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SpaceX reveals Starship “marine recovery” plans in new job postings
In a series of new job postings, SpaceX has hinted at an unexpected desire to develop “marine recovery systems for the Starship program.”
Since SpaceX first began bending metal for its steel Starship development program in late 2018, CEO Elon Musk, executives, and the company itself have long maintained that both Super Heavy boosters and Starship upper stages would perform what are known as return-to-launch-site (RTLS) landings. It’s no longer clear if those long-stated plans are set in stone.
Oddly, despite repeatedly revealing plans to develop “marine recovery” assets for Starship, SpaceX’s recent “marine engineer” and “naval architect” job postings never specifically mentioned the company’s well-established plans to convert retired oil rigs into vast floating Starship launch sites. Weighing several thousand tons and absolutely dwarfing the football-field-sized drone ships SpaceX recovers Falcon boosters with, it goes without saying that towing an entire oil rig hundreds of miles to and from port is not an efficient or economical solution for rocket recovery. It would also make very little sense for SpaceX to hire a dedicated naval architect without once mentioning that they’d be working on something as all-encompassing as the world’s largest floating launch pad.
That leaves three obvious explanations for the mentions. First, it might be possible that SpaceX is merely preparing for the potential recovery of debris or intact, floating ships or boosters after intentionally expending them on early orbital Starship test flights. Second, SpaceX might have plans to strip an oil rig or two – without fully converting them into launch pads – and then use those rigs as landing platforms designed to remain at sea indefinitely. Those platforms might then transfer landed ships or boosters to smaller support ships tasked with returning them to dry land. Third and arguably most likely, SpaceX might be exploring the possible benefits of landing Super Heavy boosters at sea.
Through its Falcon rockets, SpaceX has slowly but surely refined and perfected the recovery and reuse of orbital-class rocket boosters – 24 (out of 103) of which occurred back on land. Rather than coasting 500-1000 kilometers (300-600+ mi) downrange after stage separation and landing on a drone ship at sea, those 24 boosters flipped around, canceled out their substantial velocities, and boosted themselves a few hundred kilometers back to the Florida or California coast, where they finally touched down on basic concrete pads.
Unsurprisingly, canceling out around 1.5 kilometers per second of downrange velocity (equivalent to Mach ~4.5) and fully reversing that velocity back towards the launch site is an expensive maneuver, costing quite a lot of propellant. For example, the nominal 25-second reentry burn performed by almost all Falcon boosters likely costs about 20 tons (~40,000 lb) of propellant. The average ~35-second single-engine landing burn used by all Falcon boosters likely costs about 10 tons (~22,000 lb) of propellant. Normally, that’s all that’s needed for a drone ship booster landing.
For RTLS landings, Falcon boosters must also perform a large ~40-second boostback burn with three Merlin 1D engines, likely costing an extra 25-35 tons (55,000-80,000 lb) of propellant. In other words, an RTLS landing generally ends up costing at least twice as much propellant as a drone ship landing. Using the general rocketry rule of thumb that every 7 kilograms of booster mass reduces payload to orbit by 1 kilogram and assuming that each reusable Falcon booster requires about 3 tons of recovery-specific hardware (mostly legs and grid fins) a drone ship landing might reduce Falcon 9’s payload to low Earth orbit (LEO) by ~5 tons (from 22 tons to 17 tons). The extra propellant needed for an RTLS landing might reduce it by another 4-5 tons to 13 tons.
Likely less than coincidentally, a Falcon 9 with drone ship booster recovery has never launched more than ~16 tons to LEO. While SpaceX hasn’t provided NASA’s ELVPerf calculator with data for orbits lower than 400 kilometers (~250 mi), it generally agrees, indicating that Falcon 9 is capable of launching about 12t with an RTLS landing and 16t with a drone ship landing.
This is all to say that landing reusable boosters at sea will likely always be substantially more efficient. The reason that SpaceX has always held that Starship’s Super Heavy boosters will avoid maritime recovery is that landing and recovering giant rocket boosters at sea is inherently difficult, risky, time-consuming, and expensive. That makes rapid reuse (on the order of multiple times per day or week) almost impossible and inevitably adds the cost of recovery, which could actually be quite significant for a rocket that SpaceX wants to eventually cost just a few million dollars per launch. However, so long as at-sea recovery costs less than a few million dollars, there’s always a chance that certain launch profiles could be drastically simplified – and end up cheaper – by the occasional at-sea booster landing.
If the alternative is a second dedicated launch to partially refuel one Starship, it’s possible that a sea landing could give Starship the performance needed to accomplish the same mission in a single launch, lowering the total cost of launch services. If – like with Falcon 9 – a sea landing could boost Starship’s payload to LEO by a third or more, the regular sea recovery of Super Heavy boosters would also necessarily cut the number of launches SpaceX needs to fill up a Starship Moon lander by a third. Given that SpaceX and NASA have been planning for Starship tanker launches to occur ~12 days apart, recovering boosters at sea becomes even more feasible.
In theory, the Starship launch vehicle CEO Elon Musk has recently described could be capable of launching anywhere from 150 to 200+ tons to low Earth orbit with full reuse and RTLS booster recovery. With so much performance available, it may matter less than it does with Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy if an RTLS booster landing cuts payload to orbit by a third, a half, or even more. At the end of the day, “just” 100 tons to LEO may be more than enough to satisfy any realistic near-term performance requirements.
But until Starships and Super Heavy boosters are reusable enough to routinely launch multiple times per week (let alone per day) and marginal launch costs have been slashed to single-digit millions of dollars, it’s hard to imagine SpaceX willingly leaving so much performance on the table by forgoing at-sea recovery out of principle alone.
SpaceX has disclosed the full financial details of its groundbreaking agreement with Anthropic, confirming that the AI company will pay $1.25 billion per month for dedicated high-performance computing resources.
The revelation came through SpaceX’s latest securities filing in preparation for its initial public offering, shedding light on one of the largest compute deals in the artificial intelligence sector to date. The prospectus was released last night, as SpaceX is heading toward its IPO.
This arrangement underscores the fierce demand for specialized infrastructure as frontier AI models require unprecedented levels of processing power to train and operate effectively. Industry analysts see the disclosure as a significant milestone, highlighting how top AI labs are locking in massive capacity to stay ahead in a rapidly accelerating field.
For SpaceX, it feels like a massive move that pushes its perception as a company from space exploration to artificial intelligence.
SpaceX is following in Tesla’s footsteps in a way nobody expected
The comprehensive deal grants Anthropic exclusive access to SpaceX’s Colossus clusters, encompassing Colossus I and the substantially expanded Colossus II, which together deliver hundreds of megawatts of power along with more than 200,000 NVIDIA GPUs.
Payments extend through May 2029, totaling nearly $45 billion overall; capacity is scheduled to ramp up during May and June 2026 at an initial discounted rate to facilitate seamless integration. Both companies retain the option to terminate the agreement with ninety days’ notice, so there is definitely some flexibility for both.
This pact not only enhances Anthropic’s ability to scale usage limits for Claude users but also injects substantial recurring revenue into SpaceX, bolstering its expansion into advanced data center operations and future orbital computing initiatives.
Observers describe the collaboration between the two companies as strategically advantageous because it gives Anthropic cutting-edge AI development the opportunity to collaborate with SpaceX’s expertise in rapid, large-scale infrastructure deployment.
This disclosure arrives at a pivotal moment when computing resources have become the primary bottleneck for AI progress.
As leading organizations compete to build more powerful systems, securing reliable, high-density facilities has emerged as a key differentiator.
SpaceX’s sites, such as those in Memphis, offer superior power availability and advanced cooling solutions that set them apart from conventional providers. For Anthropic, the added capacity is expected to deliver tangible improvements, including extended context windows, quicker inference times, and innovative features that appeal to both enterprise clients and individual users.
Looking ahead, the partnership paves the way for ambitious joint projects, including potential space-based AI compute platforms designed to overcome terrestrial limitations on energy and thermal management. Such efforts could redefine sustainable computing at massive scales.
Financially, the deal solidifies SpaceX’s diverse revenue profile ahead of its public market debut, extending beyond traditional aerospace activities. The massive check SpaceX will cash each month opens up the idea that additional
While some experts question the sustainability of these enormous expenditures given ongoing efficiency gains in AI architectures, the commitment reflects a strong belief in sustained demand growth.
The agreement also exemplifies productive synergies across sectors, with aerospace engineering insights optimizing AI hardware performance. As global attention on technology concentration increases, arrangements of this nature may help shape equitable access to critical resources.
Elon Musk
SpaceX just filed for the IPO everyone was waiting for
SpaceX filed its public S-1, revealing $18.7 billion in revenue and billions in losses.
SpaceX publicly filed its S-1 registration statement with the Securities and Exchange Commission on May 20, 2026, making its financial details available to the public for the first time ahead of what could be the largest IPO in history.
An S-1 is the formal document a company must submit to the SEC before going public. It includes audited financials, risk factors, business descriptions, and how the company plans to use the money it raises. Companies are required to file one before selling shares to the public, and it must be published at least 15 days before the investor roadshow begins. SpaceX had already submitted a confidential draft to the SEC in April, which allowed regulators to review the filing privately before it went public.
The S-1 reveals that SpaceX generated $18.7 billion in consolidated revenue in 2025, driven largely by its Starlink satellite internet division, which posted $11.4 billion in revenue, growing nearly 50% year over year. Despite that growth, the company lost about $4.9 billion in 2025 and has burned through more than $37 billion since its founding.
SpaceX just forced Verizon, AT&T and T-Mobile to team up for the first time in history
A significant portion of those losses trace back to xAI, Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence company, which was recently merged into SpaceX. SpaceX directed roughly 60% of its capital spending in 2025 to its AI division, totaling around $20 billion, yet that division lost billions and grew revenue by only about 22%.
SpaceX plans to list its Class A common stock on Nasdaq under the ticker SPCX, with Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, and Bank of America leading the offering. The dual-class share structure means going public will not meaningfully reduce Musk’s control, as Class B shares he holds carry 10 votes per share compared to one vote for public Class A shares.
The company is targeting a raise of around $75 billion at a valuation of roughly $1.75 trillion, which would make it the largest IPO ever. The investor roadshow is reportedly planned for June 5.
Tesla has scaled back driver monitoring to be less naggy with the latest version of the Full Self-Driving (Supervised) suite, which is version 14.3.3.
The latest version is already earning praise from owners, who are reporting that the suite is far less invasive when it comes to keeping drivers from taking their eyes off the road. The first to mention it was notable Tesla community member on X known as Zack, or BLKMDL3.
14.3.3 nags less too https://t.co/IuiWzuYO6O
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 18, 2026
Musk confirmed that v14.3.3 was made to nag drivers significantly less, something that Tesla has worked toward in the past and has said with previous versions that it is less likely to push drivers to look ahead, at least after looking away for a few seconds.
This refinement aligns with Tesla’s ongoing push toward unsupervised FSD. The update also brings faster Actual Smart Summon (now up to 8 mph), reliable “Hey Grok” voice commands, richer visualizations, smoother Mad Max acceleration, and an intervention streak counter that rewards consistent use. Reviewers describe the drive as more human-like and confident, with fewer twitches or unnecessary maneuvers.
Musk has repeatedly signaled this direction. In late 2025, he stated that FSD would allow phone use “depending on context of surrounding traffic,” noting safety data would justify relaxing rules so drivers could text in low-risk scenarios like stop-and-go traffic.
We tested this, and even still, the cell phone monitoring really seems to be less active in terms of alerting drivers:
Tesla Full Self-Driving v14.2.1 texting and driving: we tested it
Earlier, ahead of v14, Musk promised the system would “nag the driver much less” once safety metrics improved.
In 2023, he confirmed the steering wheel torque nag would be “gradually reduced, proportionate to improved safety,” shifting reliance to the cabin camera. Subsequent updates like v13.2.9 and v12.4 further loosened monitoring, cracking down on workarounds while easing legitimate distractions.
These steps reflect Tesla’s data-driven approach: FSD’s safety record—reportedly averaging millions of miles per crash—now outpaces human drivers in many scenarios, giving the company confidence to dial back interventions. Reduced nags improve usability and trust, encouraging more drivers to rely on the system rather than disengaging out of frustration.
However, there are certainly still some concerns. In many states, it is illegal to handle a cell phone in any way, requiring the use of hands-free devices. In Pennsylvania, it is illegal to use your cell phone at stop lights, which is definitely a step further than using it while the car is actively in motion.
v14.3.3 represents tangible progress. Making FSD less adversarial and more seamless is definitely a step forward, but drivers need to be aware of the dangers of distracted driving. FSD is extremely capable, but it is in no way fully autonomous, nor does its performance warrant owners to take their attention off the road.
SpaceX reveals what Anthropic will pay for massive compute deal
SpaceX just filed for the IPO everyone was waiting for
