News
SpaceX separates Starship prototype’s nose and tail to install giant propellant tanks
After a handful of days as an impressive monolith stood along the coastal wetlands of Texas, SpaceX technicians have once again separated the nose and tail sections of the first Starship prototype to allow additional integration and assembly work to continue. The craft’s three Raptors were also removed and stored nearby, shown to be barebones facsimiles standing in for flightworthy hardware that could arrive in the next month or two.
Up next, three or four propellant tank domes – currently being assembled and welded together on-site – will likely be installed inside the steel hull of the giant Starship prototype’s aft barrel section. Known as bulkheads, the installation of those tank domes will bring SpaceX one step closer to performing hop tests of the simultaneously bizarre, confusing, and beautiful craft.
Starship Hopper has been taken apart again (for the installation of the bulkhead etc.)
📸NSF's BocaChicaGalhttps://t.co/DlTj9Qiijz
NSF Overview News Article by Thomas Burghardt @TGMetsFan98 for those catching up:https://t.co/rgliFAkBMC pic.twitter.com/DzSJzjSvoI
— NSF – NASASpaceflight.com (@NASASpaceflight) January 15, 2019
At this point in time, it appears that Starhopper is some odd combination of showmanship and actual hardware meant to test certain aspects of the first orbital Starship build, said to be complete as early as June 2019 by CEO Elon Musk. In the last week or so, SpaceX technicians attached and welded over Starhopper’s two sections – an aft barrel with legs and Raptors and a conical nose – and even did a sort of photoshoot, removing an on-site fence for a photo that Musk later shared while stating that the vehicle had “completed assembly”.
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Starship test flight rocket just finished assembly at the @SpaceX Texas launch site. This is an actual picture, not a rendering. pic.twitter.com/k1HkueoXaz
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 11, 2019
One could argue that assembly is not exactly complete if the given product has to be pulled in half to install significant new components. Regardless, the external skin, aft barrel section, and rough landing legs do appear to be more or less complete from a very basic structural perspective, although there is clearly much work still to be done if the vehicle’s tank bulkheads haven’t been installed. Aside from completing the liquid oxygen and methane tank structure, SpaceX engineers and technicians will additionally have to complete the vehicle’s aft section, a massive 9m/30ft-diameter thrust structure capable of supporting the thrust of three Raptor engines and the weight of the entire fueled rocket. After that, plumbing, avionics, sensors, attitude thrusters, and more will still need to be completed and integrated.
If Starhopper’s nose section is largely a nonfunctioning aerodynamic shroud and propellant tanks will be primarily located inside the aft section, the fuel and oxidizer capacities of the vehicle’s tanks can be roughly estimated. Assuming a 9m/30ft diameter, the aft barrel stands around 13m/43ft tall. Assuming that the upper tank dome will reach a meter or two above the steel cylinder and that the aft Raptor thrust structure is also roughly 1-2 meters deep, Starhopper would have a total tank volume around 830 m3 or almost 30,000 cubic feet (~225,000 gallons), potentially 1000 metric tons of fuel or more if fully loaded.
SpaceX ships another huge propellant tank to South Texas BFR test sitehttps://t.co/4L7f74gwg3 pic.twitter.com/KnHXOTCfAR
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) October 24, 2018
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- SpaceX has two of these tanks and two others that are smaller but still massive. (NASASpaceflight – bocachicagal, 10/23/18)
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- Starhopper’s Raptor facsimiles were removed on January 15th. (NASASpaceflight – bocachicagal)
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- Meanwhile, giant 9m-diameter tank domes are being assembled and welded together a few hundred feet away from Starhopper. (NSF – bocachicagal)
Perhaps less than coincidentally, SpaceX already has liquid methane and oxygen tanks on-site (one is pictured above) with more than enough capacity to meet Starhopper’s potential propellant needs. However, it’s worth noting that current plans (and permissions) only show Starhopper traveling as high as 5km on flights that will last no more than 6 minutes, and CEO Elon Musk has indicated in no uncertain terms that the prototype will remain distinctly suborbital and is primarily focused on fleshing out Starship’s vertical take-off or landing (VTOL) capabilities before SpaceX proceeds to much more aggressive tests.
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While it would be safe to take his schedule with many dozens of grains of salt, Musk noted last week that the first orbit-ready Starship could be finished as early as June 2019, while he expects Starhopper tests to begin as early as February or March. Where exactly that orbital Starship and its Super Heavy booster partner will be built is now much less clear after SpaceX has reportedly canceled a berth lease and thus its plans to build a BFR factory in the Port of Los Angeles. Will SpaceX build a BFR factory in Texas or will it build the orbital Starship en plein air like its Starhopper predecessor? And Super Heavy? Where will all three conduct static fires, hops, or launches from?
Stay tuned as more details and photos continue to bubble up from beneath the surface.
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Cybertruck
Tesla Cybertruck production snaps back after ugly supplier fight
Cybertrucks are piling up again at Giga Texas after Tesla’s court win against a parts supplier.
Cybertruck production at Giga Texas is showing its first visible recovery since Tesla sued a supplier last month over withheld manufacturing tooling.
Aerial observer Joe Tegtmeyer flew over the Austin factory Wednesday morning and counted roughly 100 or more Cybertrucks filling the outbound lot, a sharp jump from the thin numbers seen in recent weeks. The flyover came a day after a judge granted Tesla a temporary restraining order against Angstrom Automotive Group, the parts supplier at the center of the dispute.
Tesla filed an emergency lawsuit in late July after Angstrom told the automaker it planned to close the Troy, Texas facility where Tesla’s die-cast tools, trim dies and other Cybertruck stamping equipment were housed. According to Tesla’s complaint, a shipment of 700 finished parts never left the building, and when Tesla sent representatives to retrieve its equipment, accompanied by law enforcement, they were turned away. Angstrom allegedly then asked for an extra $250,000 a week to keep operating, which Tesla’s filing described as holding its own property for ransom.
TESLA: U.S. District Judge Christopher R. Wolfe of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas, Waco Division granted Tesla a Temporary Restraining Order and Writ of Replevin in its dispute with Angstrom Automotive (Case No. 6:26-cv-00477).
The order authorizes… https://t.co/E1DKcQSxMn pic.twitter.com/LR8aAiV2Og
— S.E. Robinson, Jr. (@SERobinsonJr) August 5, 2026
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The restraining order gives Tesla immediate right of entry to Angstrom’s facility to recover the tooling. It is temporary, with a fuller hearing still to come, but the speed of Wednesday’s rebound suggests the Angstrom shortage was indeed the main bottleneck limiting Cybertruck output. Outbound lot counts are an imperfect measure of actual production, since finished trucks can sit for days before shipping, but a lot that full after a lean stretch is a meaningful signal.
Cybertruck output at Giga Texas has fluctuated all year as Tesla worked through supply issues and introduced new trims, including a cheaper Dual Motor AWD version that drew strong early demand.
Elon Musk
Space finally faced the people living next to its next Terafab mega-project
SpaceX confirmed Terafab’s Grimes County site is locked in, with construction starting within months.
SpaceX and Terafab representatives sat across from Grimes County residents for the first time on Wednesday, telling a packed Commissioners Court room that the $55 billion chip manufacturing project is now a done deal at the Gibbons Creek Reservoir site.
The meeting followed a $10 million check SpaceX sent the county earlier this week, satisfying a payment deadline built into the tax abatement agreement both sides signed in June. Elon Musk shared a post on X confirming the payment, and County Judge Joe Fauth told the San Antonio Express-News his office deposited the check after it beat its deadline.
Wednesday’s session, first reported by KBTX, moved the project from paperwork to construction. Terafab representative Riley Trennell told residents the JETI tax break agreements with Iola ISD and Anderson-Shiro CISD are signed and active, and that civil work and foundation prep are starting almost immediately. Renderings of the facility could be released within days, he said, with construction beginning within months.
The foundations for an exciting future are being built in Texas. Next up: Terafab → https://t.co/jGg52Zhn5I pic.twitter.com/SNfSXNr2tb
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) August 6, 2026
Elon Musk launches TERAFAB: The $25B Tesla-SpaceXAI chip factory that will rewire the AI industry
Musk first announced Terafab in March as a joint venture between Tesla, SpaceX and xAI aimed at producing over a terawatt of AI compute annually, an amount that dwarfs the roughly 20 gigawatts the entire global chip industry produces today. Intel joined as a manufacturing partner in April. Musk has said the project needed its own day in the spotlight rather than being squeezed into an earnings call, and for months the Grimes County site remained unconfirmed even as reporting pointed there.
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SpaceX attorney Buck Brannon used Wednesday’s meeting to note that the company’s abatement is roughly 78 percent, not the 100 percent some earlier reports suggested. In exchange, SpaceX will pay Grimes County a fixed $20 million a year for 35 years, a total of $710 million, which Brannon said exceeds the $14 million Tesla paid Travis County in 2025.
SpaceX also addressed environmental concerns that have followed the project since Musk’s Terafab partnership with Intel was announced. Representatives said Terafab will not raise electric bills for other ratepayers, will not deplete local water supplies and will not draw down the Navasota River. SpaceX confirmed it owns the Navasota River pumping station, which it plans to use to divert stormwater into the Gibbons Creek Reservoir, and said it will build its own natural gas plants to power the facility rather than pulling from the ERCOT grid.
Grimes County commissioners also approved an addendum letting county employees use ten approved AI chatbots for work, including Grok.
Elon Musk has declared that SpaceX has effectively solved one of Starship’s most persistent engineering challenges: the reliability of its heat shield tiles.
During the company’s first-ever Earnings Call, the SpaceX CEO stated:
“I don’t want to jinx it or anything, but I think I would call the heat shield problem solved at this point. All indications from data and visual inspection is we have solved it. That doesn’t mean we won’t make improvements, but we do not see any technical obstacles to achieving rapid reusability at this point.”
Starship’s heat shield consists of roughly 18,000 hexagonal ceramic tiles covering the windward side of the upper stage. These tiles form the thermal protection system that shields the vehicle’s stainless-steel structure from the extreme heat of atmospheric reentry.
Elon says he believes the heat shield problem with Starship is currently solved.
He called it “arguably the single biggest problem” pic.twitter.com/eEE9vM5zlz
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) August 4, 2026
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During descent, atmospheric friction generates temperatures exceeding several thousand degrees Celsius and creates plasma flows capable of melting unprotected metal. The tiles absorb, radiate, and insulate against this energy, allowing the vehicle to survive and potentially fly again. Without a durable heat shield, full and rapid reusability, the cornerstone of Starship’s design for frequent launches, satellite deployments, and deep-space missions, would remain impossible.
The tiles have long been a source of difficulty. On earlier test flights, a significant number of tiles detached during ascent due to vibration, aerodynamic loads, and imperfect attachment methods using pins and adhesives. Gaps between tiles allowed hot plasma to infiltrate, causing secondary damage and hot spots on the underlying structure.
These issues echoed challenges faced by NASA’s Space Shuttle, whose ceramic tiles required extensive, labor-intensive inspections and replacements between missions, preventing rapid turnaround. SpaceX has iteratively improved materials, standardized tile shapes, refined attachment techniques, added secondary ablative layers, and tested sealing methods such as “crunch wrap” felt to close gaps.
Progress was visible across Flights 10–12, with steadily better tile retention, yet questions remained about whether the system could support the minimal-refurbishment goal of rapid reuse.
Flight 13 on July 24 provided the decisive evidence. Ship 40 flew a deliberately more demanding profile with higher dynamic pressure to stress the heat shield beyond typical operational loads. It successfully deployed 20 operational Starlink V3 satellites, the first such payload on a Starship mission, performed an in-space Raptor engine relight, and executed a controlled reentry.
Elon Musk sheds two new bits of detail on Starship after 13th test launch
Cameras on six of the satellites and onboard sensors captured extensive imagery and data of the shield throughout the flight. The ship then achieved its softest splashdown to date in the Indian Ocean, remaining intact and floating rather than breaking apart or exploding as on prior missions. This allowed drone inspections and continuous telemetry of the heat shield in near-real time.
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Post-flight analysis showed the majority of tiles remaining attached with only minor damage and limited plasma streaking at seams. Musk noted that the mission delivered “all the heat shield data we needed and then some.” Combined with visual inspections, these results underpinned his subsequent assessment that the core technical barriers to rapid reusability have been cleared. While refinements will continue, Flight 13 marked a pivotal step toward Starship’s operational future.
Tesla Cybertruck production snaps back after ugly supplier fight
Space finally faced the people living next to its next Terafab mega-project
