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Elon Musk: SpaceX’s first orbital Starship launch “highly likely” in Q1 2023
SpaceX’s first Starship orbital launch mount (OLM) appears to have passed a busy week of stress-testing, clearing the way for the company to transport a finished Super Heavy booster to the pad.
Using the same launch mount, that Starship booster is expected to attempt to complete some of the riskiest and most challenging tests SpaceX has ever conducted at its Starbase rocket development facilities. The schedule for that testing is unclear, but after an unusually drawn-out period of qualification testing, Super Heavy Booster 7 (B7) could soon attempt a full static fire test of all 33 of its Raptor 2 engines. Either before or after that crucial test, SpaceX is also expected to install Ship 24 (S24) on top of Super Heavy B7 for Starship’s first full-stack “wet dress rehearsal.”
Ultimately, if that testing produces the results SpaceX wants to see, CEO Elon Musk says that Starship could attempt its first orbital launch as early as late February or March 2023.
We have a real shot at late February. March launch attempt appears highly likely.— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 8, 2023
The update that's rolling out to the fleet makes full use of the front and rear steering travel to minimize turning circle. In this case a reduction of 1.6 feet just over the air— Wes (@wmorrill3) April 16, 2024
Booster 7
Super Heavy B7 first left SpaceX’s Starbase factory in March 2022 and has been in a continuous flux of testing, repairs, upgrades, and more testing in the nine months since. The 69-meter-tall (~225 ft), 9-meter-wide (~30 ft) steel rocket was severely damaged at least twice in April and July, requiring weeks of substantial repairs. But neither instance permanently crippled the Starship booster, and Booster 7 testing has been cautious but largely successful since the rocket’s last close call.
Following its return to the OLS in early August, Super Heavy B7 has completed six static fire tests of anywhere from one to fourteen of its 33 Raptor engines. It has almost certainly dethroned Falcon Heavy to become the most powerful SpaceX rocket ever tested. And on January 8th, 2023, SpaceX rolled the rocket back to Starbase’s orbital launch site (OLS) for the seventh time. According to statements made by CEO Elon Musk and a presentation from a NASA official, the last major standalone test between Booster 7 and flight readiness is a full 33-engine static fire. Together, B7’s 33 Raptor 2 engines could produce up to 7600 tons (16.7 million lbf) of thrust at sea level, likely making Starship the most powerful rocket stage in the history of spaceflight.
Ship 24
Starship prototype S24’s path has been a bit less rocky. The ship has needed some less obvious repairs, particularly right after its first tests in May 2022. Since August 2022, Ship 24 has completed three static fire tests – all seemingly successful. Most importantly, one of those tests ignited all six of S24’s Raptor engines, potentially qualifying it for an orbital launch attempt. Most recently, SpaceX completed a series of mysterious repairs, replaced and static-fired one of S24’s engines, and removed the Starship from its test stand.
With Booster 7 now awaiting installation on Starbase’s orbital launch mount and Ship 24 near-simultaneously removed from its test stand, it appears that SpaceX may attempt a different test before Super Heavy’s full static fire. Instead, SpaceX could start by stacking Ship 24 and Booster 7 and conducting a full-stack wet dress rehearsal (WDR) before shifting focus to Booster 7’s riskier static fire.
A wet dress rehearsal is a routine test conducted before a rocket launch and is generally designed to simulate every aspect of a launch save for engine ignition and liftoff. Most importantly, that involves fully filling the rocket with propellant and passing all of the checks the same rocket would need to pass to be cleared for launch. For Starship, the largest rocket ever built, a full propellant load means filling both stages with an extraordinary ~5000 tons of liquid oxygen and liquid methane propellant. SpaceX also needs to fill the rocket fast enough to keep that propellant supercool, which increases its density and overall performance.
The first full-stack WDR will thus test Starbase’s launch facilities just as much as Booster 7 and Ship 24. SpaceX has conducted many several Starship WDRs, but not with Ship 24. It’s also never fully filled a Super Heavy booster with real propellant, let alone both stages at once. It’s likely that issues will be discovered as SpaceX pushes the envelope, likely requiring multiple attempts.
OLS
In the spirit of caution, SpaceX has even taken the unusual step of stress-testing Starship’s orbital launch mount with a custom jig. In the first week of 2023, SpaceX used that jig to load pairs of the OLM’s 20 hold-down clamps with hundreds of tons of ballast, ensuring that they can withstand the immense weight of a fully-fueled Starship. Proof tests of Super Heavy B4 and B7 have likely subjected the OLM to 2000+ tons of force, but a full Starship will weigh more than double the maximum weight the OLM has experienced to date.
Plenty of risk remains and SpaceX is trading speed for caution, but this extra-cautious step has likely reduced the risk of the launch mount’s structure failing during wet-dress and static fire testing. According to Musk, SpaceX has a “real shot” at preparing Starship for a “late February” orbital launch attempt. Nonetheless, Musk also implied that a full-stack WDR and 33-engine static fire would “probably” be completed “in a few weeks” in September 2022. What is clear is that SpaceX is more committed than ever before to avoiding a catastrophic failure during Starship’s first orbital launch attempt.
Tesla engineers deflected calls from Apple on a daily basis while the tech giant was developing its now-defunct electric vehicle program, which was known as “Project Titan.”
Back in 2022 and 2023, Apple was developing an EV in a top-secret internal fashion, hoping to launch it by 2028 with a fully autonomous driving suite.
However, Apple bailed on the project in early 2024, as Project Titan abandoned the project in an email to over 2,000 employees. The company had backtracked its expectations for the vehicle on several occasions, initially hoping to launch it with no human driving controls and only with an autonomous driving suite.
Apple canceling its EV has drawn a wide array of reactions across tech
It then planned for a 2028 launch with “limited autonomous driving.” But it seemed to be a bit of a concession at that point; Apple was not prepared to take on industry giants like Tesla.
Wedbush’s Dan Ives noted in a communication to investors that, “The writing was on the wall for Apple with a much different EV landscape forming that would have made this an uphill battle. Most of these Project Titan engineers are now all focused on AI at Apple, which is the right move.”
Apple did all it could to develop a competitive EV that would attract car buyers, including attempting to poach top talent from Tesla.
In a new podcast interview with Tesla CEO Elon Musk, it was revealed that Apple had been calling Tesla engineers nonstop during its development of the now-defunct project. Musk said the engineers “just unplugged their phones.”
Musk said in full:
“They were carpet bombing Tesla with recruiting calls. Engineers just unplugged their phones. Their opening offer without any interview would be double the compensation at Tesla.”
Interestingly, Apple had acquired some ex-Tesla employees for its project, like Senior Director of Engineering Dr. Michael Schwekutsch, who eventually left for Archer Aviation.
Tesla took no legal action against Apple for attempting to poach its employees, as it has with other companies. It came after EV rival Rivian in mid-2020, after stating an “alarming pattern” of poaching employees was noticed.
There are a lot of Tesla bulls out there who have astronomical expectations for the company, especially as its arm of reach has gone well past automotive and energy and entered artificial intelligence and robotics.
However, some of the most bullish Tesla investors believe the company could become worth $100 trillion, and CEO Elon Musk does not believe that number is completely out of the question, even if it sounds almost ridiculous.
To put that number into perspective, the top ten most valuable companies in the world — NVIDIA, Apple, Alphabet, Microsoft, Amazon, TSMC, Meta, Saudi Aramco, Broadcom, and Tesla — are worth roughly $26 trillion.
Will Tesla join the fold? Predicting a triple merger with SpaceX and xAI
Cathie Wood of ARK Invest believes the number is reasonable considering Tesla’s long-reaching industry ambitions:
“…in the world of AI, what do you have to have to win? You have to have proprietary data, and think about all the proprietary data he has, different kinds of proprietary data. Tesla, the language of the road; Neuralink, multiomics data; nobody else has that data. X, nobody else has that data either. I could see $100 trillion. I think it’s going to happen because of convergence. I think Tesla is the leading candidate [for $100 trillion] for the reason I just said.”
Musk said late last year that all of his companies seem to be “heading toward convergence,” and it’s started to come to fruition. Tesla invested in xAI, as revealed in its Q4 Earnings Shareholder Deck, and SpaceX recently acquired xAI, marking the first step in the potential for a massive umbrella of companies under Musk’s watch.
SpaceX officially acquires xAI, merging rockets with AI expertise
Now that it is happening, it seems Musk is even more enthusiastic about a massive valuation that would swell to nearly four-times the value of the top ten most valuable companies in the world currently, as he said on X, the idea of a $100 trillion valuation is “not impossible.”
It’s not impossible
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 6, 2026
Tesla is not just a car company. With its many projects, including the launch of Robotaxi, the progress of the Optimus robot, and its AI ambitions, it has the potential to continue gaining value at an accelerating rate.
Musk’s comments show his confidence in Tesla’s numerous projects, especially as some begin to mature and some head toward their initial stages.
Elon Musk
Celebrating SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy Tesla Roadster launch, seven years later (Op-Ed)
Seven years later, the question is no longer “What if this works?” It’s “How far does this go?”
When Falcon Heavy lifted off in February 2018 with Elon Musk’s personal Tesla Roadster as its payload, SpaceX was at a much different place. So was Tesla. It was unclear whether Falcon Heavy was feasible at all, and Tesla was in the depths of Model 3 production hell.
At the time, Tesla’s market capitalization hovered around $55–60 billion, an amount critics argued was already grossly overvalued. SpaceX, on the other hand, was an aggressive private launch provider known for taking risks that traditional aerospace companies avoided.
The Roadster launch was bold by design. Falcon Heavy’s maiden mission carried no paying payload, no government satellite, just a car drifting past Earth with David Bowie playing in the background. To many, it looked like a stunt. For Elon Musk and the SpaceX team, it was a bold statement: there should be some things in the world that simply inspire people.
Inspire it did, and seven years later, SpaceX and Tesla’s results speak for themselves.
Today, Tesla is the world’s most valuable automaker, with a market capitalization of roughly $1.54 trillion. The Model Y has become the best-selling car in the world by volume for three consecutive years, a scenario that would have sounded insane in 2018. Tesla has also pushed autonomy to a point where its vehicles can navigate complex real-world environments using vision alone.
And then there is Optimus. What began as a literal man in a suit has evolved into a humanoid robot program that Musk now describes as potential Von Neumann machines: systems capable of building civilizations beyond Earth. Whether that vision takes decades or less, one thing is evident: Tesla is no longer just a car company. It is positioning itself at the intersection of AI, robotics, and manufacturing.
SpaceX’s trajectory has been just as dramatic.
The Falcon 9 has become the undisputed workhorse of the global launch industry, having completed more than 600 missions to date. Of those, SpaceX has successfully landed a Falcon booster more than 560 times. The Falcon 9 flies more often than all other active launch vehicles combined, routinely lifting off multiple times per week.
Falcon 9 has ferried astronauts to and from the International Space Station via Crew Dragon, restored U.S. human spaceflight capability, and even stepped in to safely return NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams when circumstances demanded it.
Starlink, once a controversial idea, now dominates the satellite communications industry, providing broadband connectivity across the globe and reshaping how space-based networks are deployed. SpaceX itself, following its merger with xAI, is now valued at roughly $1.25 trillion and is widely expected to pursue what could become the largest IPO in history.
And then there is Starship, Elon Musk’s fully reusable launch system designed not just to reach orbit, but to make humans multiplanetary. In 2018, the idea was still aspirational. Today, it is under active development, flight-tested in public view, and central to NASA’s future lunar plans.
In hindsight, Falcon Heavy’s maiden flight with Elon Musk’s personal Tesla Roadster was never really about a car in space. It was a signal that SpaceX and Tesla were willing to think bigger, move faster, and accept risks others wouldn’t.
The Roadster is still out there, orbiting the Sun. Seven years later, the question is no longer “What if this works?” It’s “How far does this go?”
Tesla engineers deflected calls from this tech giant’s now-defunct EV project
Tesla to a $100T market cap? Elon Musk’s response may shock you
