News
SpaceX installs second Starship-derived fuel tank at orbital launch pad
For the second time in two weeks, SpaceX has rolled a ‘Starship-derived’ propellant tank to the next-generation rocket’s first orbital launch pad, continuing a recent burst of construction activity.
Precisely two weeks ago, SpaceX rolled the first of those massive ground support equipment (GSE) propellant tanks the 1.5 miles from its Boca Chica rocket factory to a nearby launch complex. Built with the same parts, facilities, and equipment as flightworthy Starship prototypes, SpaceX’s plans to build grounded storage tanks out of rocket parts went from a complete surprise to initial hardware delivery in less than two months.
Two weeks later, SpaceX has already completed the second of at least seven similar or identical tanks that should be able to store enough propellant for two back-to-back orbital Starship launches – and a third ‘GSE’ tank is just a week or so behind it.
As previously discussed on Teslarati, SpaceX’s decision to use a literal rocket factory to build custom propellant storage tanks is surprisingly revealing with a few reasonable assumptions in place.
SpaceX is effectively taking interchangeable Starship parts, slightly tweaking a handful of them, and turning what could have been a rocket into a propellant storage tank. This is significant because relative to all other rockets in history, even including SpaceX’s own Falcon 9 and Heavy, building storage tanks with unchanged rocket parts on a rocket assembly line would be roughly akin to hiring Vincent van Gogh to paint lane lines.
The existence of self-built propellant storage tanks virtually identical to flightworthy Starship airframes all but guarantees that SpaceX is already building Starships for a few million dollars each – and possibly much less.“
Teslarati.com – 6 April 2021
Aside from potentially being dirt-cheap bulk storage tanks that all but guarantee SpaceX can produce Starship and its Super Heavy boosters for pennies on the dollar of any other rocket in history, SpaceX is quickly demonstrating that it can build a lot of them – and quickly. Parts of Starship prototypes SN17 through SN20 and Super Heavy boosters BN2 and BN3 continue to slowly trickle out of SpaceX’s factory and Starship SN16 is steadily progressing towards completion to take over wherever SN15 leaves off.
However, at least a majority of SpaceX’s focus appears to be set on mass-producing propellant storage tanks as quickly as possible in order to prepare Starship’s orbital launch pad – deep into construction – for flight tests involving Super Heavy. Just last month, following a sourced report from NASASpaceflight.com, CEO Elon Musk confirmed that SpaceX intends to attempt Starship’s first launch on a Super Heavy booster as early as July 2021 – just three months from now.
For obvious reasons, the odds are firmly stacked against SpaceX attempting Starship’s first orbital launch mere months from now, though such an attempt would still be extremely impressive if it happens in 2021 at all. To even attempt that extraordinarily ambitious feat, SpaceX will have to complete at least a barebones ‘rough draft’ of its planned orbital launch complex, including at least four Starship-style GSE tanks.
Towards that end, GSE tank #3 (GSE-3) is already more than half complete and parts of GSE-4 are in work, likely meaning that SpaceX will have enough installed propellant storage capacity for orbital Starship launch attempts less than a month from now. It remains to be seen if SpaceX will power through tanks 5 through 7 after 3 and 4 are complete, or if the focus will shift back to Starship and Super Heavy prototype production.
Either way, SpaceX is wasting no time constructing a brand new super heavy-class launch pad and a tank farm the likes of which has never been seen before. For now, we’ll have to wait and see how long it takes Starship and Super Heavy to catch up.
Energy
Tesla Model 3 and Model Y can now do what only Cybertruck could
Tesla Model 3 and Model Y can power your home with Powerwall 3 during outages.
Tesla has turned its two top sellers into backup batteries for the house.
Tesla Energy announced on Tuesday that Powershare Home Backup is now available for new Model 3 and Model Y vehicles paired with a Powerwall 3, saying the car can “extend your home backup by over 2 days.” Minutes later, Tesla’s main account quoted the post with a broader pitch: “With Powerwall 3, every Tesla can now serve as your home’s backup battery.”
Until this week, the Cybertruck was the only Tesla that could send power back into a home, and that capability only began working alongside Powerwall 3 last month, after years of ambitious targets.
Tesla’s updated Powershare page says every Model 3 and Model Y ordered in the U.S. or Puerto Rico on or after October 1, 2026 can use the feature. Some, but not all, earlier cars also qualify. Owners can check on the touchscreen under Software, then Additional Vehicle Information, where a capable car shows “Powershare Support: Enabled.” As Electrek reported, bidirectional power on the two cars runs through an inverter Tesla calls PCS2 Lite, and the company has not said when that part entered production on each trim.
The home side is simpler. A house that already has a Powerwall 3 and either a Wall Connector 3 or Universal Wall Connector needs no additional equipment, and Tesla says compatibility is enabled through a software update. When the grid drops, the Powerwall and the car work together, with up to 11.52 kW of continuous power available. Tesla’s “over two days” estimate assumes a home using 30 kWh per day and a car starting at a 90 percent charge. Standard trims are rated for up to two days, while the Cybertruck adds more than three.
There are limits. Powerwall 2 and Powerwall+ support is listed as “coming soon.” Model S and Model X are not included, and Grid Support, the program that lets Cybertruck owners in Texas send power back to the grid during demand spikes for bill credits, is not available for Model 3 or Model Y.
The rollout also lines up with something Elon Musk said more than three years ago. At Tesla’s March 2023 Investor Day, Musk said, “I don’t think very many people are going to want to use bidirectional charging, unless you have a Powerwall.” Tesla has now shipped the feature for its volume cars with exactly that requirement attached.
The Powerwall pairing was the hard part on Cybertruck. Tesla told owners in December 2025 that Powershare with Powerwall had been pushed to mid 2026, and lead engineer Wes Morrill explained that two devices capable of forming a home’s grid have to negotiate which one leads during an outage, across multiple generations of hardware. With that work done for the truck, Tesla was able to extend it to the Model 3 and Model Y within a month.
Ford and GM have offered home backup from their EVs for several years, but both require a separate inverter and backup hardware. Tesla’s version leans on equipment many Powerwall 3 owners already have on the wall. Powershare for the two cars also ships as part of software update 2026.38.3, the same release that began delivering Halloween Mode on Tuesday.
Tesla is now starting to ship a “Halloween Mode” that is filled with some creepy and fun features; the company says, “This spooky update turns your Tesla into a haunted house on wheels.”
The update is just the latest in a series of updates that Tesla typically ships out in a seasonal fashion. The Spring and Summer Updates provided some fun novelty items while also packing some cool features that are actually useful for the ownership experience.
This one seems to be more fun-forward, and there are not any updates to the Full Self-Driving suite or overall operation of the vehicle. Instead, these novelty features are geared toward getting you in the mood for the Fall and Halloween.
Halloween Mode now rolling out 🎃
This spooky update turns your Tesla into a haunted house on wheels
– Ghost costume on your car’s avatar
– Enable Trick or Treat to play spooky sounds & flicker the lights when visitors approach
– New haunting light show, wraps & lock sound
– A rather chilling Photobooth
– Frighten people remotely by speaking through the app…your car will say it in a voice of its own
Side effects may include neighborhood notoriety
— Tesla (@Tesla) October 6, 2026
New Ghost Costume on Car Avatar
Driver Visualization will now show your vehicle as a ghost, as an all-white sheet is draped over the vehicle. Pedestrians are turned into mummies or skeletons, and other vehicles are all a spooky green:
Credit: Tesla
Additionally, the Park Scene with your Tesla now displays that ghost costume draped over your vehicle in the foreground of a scary backdrop with Jack-o-Lanterns and a haunted house:
Credit: Tesla
Trick or Treat Mode
Trick or Treat Mode will enable the vehicle to play spooky sounds and flicker the lights as visitors approach. This might be a nice touch for when you’re handing out candy to kids on Halloween Night.
Other Features
Tesla is also adding a new Light Show, new Wrap Options, and a new Lock Sound with this update.
Credit: Tesla
Additionally, Photobooth has a new Halloween option:
Credit: Tesla
You will also be able to speak remotely through the app and transmit your voice to people outside, which is not a new feature, but the car will say it in a voice of its own, which is a new feature with that bullhorn-like feature.
Investor's Corner
SpaceX reveals how its 1 Million AI satellite network will work and prevent space collisions
SpaceX reveals plans for one million Starmind AI satellites and calls out operators hiding maneuvers.
SpaceX has put the largest satellite count it has ever published into writing, and it says that plan only works if every other operator in orbit starts sharing what it knows.
In a new Space Safety page highlighted Tuesday morning by Sawyer Merritt on X, SpaceX said it “plans to operate up to 100,000 Starlink satellites and up to 1 million Starmind AI satellites to meet the growing demand for broadband and supercompute.” Starlink has a little over 11,000 satellites in orbit today, so the target alone implies roughly a ninefold expansion of the broadband network.
Starmind is SpaceX’s orbital AI compute constellation. Elon Musk confirmed the Starmind name in June after an xAI trademark filing surfaced, and in August SpaceX said it was working with Nvidia on the compute payload. The FCC accepted the filing for up to one million satellites back in February.
FCC accepts SpaceX filing for 1 million orbital data center plan
SpaceX also released a new render of what a full Starmind constellation could look like. Alongside it, SpaceX VP Michael Nicolls explained why the satellites will not operate on their own. “We need to operate clusters of satellites in tight formation to get enough coherent compute to run AI models efficiently,” Nicolls said. “A cluster will be 10-ish satellites connected with 10 terabits or so of bandwidth between them, and interconnected to the broader constellation.”
That is the most specific detail SpaceX has given on how Starmind will be built. Instead of a million independent servers, the network would work as tightly packed groups of about 10 satellites acting as one compute unit, with Starlink’s laser links carrying results back to Earth.
There is a bright and exciting future for humanity ahead – and space is fundamental to that future.
To achieve this, space safety must be done right. We encourage every operator to not only share ephemeris data proactively the same way Starlink already does, but to also adopt the high standards of space safety that SpaceX and Starlink use every day → https://t.co/QizAkQZvEm
— Starlink (@Starlink) October 6, 2026
Packing satellites that close together, at that scale, makes collision avoidance the central problem, and most of the Space Safety page is aimed at other operators. SpaceX said Starlink encountered collision risks with about 650 unique maneuvering third party satellites in 2026, and only about half of them shared data. Over six months, Starlink recorded roughly 164,000 more collision risks where the closest approach came within four hours of an unannounced maneuver.
Some operators keep maneuver plans private over proprietary concerns, while others cannot get government permission to share them. SpaceX called those policies “counterproductive,” saying they “largely only serve to create preventable collision risk between satellites.” Starlink is also offering a free ephemeris sharing and screening platform that returns risk results within a minute, backed by its Stargaze network of 30,000 optical sensors.
The push comes as the Starmind application draws opposition from astronomers and environmental groups. In a September filing with the FCC, SpaceX said each Starmind satellite could weigh up to 4,000 kg, nearly seven times the mass of a Starlink V2 Mini. Musk has brushed off crowding concerns before, telling viewers in June that “space is enormous” and that SpaceX already knows how to run very large constellations safely.
SpaceX’s Starmind page says its Gigasat factory in Bastrop, Texas, is designed to produce AI satellites at scale, with deployment of thousands of units starting as soon as late 2027.
Tesla Model 3 and Model Y can now do what only Cybertruck could
Tesla ships ‘spooky’ Halloween Mode with creepy and fun features
