News
SpaceX’s orbital Starship launch pad tank farm comes to life for the first time
Update: Two days after a bevy of tanker trucks began to arrive at SpaceX’s orbital Starship launch site with load upon load of cryogenic liquid nitrogen, the company’s custom-built tank farm appears to have taken its very first ‘breaths.’
In other words, at least one of seven massive propellant storage tanks – two of which appear to have been fully completed and insulated – began venting. For a tank like SpaceX’s ground support equipment (GSE) tanks, the level of venting observed can only mean one thing: pressure maintenance during operations with cryogenic fluids. As cryofluids are loaded into empty tanks, they inevitably come into contact with warm pipes and tank walls, rapidly warming a portion of the liquid that then boils into gas. Tanks then need to vent that excess gas to avoid bursting.
In the case of SpaceX’s two completed liquid oxygen GSE tanks and a spate of liquid nitrogen (LN2) deliveries this week, it’s clear that the company has begun the process of testing and activating part of its brand new orbital-class Starship tank farm – beginning with much less risky LN2 proof testing. Filling the two finished LOx tanks with LN2 should also serve the dual purpose of flushing and cleaning them of any debris or contaminants, ensuring that it’s safe to fill them with LOx when the time comes.
For the first time, SpaceX appears to have begun delivering large quantities of cryogenic fluids to Starship’s orbital launch pad – still under construction but fast approaching some level of initial operational capability.
Sometime in the morning on September 19th, a semi-truck carrying a cryogenic liquid nitrogen (LN2) transport trailer arrived at SpaceX’s Starbase launch facilities. Normally, that would be a completely mundane, uninteresting event: SpaceX has used and will continue to use liquid nitrogen to safely proof test Starship prototypes and supercool their liquid methane (LCH4) and oxygen (LOx) propellant for the indefinite future. However, up to now, 100% of all Starbase cryogen deliveries have gone to the suborbital launch site, where two “mounts” and a few concrete aprons have supported all Starship and Super Heavy tests and launches to date.
Instead, this particular LN2 tanker headed for Starbase’s first orbital tank farm and began to offload its cryogenic liquid cargo at a number of brand new fill stations specifically designed for the task.
Still well under construction and at least a few weeks or months from total complete, Starship’s orbital launch site tank farm will ultimately be a group of eight massive storage tanks surrounded by thousands of feet of insulated plumbing, industrial pumps, a small army of “cryocoolers,” a blockhouse filled with human-sized valves, and much more. Said tank farm has been under construction for the better part of 2021, beginning with work on its concrete foundation this January.
Nine months later, the orbital tank farm is nearly complete. A power distribution and communications blockhouse has been complete for weeks with virtually all the wiring and cabling needed for the orbital launch mount and tower already in place. Several hundred feet of concrete cable and plumbing conduit have been filled with thousands of feet of wires, cables, and pipes and been sealed and buried. The tank farm blockhouse – where a dozen or so massive valves control the flow of propellant to and from the orbital launch mount and tower – is complete save for some final plumbing.
Finally, seven of eight GSE (ground support equipment) tanks have been installed and partially plumbed. Built in the same factory, six are virtually identical to Starship and Super Heavy tanks and will store LOx (3x), LN2 (2x), LCH4 (2x), and around a million gallons of water. Save for one LCH4 tank, all have been installed at the farm and that last tank (known as GSE8) is nearly complete back at the build site. Additionally, to insulate those seven thin, steel storage tanks, SpaceX has contracted with a water/storage tank company to build seven “cryoshells” and said million-gallon water tank.
The water tank was installed months ago and all seven shells are completed and ready to go as of last month. Only two of those seven cryoshells have been installed – and, rather asymmetrically, both on LOx tanks. SpaceX recently rolled the first LN2 tank cryoshell to the farm and could install it soon but as of now, it will likely be weeks before the orbital tank farm will have sleeved, insulated LOx, LN2, and LCH4 tanks ready for testing.
At the moment, that’s one of the biggest points of uncertainty standing between SpaceX and the ability to test Super Heavy or Starship at the orbital launch site. It’s entirely unclear if uninsulated GSE tanks can support any kind of substantial testing – like, say, the first full Super Heavy static fire test campaign – before their contents effectively boil off. As such, it’s a bit of mystery why SpaceX then had at least three tanker loads of liquid nitrogen – likely more than 70 tons (~150,000 lb) total – delivered to the orbital tank farm on September 19th.
By all appearances the first time that the farm’s actual main tanks have been filled with anything, that liquid nitrogen seems to have been loaded into one or both of the two insulated LOx tanks. There are two or three main explanations. First, SpaceX could simply be testing those more or less completed tanks with their first cryogenic fluids. Those partial ‘cryo proof’ tests would also help clean and flush out the interior of the LOx tanks, removing mundane debris or contamination that could become a major hazard when submerged in a high-density oxidizer. Given that both tanks can easily hold ~1300 tons (~2.9M lb) of liquid nitrogen, 70 tons is more of a tickle than a test, though, so a magnitude more would need to be delivered to perform even a half-decent bare-minimum cryoproof.
The other distinct possibility is that SpaceX plans to temporarily use one or both of the only two finished orbital pad tanks to store liquid nitrogen for Super Heavy Booster 4’s first cryogenic proof test. Either way, SpaceX has test windows scheduled every day this week, beginning with a six-hour window that opens at 5pm CDT today (Sept 20). Stay tuned to find out what exactly SpaceX plans to test and if the orbital tank farm and its first taste of liquid nitrogen are involved!
Starlink is launching a new beta path for ordinary property owners and local operators to turn a single Starlink kit into a small shared-access business for passive income.
Under the Starlink for Communities program, a host installs one dish and router setup in a location with nearby demand: an apartment complex, campground, rural crossroads, or event site. Neighbors or local users can buy short-term passes rather than full individual subscriptions, giving the Starlink provider a potential path to passive income.
Hour, day, and week passes cover one device. A month pass covers up to four. Starlink handles account creation, payments, access controls, and the satellite link itself. The host’s role is mainly placement, power, and basic upkeep, with earnings tied to each paid connection.
Big news! SpaceX is introducing a new @Starlink for Communities program that lets you earn money by providing Starlink internet to your neighbors or people nearby, who can pay for access by the hour, day, week, or month.
Neighbors pay for the access they need, while the person… pic.twitter.com/DtOUs0Ekvt
— Sawyer Merritt (@SawyerMerritt) October 1, 2026
The model echoes the passive-income vision long attached to Tesla’s Robotaxi plans, and it seems like it’s something Musk has hinted toward in the past as he believes AI will make the need to work relatively optional. In both cases, the platform owns the hard parts of matching, billing, and network management, while an individual supplies a physical asset that sits idle much of the time.
A Starlink host’s dish can serve multiple nearby users without each household buying and installing its own terminal. A Tesla owner, under the stated Robotaxi concept, would leave a vehicle enrolled in the fleet during unused hours so the car generates rides while the owner is at work or asleep.
Both arrangements convert under-utilized hardware into a revenue stream. They also let the company scale coverage or capacity without owning every endpoint.
Differences are practical. A Starlink kit is a fixed, relatively low-cost terminal whose main constraint is local congestion and line-of-sight. A Tesla Robotaxi is a mobile, high-value vehicle whose earnings depend on demand density, utilization rates, insurance, cleaning, and charging.
Starlink’s program is already accepting host applications in multiple countries and describes the revenue split as ongoing. Tesla’s owner-network version remains more aspirational.
The company currently operates a limited company-controlled robotaxi service in select areas and has solicited interest from fleet buyers for Cybercab vehicles, while private Full Self-Driving owners have not yet been able to dispatch their own cars for paid rides at scale.
Tesla primes Cybercabs for 4K streaming and high bandwidth gaming with Starlink integration
Starlink is a satellite broadband service operated by SpaceX that uses a constellation of low-Earth-orbit satellites to deliver internet to locations where terrestrial broadband is slow, expensive, or absent. It has grown to millions of subscribers worldwide by selling direct residential, mobile, and enterprise terminals, and have become widely available at a wide array at retail locations like Target and Best Buy.
The Communities program extends that reach by letting hosts resell short bursts of capacity to people nearby, while also providing high-speed internet access to those who are simply around a Starlink user.
Tesla just upgraded its headlights through a software update, making them even better without any physical or hardware upgrade.
Tesla’s latest software update is quietly improving nighttime driving for a small number of owners. Version 2026.38 includes a new capability called Dynamic Headlight Leveling.
The feature automatically adjusts the aim of the low beams in response to driving conditions and nearby traffic, with the goal of giving the driver more usable light on the road while reducing glare for oncoming vehicles and traffic ahead.
2026.38 just dropped.
Model 3 gets Dynamic Headlight Leveling — low beams auto-aim around traffic for max visibility, less glare. Model 3 / Y (AMD HW3) also pick up sharper Tesla visuals + an enhanced park scene on the center display.
Legacy Intel cars get Supercharger Site… pic.twitter.com/45ac4AH6Vs
— Frunk To Trunk (@FrunkToTrunk) September 30, 2026
Unlike Tesla’s matrix high-beam system, which selectively dims individual LED segments to create shadows around other cars, Dynamic Headlight Leveling physically tilts the low-beam projectors. Internal motors respond to changes in vehicle pitch.
When the car accelerates hard, climbs a steep grade, or carries extra weight in the rear, the headlights can otherwise point higher than intended. The software counters that movement in real time so the beam stays aimed at the road surface rather than into the eyes of other drivers.
Early indications reveal the update is reaching a limited set of vehicles, including certain Model 3 and Cybertruck examples in the United States and the United Arab Emirates. The rollout does not appear tied to a single hardware revision, and Tesla has not published a broader schedule. It is simply a common waiting game until your car receives it.
The change arrives against a backdrop of wider complaints about headlight glare. Some earlier Model 3 and Model Y vehicles were the subject of an NHTSA recall related to excessive low-beam glare; the software adjustment offers a potential mitigation for cars equipped with the necessary leveling hardware. It does not replace adaptive high beams where those are already available, nor does it alter the basic low-beam pattern itself.
Instead, it keeps an existing beam pointed where it is most useful.
For drivers who have received the update, the system requires no new settings or user input. The headlights simply respond as road conditions and traffic change. As the feature reaches more vehicles, it adds another example of Tesla using over-the-air software to refine existing hardware rather than waiting for a new model year. Nighttime visibility and reduced glare for others are the practical results owners are expected to notice first.
Lifestyle
Tesla teases “Halloween Mode” update with Optimus rising from a graveyard
Tesla’s Halloween teaser hides a covered vehicle and an Optimus hand rising from the ground.
Tesla has started teasing a Halloween software update for its vehicles, with a short clip on X that reads, “Halloween is coming.” The clip opens on a glowing pumpkin before pulling back to the car’s center touchscreen, where the usual parked visualization has been replaced by a graveyard scene, and the vehicle draped with a white sheet so it reads as a cartoon ghost.
Halloween is coming pic.twitter.com/lM3ASUeOqX
— Tesla (@Tesla) October 1, 2026
The second detail is a robotic hand clawing its way out of the dirt like a zombie, which looks to be the hand of Tesla’s latest Optimus V3 humanoid robot. While Tesla still has not formally shown Optimus Gen 3 walking around in service, renders pulled from Tesla’s Android app last month gave the clearest look yet, including far more refined hands that Tesla has said carry 22 degrees of freedom. The hand has been the hardest part of the program. Musk has called it the majority of the robot’s engineering difficulty, and Tesla’s patents describe a design driven by tendons with the actuators moved into the forearm.
Tesla Optimus V3 hand and arm details revealed in new patents
Optimus also has a Halloween track record. Last October the robot handed out candy in Times Square, and a costumed “zombie” Optimus shuffled around the Tesla Diner in Los Angeles on Halloween night.
On the software side, Tesla’s 2025 Holiday Update expanded Santa Mode with a Santa sleigh, snowmen, snow effects, and a festive lock chime, so it wouldn’t be too far fetched if we saw something similar but themed for a Halloween Mode.
Starlink launches Communities Program for passive income through internet sharing
Tesla just made its headlights even better through a software update
