just a much larger-scale solution.
If the partnership were to materialize, it would add TSMC’s industry-leading strategies to a project that already combines Tesla’s and SpaceX’s capital and offtake with Intel’s process technology. For now, the only public confirmation is Musk’s brief acknowledgement that conversations are occurring.
Tesla’s early strategy for charging units operating within its Robotaxi fleet reveals that the company surely has not lost any of that scrappy DNA that took it from an unlikely success story to the most valuable carmaker in the world.
An observer at a Tesla Supercharger in Austin spotted ten total Robotaxi vehicles arrive: one Cybercab and nine Model Y units. A Tesla employee was waiting at the lot and allowed each unit to park itself; every car that arrived had nobody in it.
Tesla wins FCC approval for wireless Cybercab charging system
The Tesla employee would walk around and plug each car in, adjusting the parking if needed:
So look at what I found. This is how Tesla charges unsupervised robotaxis at a public supercharger. Here is a driverless Cybercab showing up with no one in it. There are 9 other Model Ys that showed up too. A Tesla employee is walking around and plugging each of them in. She also moves the cars if they are not positioned well enough to charge. I love this process. One person charges multiple robotaxis at once
— Abhimanyu Yadav (@WorldlyReviewer) October 3, 2026
It’s a very interesting strategy, but extremely understandable at this early point in the Robotaxi program. It’s only been out for about 15 months, and Cybercab just entered the fleet in early September.
On top of that, Tesla is still working tirelessly on its wireless charging apparatus, and a new patent was just published regarding that product last week.
However, this is just another example of how Tesla still has plenty of that scrappy DNA leftover from the “production hell” days, when CEO Elon Musk slept on the floor of the factory, employees were working crazy hours, Tesla was building Sprung Structures to build cars in, and the company was tiptoeing on the brink of bankruptcy.
@Teslarati Sheer magnitude of the entire production system is hard to appreciate. Almost every element of production is >75% automated. Only wire harnesses & general assembly, which are <10% of production costs, are primarily manual.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 12, 2020
For now, Tesla is utilizing a simple system for recharging its ride-hailing vehicles, and that is a Tesla employee doing it manually until another solution presents itself. Sure, it’s not the most high-tech thing, and it certainly is not what people might have expected at this point in time, but it works, and it’s keeping the entire suite running.
Tesla is expanding its Robotaxi service hours by pushing the time back by one hour, keeping the ride-hailing service operational until 11 p.m., one hour later than previously.
CEO Elon Musk confirmed the change and offered a specific reason the expansion has been gradual: the system still needs to reliably avoid small pets that are difficult to see after dark, as they commonly blend into the color of the road, especially when they’re grey.
The latest adjustment restores only a fraction of the operating window the service once held. When paid Robotaxi rides began in Austin on June 22, 2025, vehicles ran from 6 a.m. to midnight.
In September 2025, Tesla lengthened the day to a 2 a.m. close, producing a 20-hour window that stayed in place for most of the following year. By early August of this year, the cutoff had already been pulled back; an August 26 update formalized hours of 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. across Austin and several other markets.
The October move to 11 p.m. therefore leaves the Austin day one hour shorter than the original launch schedule and three hours shorter than the 2025 peak.
Musk addressed the constraint directly after the announcement. “The main thing we’re trying to solve is making sure that we don’t run over pets when they’re hard to see at night,” he wrote. “Literally trying to avoid grey kittens on grey tarmac in the dark.”
Robotaxi operating hours moved from 10pm to 11pm.
The main thing we’re trying to solve is making sure that we don’t run over pets when they’re hard to see at night. Literally trying to avoid grey kittens on grey tarmac in the dark.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 3, 2026
The example points to a low-contrast perception problem in which a small animal can blend into the road surface under limited lighting.
Tesla’s vehicles rely on cameras and neural-network processing rather than lidar; Musk has previously argued that advanced vision software can extract useful information even in low light by analyzing photon counts, but the pet-detection case remains the stated limiter in later hours.
The modest schedule change arrives alongside faster growth in the purpose-built Cybercab fleet. Texas registration data tracked by observers showed the Austin Cybercab count rising sharply in recent weeks, reaching 169 vehicles after more than 100 were added in a short span.
Tesla has indicated that a broader shift toward 24-hour operation is tied to the upcoming FSD v15 software release expected this month on Robotaxi vehicles. Until that capability is validated for the edge cases Musk described, the company continues to add service time incrementally rather than jumping straight to overnight coverage.
The one-hour extension gives Austin riders a later option for evening trips while the underlying detection work continues.
Elon Musk teases TSMC as potential Terafab partner
Tesla reveals early Robotaxi charging strategy, showing scrappy DNA
