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SpaceX CEO Elon Musk confirms Q3 2021 target for first orbital Starship launch

An official SpaceX document acquired by NASASpaceflight says that the company aims to have Starship in orbit by July 2021. (SpaceX)

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Update: On the heels of a NASASpaceflight report, CEO Elon Musk has confirmed that SpaceX has an internal target of Q3 2021 (possibly as early as July!) for Starship’s first orbital launch attempt.

NASASpaceflight reports that SpaceX wants to begin orbital Starship launch attempts as early as July 1st, 2021, less than four months from now.

In no uncertain terms, this is an internal target, meaning that it’s far likelier than not that SpaceX’s first orbital Starship launch attempt wont happen in July. Nevertheless, the target’s existence implies that SpaceX sees a real, viable path – however narrow – to launching Starship into orbit for the first time just four months from now.

Put a different way, SpaceX believes it has six months of margin to get through preliminary Super Heavy booster testing (possibly including one or several hops), qualify an upgraded Starship design (SN15 onwards), roughly complete an orbital launch complex, and deliver around two-dozen orbit-capable Raptor engines before the end of the year. While unclear, it’s also possible that the milestone would require SpaceX to qualify and ship the first flightworthy Raptor Vacuum engines – another major challenge.

On its own, completing any one of those major feats of engineering would be impressive. Completing all of them simultaneously – even if the effort suffers more than five months of delays – would be nothing short of extraordinary. As such, it’s fair to assume that SpaceX will fall well short of its incredibly ambitious development schedule, even if the company almost invariably does what it sets out to do.

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In this case, that means that there is a very real chance that Starship reaches orbit before the end of 2021, achieving a target that both SpaceX CEO Elon Musk and COO/President Gwynne Shotwell have reiterated within the last several months.

Starship separates from its Super Heavy booster. (SpaceX)

Even after reaching orbit for the first time, SpaceX will likely continue Starship development largely unchanged, treating the orbital regime as just another sandbox to test and refine Starship prototypes with. Given all the extraordinary problems SpaceX will need to solve to reach orbit, there’s also a decent chance that Starship or Super Heavy’s first orbital launch attempt will fail. If the launch is initially successfully, it’s just as likely that Super Heavy will fail its first hypersonic launch and landing attempt.

If Starship itself reaches orbit in one piece, any number of issues could kill the vehicle in space. If it survives long enough complete a 90-minute orbit and line up for reentry, descent, and landing, Starship’s first orbital-velocity atmospheric reentry – one of the biggest challenges in aerospace engineering – could easily destroy the spacecraft. If Starship somehow makes it through reentry on its first try, the stresses of orbital spaceflight and that reentry could prevent its Raptor engines from performing nominally during its powered flip maneuver and landing burn.

This is all to say that even as SpaceX sets its sights on orbital flight, the trajectory is still a continuation of an ongoing test program and iterative development process. While orbit-capable Starships will likely be much more expensive than their suborbital brethren, the differences are small enough that SpaceX will undoubtedly continue to push the envelope and risk losing prototypes to uncover and fix bugs and design flaws as early as possible.

Along the way, there will undoubtedly be more SN8/SN9/SN10-style hiccups. Given Starship’s developmental history, however, it’s starting to look like nothing less than catastrophe will prevent SpaceX from launching Starship into orbit before the year is out.

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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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Ford considers drastic move with F-150 Lightning: ‘The demand is just not there’

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Credit: Ford Motor Company

Ford is considering a drastic move with its F-150 Lightning, which was the best-selling EV pickup on the market last quarter, beating out Tesla’s Cybertruck.

Ford has had a tumultuous entrance into its more expanded electric vehicle strategy over the past several years. At one point, the company was widely considered to be the most invested legacy automaker in the transition to electrification, but as the company has seen some real backtracking in terms of its sales and demand, it is cooling down its commitment.

At the end of Q3, it seemed to already be considering making some moves to cool off its EV ambitions, especially as the $7,500 EV tax credit was removed and it appeared that consumers would be less attracted to its vehicles without this sizeable discount.

Now, according to a new report from the Wall Street Journal, Ford is considering scrapping the F-150 Lightning altogether, as one employee said “the demand is just not there.”

Despite it being the best-selling EV pickup in the U.S. last quarter, the sales simply do not match up with the pricing, and financially, it is not the time to try to dive further into a project that is not making a profit. Ford has been dwindling in its commitment to EVs over the past several quarters, and its profits are reflecting a slowing interest in its electric vehicles.

Simply put, Ford’s combustion engine lineup of pickups in the F-Series is, by far, the best-selling division of trucks globally. Ford brought an awesome product forth with the Lightning, a mirror of the gas-powered F-Series that had a variety of trim levels for whatever the truck would be used for by the consumer.

However, the demand and sales have caused Ford to take a loss on its electric truck: figures from early last year indicated it was losing between $100,000 and $132,000 per vehicle.

It is not an official announcement, as Ford has not publicly said anything regarding its plans for the Lightning at this time.

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Tesla schedules Roadster unveiling event, and you won’t believe when it is

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Tesla has tentatively scheduled its unveiling event for the Roadster’s next-generation iteration, and you will not believe the date the company picked for it.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk said during the 2025 Annual Shareholders Meeting that the company is aiming for an April 1 demo event.

Yes, April Fools’ Day.

Tesla originally aimed for its “most epic demo” to take place at the end of this year. However, the writing on the wall as 2025 winds down seemed to indicate the company was not quite ready to show off everything it plans to implement into the Roadster.

Its capabilities have been teased quite heavily throughout most of the year, but the biggest hints came last week when Musk appeared on the Joe Rogan Experience Podcast.

He said:

“Whether it’s good or bad, it will be unforgettable. My friend Peter Thiel once reflected that the future was supposed to have flying cars, but we don’t have flying cars. I think if Peter wants a flying car, he should be able to buy one…I think it has a shot at being the most memorable product unveil ever. [It will be unveiled] hopefully before the end of the year. You know, we need to make sure that it works. This is some crazy technology in this car. Let’s just put it this way: if you took all the James Bond cars and combined them, it’s crazier than that.”

The Roadster has been somewhat of a letdown, at least in its newest version, thus far. Tesla has routinely delayed the project, putting those who put lofty down payments on the car in a weird limbo, lost at what to do.

One notable pre-orderer cancelled his reservation last week and got in a spat with Musk about it.

Now that there is a definitive date for the Roadster unveiling, Musk and Co. should have a more definitive cutoff date for features and capabilities. Chief Designer Franz von Holzhausen said earlier this year that when they showed Musk what they had done with the Roadster, the CEO encouraged them to do even more with it.

This delayed things further.

Musk also said he believes production would begin between 12 and 18 months after the unveiling, putting it out sometime in 2027.

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Elon Musk

Tesla (TSLA) shareholders officially approve Elon Musk’s 2025 performance award

To earn his landmark pay package, Musk would be required to lift Tesla’s market capitalization from about $1.1 trillion today to $8.5 trillion over the next decade.

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Justin Pacheco, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) CEO Elon Musk has officially approved his 2025 Performance Award, a landmark pay package that could make him the world’s first trillionaire and make Tesla the most valuable company in the world by a mile. 

The 2025 CEO Performance Award was officially approved by Tesla shareholders at the 2025 Annual Shareholder Meeting.

Elon Musk‘s landmark pay package

As per Tesla, more than 75% of the shareholders approved Elon Musk’s 2025 CEO Performance Award. It was then unsurprising that the approval of Elon Musk’s pay plan received overwhelming applause from the event’s attendees.

The CEO took to the stage with much enthusiasm, welcoming every shareholder to the event and dancing briefly on stage. Optimus also danced on stage smoothly, demonstrating its improved movements to much appause.

Elon Musk’s 10-year targets

To earn his 2025 CEO Performance Award, Musk would be required to grow Tesla’s market capitalization from about $1.1 trillion today to $8.5 trillion over the next decade. At that level, Tesla would surpass every major public company in existence. The compensation plan also requires Tesla’s operating profit to grow from $17 billion last year to $400 billion annually. 

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Apart from leading Tesla to become the world’s biggest company in history, Musk is also required to hit several product targets for the electric vehicle maker. These include the delivery of 20 million Tesla vehicles cumulatively, 10 million active FSD subscriptions, 1 million Tesla bots delivered, and 1 million Robotaxis in operation.

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