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SpaceX’s Starship rocket program just had one of its best nights yet

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5 years ago

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Before dawn on May 4th, SpaceX successfully fueled a full-scale Starship prototype and (partially) tested an installed Raptor engine for the first time ever – perhaps the Starship program’s best night yet.

While just a small test relative to what’s soon to come, the milestone is still an extremely significant one for SpaceX and its next-generation launch vehicle. Designed to launch atop the Super Heavy booster, both Starship and its booster are meant to be fully reusable, potentially making the launch system one of the cheapest in operation on Earth. Despite that unprecedented full reusability, they should still be able to place dozens (perhaps up to 100-150+) metric tons of payload into orbit in a single launch.

To get to that point, however, SpaceX must develop and demonstrate a cornucopia of technologies and approaches – most of which are unprecedented – at a scale unmatched by ever other launch vehicle in history, save two or three. It was perhaps the most fundamental of those steps that was on the table earlier this morning.

Perhaps the single most important and uncertain part of SpaceX’s ambitious Starship architecture, SpaceX’s May 4th wet dress rehearsal (WDR) was mainly a test of Starship’s overall structure and the manufacturing apparatus SpaceX has created to build it. Despite how exotic and challenging some of Starship’s goals may sound, SpaceX’s approach to production for its newest launch vehicle is arguably the single biggest risk for the program.

Notably, CEO Elon Musk says that the ultimate goal is to roll out a single finished Starship rocket every single week and at a cost of something like $5-10 million per vehicle. Including the Super Heavy booster, the production goals of which remain unknown, SpaceX effectively wants to mass-produce dozens of fully-reusable rockets – all larger (and potentially more capable) than NASA’s Saturn V Moon rocket – for anywhere from a tenth to a hundredth of the cost.

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Part of SpaceX’s Boca Chica, Texas Starship factory is pictured here on March 19th, 2020. (NASASpaceflight – bocachicagal)

As if those goals weren’t ambitious enough, SpaceX intends to achieve them with perhaps the most spartan, minimalist factory ever attempted for orbital-class rockets. At the moment, all Starship hardware built by SpaceX to date has been manufactured in a series of tents, more recently graduating to a trio of warehouse-sized sprung structures. A large hangar – apparently dedicated to building pad infrastructure – is just shy of complete, while a separate windbreak structure and a vertical assembly building (VAB) are used to stack (assemble) full-scale Starship subsections built inside tents.

Unlike almost every other launch vehicle in history, Starship production – excluding its Raptor engines and certain other subassemblies and parts – is done in tents and is almost entirely divorced of the clean room operations rocket factories are famous for. Despite the extensive use of hand-welded seams and parts on SpaceX’s early Starship prototypes, the company has already proven that it’s well on its way to building Starships in just a week or two.

Starship SN3 was finished (more or less) on March 26th. (Elon Musk)
Starship SN4 was finished and transported to the launch pad on April 23rd, less than a month later. (NASASpaceflight – bocachicagal)
Meanwhile, Starship SN5 will probably be ready to roll to the launch pad as early as next week, although it may have to wait a bit longer than that if Starship SN4 survives testing.

While it appears that SpaceX only performed a partial wet dress rehearsal with liquid methane and oxygen and completed a test of part of Starship SN4’s installed Raptor engine (known as the preburner), it means that a Starship has survived a truly launch vehicle-like procedure for the first time ever. In other words, Starship SN4’s May 4th success served as SpaceX’s most important verification yet that its exotic Starship manufacturing approach could be viable for building actual orbital-class rockets.

Up next, SpaceX will attempt to perform a full wet dress rehearsal (WDR) and a static fire test of Starship SN4 and its lone Raptor engine. That test attempt could come as soon as this evening.

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Eric Ralph is Teslarati's senior spaceflight reporter and has been covering the industry in some capacity for almost half a decade, largely spurred in 2016 by a trip to Mexico to watch Elon Musk reveal SpaceX's plans for Mars in person. Aside from spreading interest and excitement about spaceflight far and wide, his primary goal is to cover humanity's ongoing efforts to expand beyond Earth to the Moon, Mars, and elsewhere.

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Tesla Full Self-Driving testing continues European expansion: here’s where

Tesla has launched Full Self-Driving testing in a fifth European country ahead of its launch.

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1 hour ago

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July 3, 2025

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Credit: Tesla

Tesla Full Self-Driving is being tested in several countries across Europe as the company prepares to launch its driver assistance suite on the continent.

The company is still working through the regulatory hurdles with the European Union. They are plentiful and difficult to navigate, but Tesla is still making progress as its testing of FSD continues to expand.

Today, it officially began testing in a new country, as more regions open their doors to Tesla. Many owners and potential customers in Europe are awaiting its launch.

On Thursday, Tesla officially confirmed that Full Self-Driving testing is underway in Spain, as the company shared an extensive video of a trip through the streets of Madrid:

The launch of Full Self-Driving testing in Spain marks the fifth country in which Tesla has started assessing the suite’s performance in the European market.

Across the past several months, Tesla has been expanding the scope of countries where Full Self-Driving is being tested. It has already made it to Italy, France, the Netherlands, and Germany previously.

Tesla has already filed applications to have Full Self-Driving (Supervised) launched across the European Union, but CEO Elon Musk has indicated that this particular step has been the delay in the official launch of the suite thus far.

In mid-June, Musk revealed the frustrations Tesla has felt during its efforts to launch its Full Self-Driving (Supervised) suite in Europe, stating that the holdup can be attributed to authorities in various countries, as well as the EU as a whole:

Tesla Full Self-Driving’s European launch frustrations revealed by Elon Musk

“Waiting for Dutch authorities and then the EU to approve. Very frustrating and hurts the safety of people in Europe, as driving with advanced Autopilot on results in four times fewer injuries! Please ask your governing authorities to accelerate making Tesla safer in Europe.”

Tesla said last year that it planned to launch Full Self-Driving in Europe in 2025.

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xAI’s Memphis data center receives air permit despite community criticism

xAI welcomed the development in a post on its official xAI Memphis account on X.

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3 hours ago

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July 3, 2025

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Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence startup xAI has secured an air permit from Memphis health officials for its data center project, despite critics’ opposition and pending legal action. The Shelby County Health Department approved the permit this week, allowing xAI to operate 15 mobile gas turbines at its facility.

Air permit granted

The air permit comes after months of protests from Memphis residents and environmental justice advocates, who alleged that xAI violated the Clean Air Act by operating gas turbines without prior approval, as per a report from WIRED. 

The Southern Environmental Law Center (SELC) and the NAACP has claimed that xAI installed dozens of gas turbines at its new data campus without acquiring the mandatory Prevention of Significant Deterioration (PSD) permit required for large-scale emission sources.

Local officials previously stated the turbines were considered “temporary” and thus not subject to stricter permitting. xAI applied for an air permit in January 2025, and in June, Memphis Mayor Paul Young acknowledged that the company was operating 21 turbines. SELC, however, has claimed that aerial footage shows the number may be as high as 35.

Critics are not giving up

Civil rights groups have stated that they intend to move forward with legal action. “xAI’s decision to install and operate dozens of polluting gas turbines without any permits or public oversight is a clear violation of the Clean Air Act,” said Patrick Anderson, senior attorney at SELC. 

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“Over the last year, these turbines have pumped out pollution that threatens the health of Memphis families. This notice paves the way for a lawsuit that can hold xAI accountable for its unlawful refusal to get permits for its gas turbines,” he added.

Sharon Wilson, a certified optical gas imaging thermographer, also described the emissions cloud in Memphis as notable. “I expected to see the typical power plant type of pollution that I see. What I saw was way worse than what I expected,” she said.

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Tesla FSD user in China shares insights after months of use: “Not a single safety intervention”

Tesla FSD users in China tend to push the system to its absolute limits.

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9 hours ago

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July 3, 2025

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Credit: Tesla Asia/X

Tesla’s Full Self-Driving (FSD) system appears to be quietly winning over drivers in China. Although its rollout in February 2025 has not been followed by additional notable updates, recent accounts from local drivers suggest that Tesla’s approach to full self-driving may be outperforming its rivals on Chinese roads.

Tesla’s FSD exhibits smooth and cautious performance on real roads

As noted in a post shared by EV watcher @ray4tesla, a driver who has used Tesla’s FSD in China for two months described a well-calibrated, human-like driving experience. The driver also noted that Tesla’s FSD system is very cautious, perhaps even too careful at times.

“On narrow roads, it slows down appropriately; on major roads, it picks up speed. When there are a lot of pedestrians or electric scooters, it’s overly cautious — almost too polite,” the driver wrote. 

Even more interestingly, the driver emphasized that despite frequent usage, there has been zero safety interventions since FSD was enabled in the vehicle. “In the two months I’ve been using FSD, I haven’t had even a single safety intervention,” the driver wrote.

Huawei ADS test triggers multiple safety takeovers

The user compared FSD to Huawei’s ADS system, which they tested for about 90 minutes in an Aito M9 SUV. According to the driver, Huawei’s ADS struggled to deliver consistent performance. 

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“Then I tried the M9 (Huawei ADS) for an hour and a half. When it needed to speed up, it lagged; and on tight, narrow roads, it suddenly accelerated — honestly, it was pretty scary. The acceleration and braking felt jerky, and you could clearly tell it was being driven by a machine (robotic vibe),” the driver wrote.

The user reported four safety interventions with Huawei’s ADS system within just 30 minutes while driving on rough, construction-heavy roads. “In construction zones and on rough roads, there were four safety interventions in just 30 minutes. And if you know what a ‘safety intervention’ means — that’s essentially four near-collisions,” the driver added.

While anecdotal, the account from the Tesla owner is quite significant since FSD users in China tend to push the system to its absolute limits. Since its rollout earlier this year, Tesla drivers in China have been recorded testing FSD on unpaved mountain roads, extremely narrow streets, busy cities, and wooded paths that barely have any road at all, among others.

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