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”.
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.
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.
Tesla has stunned by gaining yet another approval for its Full Self-Driving suite in Europe, its second in two days and its fifth overall.
Belgium will be the latest country to allow Tesla owners to utilize FSD on public roads in Europe, joining a quickly growing list that started with the Netherlands, Lithuania, and Estonia.
On Tuesday, Denmark announced its approval of the FSD suite, which has now been followed by Belgium just one day later.
The country’s Minister of Mobility, Annick De Ridder, announced the approval on her X account, stating that she had just signed the approval of Tesla FSD. It now goes to the country’s homologation department for the last step of the approval process.
De @Tesla community houdt hier al geruime tijd de vinger aan de pols over de toelating voor de FSD-technologie op onze Vlaamse en Belgische wegen.
Uit waardering voor jullie niet-aflatende interesse (en aanmoediging 😉), krijgen jullie hierbij de primeur: ik heb net de toelating… pic.twitter.com/Yrps4OHTj8— Annick De Ridder (@AnnickDeRidder) June 10, 2026
The Belgian approval is one of mighty importance because it truly shows how quickly countries in Europe could greenlight the FSD suite consecutively. Approvals are already coming in relatively quickly, which is a great sign.
Perhaps the next big development that could come from FSD approvals in Europe is an approval from a country like England, Italy, France, Spain, or Germany. It would be something to see how FSD would perform in a major European metro, such as London, Barcelona, Madrid, Paris, Rome, or Berlin.
Getting Full Self-Driving in Spain and England will be such huge milestones for Tesla. I am so excited to see how FSD performs in Madrid, Barcelona, and London, specifically.
The ultimate test will always be Mumbai or New Delhi. Excited for India’s eventual approval! https://t.co/paw9Ch1qmL pic.twitter.com/9RdDERVSSJ
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) June 9, 2026
Full Self-Driving does an excellent job of roaming around major U.S. cities like New York and Los Angeles, but other high-profile international cities of significance would truly mark a line in the sand for Tesla, which can simply enable any vehicle in its customer-owned fleet to run FSD with the correct approvals.
SpaceX CEO Elon Musk recently confronted worries about orbital data centers and launching satellites in mass quantities in space, as some voiced concerns about crowding.
Musk’s SpaceX plans to combat the issue of needing data centers by launching them into space instead of taking up valuable real estate on Earth. It has been a major point of SpaceX’s future, including its looming IPO, which could be the largest ever.
In a recent interview filmed at SpaceX’s Starlink terminal factory in Bastrop, Texas, Elon Musk directly addressed concerns that deploying large numbers of AI satellites for orbital data centers could crowd Earth’s orbit. His message was straightforward and reassuring: space is vast beyond human intuition.
“Space is really big,” Musk said. “It’s not like space is gonna get crowded. Space is enormous. If you actually look at it relative to the Earth, the satellites are so tiny you can’t even see them.” He emphasized that even zooming in makes a satellite appear large, but from a planetary perspective, they are minuscule specks.
Elon on concerns that AI satellites will crowd space:
“Space is really big. It’s not like space is gonna get crowded. Space is enormous. If you actually look at it relative to the earth, the satellites are so tiny you can’t even see them.” https://t.co/Mvr7NpL25Q pic.twitter.com/5Fi629Rii7
— Sawyer Merritt (@SawyerMerritt) June 8, 2026
Musk pointed to SpaceX’s real-world experience operating roughly 10,000 Starlink satellites as evidence that large constellations can be managed safely. “We’ve got a pretty good idea of how to operate just really large constellations and do it safely,” he noted. SpaceX remains the only operator with meaningful experience at this scale, giving the company unique insight into tight orbital packing without compromising safety
The discussion highlighted SpaceX’s plans for “AI1” satellites—essentially orbiting racks of AI compute powered by massive solar arrays and cooled via radiative panels in space’s vacuum.
These satellites leverage proven Starlink V3 technology, making them simpler to design than communications satellites. A first-generation unit targets around 150 kW peak power, with a 70-meter wingspan for solar panels and radiators. Laser links will connect them to each other and the Starlink network, delivering low-latency access (on the order of a few milliseconds from low-Earth orbit).
FCC accepts SpaceX filing for 1 million orbital data center plan
Musk framed orbital data centers as a practical solution to Earth’s constraints on AI growth. Ground-based facilities face power shortages, water demands for cooling, and grid limitations. In space, constant sunlight (no day-night cycle), vacuum radiative cooling, and abundant solar energy offer clear advantages.
Production will ramp up at an expanded “Gigasat” factory in Bastrop, with solar manufacturing already underway and full AI satellite output expected at reasonable volume by the end of 2027. Starship’s rapid, high-volume launch capability, aiming for multiple flights per hour, will make massive deployment feasible.
Critics sometimes raise risks like space debris or Kessler syndrome, but Musk’s response underscores scale: even a million satellites would represent an imperceptible fraction of available orbital volume when viewed against Earth’s size. SpaceX’s automated collision avoidance and deorbiting designs for Starlink further mitigate concerns.
This vision ties into broader ambitions. Musk sees orbital AI compute as a step toward harnessing more of the Sun’s energy, advancing humanity on the Kardashev scale from a Type 0 civilization toward Type 1 and eventually Type 2. By moving power-hungry data centers off-planet, SpaceX aims to unlock orders-of-magnitude more compute while preserving Earth’s resources.
Musk’s comments should ease public anxiety. With proven operational expertise, incremental engineering, and the immensity of space itself, orbital data centers represent not overcrowding, but smart expansion into the final frontier.
Tesla Full Self-Driving (Supervised) is currently listed as a Level 2 suite in terms of its passenger cars. As its Robotaxi platform continues to move quickly, it has been recognized as a Level 4 ride-sharing program by the State of Texas, as Tesla recently self-certified itself.
However, a Wall Street analyst is arguing that Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) has effectively achieved Level 4 autonomy in most conditions in all of its vehicles, drawing on personal experience and data released by the company.
Alex Potter of Piper Sandler said in a note to investors on Wednesday that “Tesla has solved the self-driving puzzle,” pointing to decisions to offer insurance discounts for FSD-enabled policies as a signal of confidence, which is backed up by stellar safety records compared to human driving.
Investing.com initially reported on Potter’s new note.
Additionally, Potter looks at the recent start of Cybercab production at Giga Texas as a potential indication that Tesla is ready to offer some level of unsupervised driving at least in the near future. The Cybercab has no steering wheel or pedals, completely eliminating the ability for human input.
He also sees Tesla’s allocation of “several hundred million USD (if not $1B+)” as confidence internally, seeing as it would be tough to set aside that amount of capital toward a project that the company does not see as relatively near-term.
Forward thinking, especially as Cybercab has no human controls, it would make sense that Tesla is at least close to self-driving. How close is another question.
Tesla has routinely teased that unsupervised FSD is close, but there are still a lot of things it feels as if the company has to roll out some more capability, including unsupervised parking features, known as “Banish,” better operation with regional self-driving performance, and other improvements.
That is not to say that Tesla FSD is super impressive already. It has already completed coast-to-coast drives across the United States and Canada, it routinely takes the stress out of driving for most people, and it has proven through Tesla Safety Reports that it is safer and involved in accidents less frequently than humans.
🚨 These are the first-ever FSD safety statistics out of the Netherlands, showing it was over 3.5x safer than human driving on Dutch roads.
The most recent numbers out of Tesla for North America show:
-Over 5.5 million miles between accidents for Teslas using FSD
-660k miles… https://t.co/XKlRzgSGEh pic.twitter.com/HX6kzh0ZKc— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) June 9, 2026
Even Potter believes it is capable, as he used it to go from Missoula, Montana, to Minneapolis, Minnesota, back in April.
“There’s no substitute for personal experience,” he wrote.
Tesla stuns with another FSD approval in Europe, its second in two days
SpaceX’s Elon Musk relieves worries about orbital data centers
