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SpaceX Starship prototype speeding towards launch pad for first Raptor engine tests
SpaceX continues to build full-scale Starship hardware at a jaw-dropping pace, testing the limits of rocket production to complete the fifth full-scale prototype in three months and prepare the ship for its first Raptor engine ignition tests.
This time around, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk is fairly confident that the latest Starship prototype – known as serial number 3 (SN3) – has the best chance yet of becoming the first full-scale ship to pass acceptance tests and kick off a Raptor engine static fire campaign. A step further, if said static fires go according to plan, Starship SN3 could become the first full-scale vehicle of its kind to perform controlled flight tests.
Starship SN3 will thus attempt to follow in the footsteps of Starhopper and hopefully avoid an unintentional launch debut similar to the one that destroyed Starship SN1 earlier this month. A successful Starship flight test powered by three Raptor engines would be a major bode of confidence in the upgraded rocket factory SpaceX is building in South Texas. Musk recently made it clear that setting up the machine that builds the machine is currently just as important as individual Starship tests. Thankfully, given that SpaceX is already managing to build colossal rocket prototypes in a matter of weeks for what has to be pennies on the dollar, all with a team of just a few hundred people, the next Starship test campaign is likely just a week or two away.
On March 9th, Musk revealed that the Starship SN2 prototype – an incomplete tank repurposed for specific testing – had passed a proof test with flying colors. SN2’s brief test campaign managed to prove that SpaceX had already fixed the weak point believed to have destroyed Starship SN1 less than two weeks prior. Featuring a redesigned engine section and thrust structure (or “thrust puck,” per Musk), the Starship SN2 test tank survived pressure testing and even made it through engine thrust simulations with the help of an industrial-scale hydraulic jack.
While the tank passed its tests looking no worse for wear, the last-second design changes SpaceX had to make to rapidly perform thrust structure verification testing made it impossible to repurpose for any alternative use. Starship SN2 has thus been relegated to the scrapyard, a technical necessity but also a sign of both the program’s high rate of progress and low prototype cost. SpaceX’s Boca Chica factory has already more or less completed a new engine section for Starship SN3 and is probably just a day or two away from integrating it with the rest of the steel vehicle.
Less than three days after SpaceX’s brand new vehicle assembly building (VAB) had a single, small Starship section sat inside it, two additional sections of Starship SN3’s tank section departed their fabrication tents and were stacked on March 18th. Less than a day later, the third segment of the rocket’s tank section capped off the two that were stacked the day before. Once those three stacked sections are fully welded together to form a single, cohesive piece of steel, it will need to be stacked atop the aft tank dome and thrust structure to effectively complete Starship SN3’s tank section.
After all four sections are joined, technicians will need to install a few internal parts, but most remaining work mainly involves running wiring and plumbing for power, communications, propellant management, and pressurization. More likely than not, SpaceX replicate its Starship Mk1 and SN1 testing strategy and bring Starship SN3’s tank section to the launch pad for proof testing as soon as outfitting is complete. If the rocket passes proof testing, SpaceX can – for the first time – install functional Raptor engines on a full-scale Starship prototype and begin a crucial wet dress rehearsal (WDR) and static fire test campaign.
At the current rate of progress, SpaceX could easily be ready to transport Starship SN3 to the pad within the next week, give or take. Stay tuned for updates as the company works to quickly finish SN3 integration and move onto the testing phase.
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Tesla Cybercab is set to launch in Austin, Texas, on September 3, as the company has officially started sending out invitations to a dedicated event it will hold in the city where its headquarters is located.
The Cybercab is Tesla’s dedicated ride-sharing vehicle: it features just two seats and has no steering wheel or pedals. It is aimed at fully autonomous passenger transport, and will operate in the Robotaxi fleet alongside the Tesla Model Y, which has been performing driverless rides for real-world passengers for more than a year.
Thank you so much @Tesla for inviting us to the Cybercab launch in Austin! 🤠 pic.twitter.com/F1rAR8zd5O
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) August 22, 2026
The launch of the Cybercab marks the next chapter in Tesla’s autonomy story. The company has been developing autonomous transport for years with its Full Self-Driving (Supervised) platform, which is available in any vehicle the company has built with the proper hardware and software capabilities.
Its capabilities vary by hardware and software version, but Tesla says its latest hardware version, known as AI4, can deliver full autonomy. However, future vehicles will operate with even more robust hardware packages, as Tesla will develop AI4.5 and AI5 for even more capability in its vehicles.
Following a report from The Information that surfaced earlier this week, the writing was on the wall that Tesla was set to launch Cybercab in the near term. The report stated Tesla could launch Cybercab as soon as the end of August. Tesla came close and has booked it for September 3.
The big thing with this event being scheduled is not necessarily that Tesla is launching a new vehicle, but instead that it is launching a vehicle that has no steering wheel or pedals and will operate exclusively on a self-driving program that is evidently nearing full autonomy. If the event allows vehicles to take passengers on public roads and drop them off wherever they please within the City of Austin, it will be a drastic advancement in the company’s self-driving story.
People have ridden in Cybercab previously: Tesla had the “We, Robot” event in October 2024, which allowed people to experience fully autonomous rides in a closed circuit at Warner Bros. Studios in Burbank.
🚨 Ride in a Tesla Cybercab with us
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) May 11, 2025
Additionally, Tesla launched employee rides in Cybercab in July.
It’s a drastic step forward for Tesla, whose CEO, Elon Musk, has promised for years that the company would release a fully autonomous vehicle and platform capable of allowing drivers to relinquish any responsibility behind the wheel.
Elon Musk put a number on where he thinks SpaceX’s Starship program is headed by 2030, replying on X a day after President Trump signed a memo pushing the country toward 1,000 space launches and reentries a year.
The exchange started when Aaron Burnett, co-founder of propulsion startup Mach 33, posted that “1,000 launches/reentries is the goal,” quoting White House science adviser Michael Kratsios on the newly signed National Space Transportation Policy. Burnett noted that the FAA’s own bull-case forecast reached only 385 annual launches by 2030, while his firm’s conservative model already put SpaceX alone near 940. Musk responded, “We’re aiming to reach 30+ Starship launches/day in 2030, which is ~10k annualized. Still tiny numbers compared to airplane flights!”
We’re aiming to reach 30+ Starship launches/day in 2030, which is ~10k annualized.
Still tiny numbers compared to airplane flights!
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 21, 2026
That figure is specific to Starship, the rocket SpaceX is still developing for orbital and lunar missions, not the Falcon 9 fleet that carries most of the company’s current launch volume. Starship has flown twice this year, a slower pace than the four and five flights SpaceX managed in 2024 and 2025. Getting from two flights a year to 30 a day is the scale of jump the new federal policy is meant to clear regulatory room for.
Trump’s memo, signed Thursday, directs agencies to identify new launch and reentry sites on federal land, including a new reentry site within 90 days, and to speed up the permitting and environmental reviews that have long slowed cadence growth. It also sets a goal of returning American astronauts to the moon by 2028 and placing initial lunar base elements by 2030, tying the launch buildout directly to NASA’s Artemis program.
SpaceX has already been pushing the FAA toward higher numbers on its own. The agency approved up to 44 annual Starship launches from Kennedy Space Center in February, on top of a 2024 review that raised the cap at Starbase in Texas to 25 a year. Those approvals cover a fraction of the 10,000 annual flights Musk is now describing, which shows how far current permitting still sits from the administration’s stated target.
The near-term test of all this is more modest. SpaceX cleared a full-duration, six-engine static fire on its next Starship vehicle this week, the last major hardware checkpoint before Flight 14, which is targeting no earlier than August 28 and is expected to attempt the vehicle’s first full orbital mission. Musk said last week that a tower catch of the upper stage is still probably months away, a reminder that the immediate roadmap remains far more incremental than the daily launch numbers he just posted.
Tesla will resolve its massive recall of nearly three million vehicles in China with stickers and a software update.
On Friday, Chinese regulators filed recall plans against Tesla, Xiaomi, Leapmotor, Xpeng, Chery, Geely, Dongfeng, Arcfox, and FAW to resolve what is essentially a carbon-copy issue throughout each of the companies’ vehicle models: emergency door release latches are simply not visible enough.
Tesla door handle saga gets its latest chapter and a big change is coming
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The companies will be required to add things that will make these latches, which will open the door in the event of an emergency, more visible. Of the 7 million vehicles impacted, Tesla accounts for 2,975,910 units. More than 1.9 million of those are Model Y vehicles, with the rest, just over 970,000, being Model 3s.
To resolve the issue, Tesla is going to add warning labels to the emergency latches free of charge, and then utilize an Over-the-Air update to add a post-crash window-lowering strategy, according to CNEVpost.
This massive effort to fix the all-electric Model Y and Model 3’s emergency latch system comes just months after several probes across various markets identified the trouble some had identifying this latch. Those who had gotten involved in car accidents that stripped the vehicle of its power were not aware that every Tesla has emergency door latches.
China’s State Administration for Market Regulation (SAMR) said that severe crashes that disable a vehicle’s low-voltage system could not only hinder occupants from getting out, but also make it more difficult for emergency response workers to gain entry.
SAMR is starting to tighten the regulations it has on door handles on vehicles. A new mandatory national standard will take effect for all models starting January 1, 2027, and will require all doors to be equipped with mechanical release mechanisms. This will effectively end purely electronic door handles. Models already on sale with type approval have been granted a two-year transition period, which will enable things to change until January 2029.
Tesla will launch Cybercab on September 3
SpaceX and a new Trump order that could rewrite the next decade of launches
