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SpaceX uses robot dog to inspect Starship after first engine test in months
SpaceX’s first orbital-class Starship prototype has survived the first of several expected Raptor tests, kicking off an engine test campaign that could mark a number of new milestones.
With just 20 minutes left in a seven-hour test window, Starship prototype S20 (Ship 20) appeared to either unsuccessfully attempt its first Raptor static fire test or complete its first intentional Raptor preburner test around 11:40 pm CDT (UTC-5) on Monday, October 18th. Rather than a violent jolt and roar kicking up a cloud of dust, Ship 20 came to life with a (relatively) gentle fireball that lasted for several seconds.
In pursuit of maximum efficiency, Starship’s Raptors require two separate closed-cycle gas generators known as preburners to – as the name suggests – turn its cryogenic (very cold) liquid oxygen and methane propellant into a hot gas mixture that the engine re-ignites to produce thrust. A preburner test, if that’s what Starship S20 completed on Monday night, thus involves activating only the first half of that equation, rapidly producing a giant cloud of flammable gas without actually igniting to produce meaningful thrust.
Preburner tests have become increasingly rare as SpaceX’s sea-level Raptor design matured over the course of tens of thousands of seconds of ground testing and, later, thousands of seconds of ground and flight testing on Starship prototypes. Starship S20 had two engines during its first test. One Raptor was the sea-level optimized variant SpaceX has built dozens of and fired for 30,000+ seconds on the ground. The other, however, was a vacuum-optimized Raptor with a much larger nozzle – the first of its kind to participate in any kind of test while installed on a Starship prototype.
It’s possible that Raptor Vacuum (RVac) engines have even more design tweaks outside of their larger expansion nozzles. Regardless, SpaceX has only built and tested around 10 RVac prototypes over the last year, making it a less mature engine than its sea-level cousins. That could explain why SpaceX appears to have chosen to perform a preburner test first instead of jumping straight into a wet dress rehearsal and static fire. That also means that October 18th’s test was likely the first time a Raptor Vacuum engine has (partially) ignited while installed on a Starship.
The above view from a uniquely situated LabPadre camera all but guarantees that Starship S20’s first engine test was a Raptor Vacuum preburner test and doesn’t offer any strong evidence that it was a two-engine test. Ship 20 still has a number of crucial tests ahead of it before SpaceX can even begin to consider it (or its general design) qualified for flight. That includes multiple static fires, including the first side-by-side static fire of two Raptor variants (RVac and Raptor Center), the first simultaneous static fire of more than three engines, and the first Starship static fire with a full six engines installed.
Ship 20’s preburner test is SpaceX’s first Starbase Raptor test since the first Super Heavy booster static fire in mid-July, almost exactly three months ago.
With any luck, S20’s first preburner test has opened the door for an inaugural static fire of one or both installed engines later this week. However, during that preburner test, the giant fireball Raptor Vacuum emitted appeared to ignite several pieces of pad hardware. SpaceX took advantage of one of at least two Boston Dynamics Spot robots on-site to physically walk a camera up to the active pad and inspect several secondary fires. Ultimately, SpaceX appears to have successfully safed Starship with no damage to the vehicle itself, but odds are good that the sources of those secondary fires will need to be fixed and any pad damage repaired before Ship 20 proceeds into static fire testing. SpaceX has two more 5pm-12am test windows scheduled on October 19th and 20th.
Elon Musk
The Boring Company’s latest Tesla tunnel truck mod “fits like a glove”
The Boring Company has modified a Tesla powered tunnel truck to carry freight containers underground.
The Boring Company has found a second job for the Tesla hardware it already runs underground. In a post on X, Elon Musk’s tunneling company showed its latest Prufrock Liner Truck modified to carry a standard 20 foot shipping container. “Using TBC tunnels to transport freight,” the company wrote. “The latest Prufrock Liner Truck (using Tesla Model 3 batteries and drive units) has been modified to carry a standard 20′ shipping container. Fits like a glove!”
The photo shows a red container sitting on a long, low white chassis parked outside, with drive hardware visible at one end. The Boring Company did not say where or when freight hauling would start, which customers it has in mind, or how many trucks it is converting.
Using TBC tunnels to transport freight.
The latest Prufrock Liner Truck (using Tesla Model 3 batteries and drive units) has been modified to carry a standard 20’ shipping container.
Fits like a glove! https://t.co/VV0phWK4fc
— The Boring Company (@boringcompany) October 19, 2026
Until now, the liner trucks have hauled concrete. Teslarati reported in August on Liner Truck 3, which uses Model 3 battery packs and drive units to move more than 22,000 pounds of precast tunnel segments to the boring machine. It has 28 miles of range, tops out at 12 mph, and is piloted remotely from the company’s operations center in Texas. The freight version appears to be the same platform with a different bed, and The Boring Company has not said whether it will also be remotely piloted.
Freight has been on the company’s menu for years. When TBC updated its product lineup in 2021, its freight tunnel was described as sized to fit a standard shipping container, “barely.” The company later used the idea at Tesla’s own factory, where Prufrock 3 dug a tunnel to Giga Texas that now moves finished Cybertrucks away from the production line.
The Boring Company closed a $3 billion Series D in September at a $23 billion valuation, and Teslarati has covered how that money is tied to a UAE tunneling push and a faster Nashville build. In Nashville, Prufrock MB1 and MB2 are mining at the same time, and a third machine is expected to launch in late October. Each machine needs a steady supply of liner trucks, so any design that works for segments and containers alike gives the company more use out of the same Tesla parts.
The Vegas Loop remains the only Boring Company system open to the public, and it moves passengers in Tesla vehicles. A freight service would be a separate product, and the post gave no indication that one is close to launch. For now, it is a truck, a container and a short caption saying they fit together.
Elon Musk said he is planning to give “every one of his SpaceX shares to every kid in America” in 2027, stating that “this will be the first of many.”
SpaceX went public earlier this year, and its stock price has been relatively stable since leveling off shortly after its IPO. Based on its current price, it’s a gift of just over $10 billion to children across the United States.
It appears to be closely related to President Donald Trump’s bank accounts for children, which were set up earlier this year as Trump Accounts.
Just hours earlier, Anthropic had announced the establishment of its Anthropic Public Benefit Fund, “a new wholly-owned entity dedicated entirely to public benefit.” Musk responded by stating he recommended “giving the shares directly to the public,” and that he would be doing it that way.
Just a little bit later, Musk said children across the U.S. would be getting a share from him:
Next year, I will give one of my SpaceX shares to every kid in America.
This will be the first of many.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 19, 2026
There are roughly 70 million children, meaning someone under the age of 18, in the United States, according to the Federal Interagency Forum on Child and Family Statistics. Musk’s ownership of SpaceX stock shows he has around 849 million Class A shares of SpaceX stock, according to filings with the SEC.
Elon Musk revealed in a post on X that “Permits were impossible to get,” explaining the fate of The Boring Company’s most ambitious East Coast proposal.
The comment responded to a query about what became of his July 20, 2017 announcement that he had “just received verbal govt approval” for an underground Hyperloop connecting New York City, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Washington, D.C., capable of carrying passengers from the Big Apple to the Nation’s Capital in just 29 minutes.
The Boring Company receives verbal ‘approval’ to build NY to DC Hyperloop tunnel
The 2017 post, which envisioned city-center stations and multiple elevators in each city, sparked immediate scrutiny. Local and state officials in New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and D.C. said they had no knowledge of any approval. A White House spokesperson confirmed only “promising conversations” about the transformative infrastructure.
Musk clarified shortly after that there was “still a lot of work” to do for formal approvals.
@cybrtrkguy Permits were impossible to get
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 19, 2026
Limited progress followed, as Maryland Governor Larry Hogan’s administration issued a conditional utility permit and supported work near Fort Meade. In 2018, Washington, D.C., granted a preliminary permit for site preparation and excavation on a vacant lot at 53 New York Ave. NE in the NoMa neighborhood, which The Boring Company said could become a station.
A draft environmental assessment for a D.C.-Baltimore segment was released in 2019. Yet, by April 2021, the company had removed the project from its website, and the Federal Highway Administration reported receiving no indication of further interest. Communication with Maryland officials had ceased.
The full corridor would have required coordination among the District of Columbia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, New York, the Federal Highway Administration, the Army Corps of Engineers, the National Park Service, and other agencies.
Environmental reviews under the National Environmental Policy Act, utility clearances, and approvals for novel infrastructure added to the overall complexity of the project and its approval.
Speculation on the permitting barriers centers around a few factors, but a multi-state, multi-level route involving unproven high-speed vacuum-tube technology inherently triggers exhaustive safety, environmental, and engineering reviews that can stretch for years, even for conventional projects.
There are also other elements, of course, like officials who may face political exposure if a privately funded, untested system encountered anything such as cost overruns, delays, or safety issues. On the outset of this project, there were limited things such as engineering plans or demonstrated technology maturity, which also added to the potential skepticism.
The East Coast vision for Boring Co., once framed as a privately funded revolution that could reshape Northeast travel, quietly ended without construction of the promised network. Musk’s recent statement frames the outcome as a regulatory impasse, unfortunate but not unexpected.
The Boring Company’s latest Tesla tunnel truck mod “fits like a glove”
Elon Musk will give ‘every kid in America’ a SpaceX share in 2027
Elon Musk reveals why Boring Co’s biggest East Coast project never happened
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