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SpaceX recaps historic Starship landing in 4K as next ship readies for flight
SpaceX has published a new 4K video recapping Starship’s first intact landing after a high-altitude launch right as the company is preparing the next ship for flight.
On March 3rd, Starship serial number 10 (SN10) briefly became the first prototype to successfully launch to 10 km (6.2 mi), ‘skydive’ back to Earth, flip around, and land in one piece. Put simply, Starship SN10 made it unequivocally clear that the exotic, unproven method of landing selected by SpaceX could be made to work. Unfortunately, while Starship SN10 did land in one piece, the landing was much harder than planned.
Due to some combination of that hard landing and an apparent onboard fire that started in the last ~20 seconds of flight, SpaceX only had around six minutes to contemplate its success before Starship SN10’s propellant tanks were breached, violently depressurizing the rocket and causing a large explosion and fire.
Previously discussed on Teslarati, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk later took to Twitter to offer some educated guesses as to why Starship SN10 exploded.
“Starship SN9 ultimately failed a few seconds earlier than Starship SN8 when one of its Raptor engines failed to ignite, precluding a true flight test of the helium pressurization fix. As it turns out, Musk believes that that very fix may have doomed Starship SN10.
As Starship SN10 forged ahead past the points of failure that killed SN8 and SN9, the SpaceX CEO thinks that one or more of the vehicle’s three Raptor engines began to ingest some of that helium as they drained the methane header tank. As a result, engine thrust fell below expected values, preventing Starship SN10 from fully slowing down for a soft landing. Instead, the Starship hit the ground traveling a solid 25 mph (~10 m/s), obliterating its tiny landing legs and damaging its skirt section.”
Teslarati.com – March 10th, 2021
In other words, the losses of Starships SN8, SN9, and SN10 all share a relatively common point of failure – propulsion reliability. Technically, only Starship SN9’s failure can be blamed specifically on Raptor, one of which failed to ignite during its flip and landing maneuver. SN8 and SN10 both failed because of issues in the complex network of plumbing and pressurization systems responsible for feeding Raptors the right amount of propellant.
For SN8, the ship’s pressurization system failed to provide the necessary fuel head pressure at the last second, starving the Starship’s Raptors. SN10 ironically failed because the quick fix inspired by SN8’s failure – partially replacing a methane pressurant with helium – likely contaminated its methane fuel with helium, effectively watering down Raptor’s performance. While likely frustrating for SpaceX, the failures are still extremely valuable and loss of hardware remains a routine and intentional part of the company’s approach to iterative rocket development.
On the plus side, the FAA has already cleared SpaceX’s next Starship for flight after SN10’s momentary success and subsequent explosion. Spurred by that brief taste of total success, SpaceX wasted no time to prepare that next prototype – Starship SN11 – for flight and rolled the rocket to the launch pad mere days after SN10’s March 3rd flight. That very same day, SpaceX completed ambient pressure testing – a basic verification that Starship SN11 is leak-free.
A few days later, SN11 appeared to pass its first cryogenic proof test, replacing room-temperature gas with cryogenic liquid nitrogen. Three days after that, SpaceX attempted to put the Starship through its first triple-Raptor static fire test but appeared to suffer an abort milliseconds after a partial ignition of one or two of its three engines. Starship SN11 briefly caught fire and burned for at least 20-40 seconds after the abort, unsurprisingly triggering several days of delays. Nevertheless, if SN11 can make it through a second static fire attempt without issue on Thursday or Friday, the Starship is still well on track to take flight weeks earlier than any of its predecessors.
Elon Musk flew under the radar with his recent purchase of a $1 billion energy company, according to Federal Trade Commission (FTC) documents.
Transaction number 202612350 listed Tesla and SpaceX frontman Elon Musk as the acquiring party and CF APR Super Holdings LLC as the seller, with New APR Energy, LLC as the acquired entity. The deal, which closed without public announcement, came to light on May 14.
BREAKING: Elon Musk acquires Jacksonville power company APR Energy in a deal valued at more than $1,000,000,000.00.
— Polymarket Money (@PolymarketMoney) July 15, 2026
Analysts inferred the deal’s scale from minority stakeholder disclosures, including one report of a 5 percent interest sold for approximately $50.4 million. Fortress Investment Group had purchased APR’s assets in late 2024, rebranded the operation as New APR Energy, and subsequently transferred ownership to Musk.
APR Energy specializes in rapidly deployable power infrastructure. The company maintains one of the world’s largest fleets of mobile gas and diesel turbines, with more than 1.1 gigawatts of generation capacity. Its modular units, which are often trailer-mounted, enable turnkey installations ranging from 20 MW to over 500 MW.
APR provides full engineering, procurement, construction, operation, and maintenance services for behind-the-meter power plants, serving everything from data centers, utilities, and industrial clients.
The firm has expanded aggressively to meet surging demand, recently adding turbines and deploying over 100 MW for a major AI hyperscaler. Its solutions bridge critical gaps where grid interconnections face delays of two to five years, according to Yahoo.
The acquisition means something more for Musk. As he continues to expand projects in artificial intelligence, especially xAI, his AI venture, there is a greater need to supply energy-intensive supercomputing clusters, including the Colossus project, with what they need: reliable and high-capacity power.
Ownership of APR provides immediate access to flexible generation assets that can be deployed adjacent to data centers, reducing dependence on a strained infrastructure. It also complements Tesla’s energy storage business, so Musk will be able to pull from his own entities to address the rapid scaling demands of AI training and compute.
Tesla had a petition protesting a recall to fix a potential issue with 2017-2023 Model Y and Model 3 vehicles’ headlights was denied, as the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) disagreed with the company’s opinion of things.
The recall covers approximately 19,917 Model Y and Model 3 vehicles built from 2017 to 2023. Tesla initially submitted a noncompliance report for the headlights on these vehicles on March 15, 2024. Tesla then petitioned for an exemption from the fix, which violated FMVSS No. 108 (40 CFR 571.108), arguing that the “noncompliance is inconsequential as it relates to motor vehicle safety.
🚨 Tesla was denied a petition by the NHTSA to avoid a recall of 19,900 2017-2023 Model 3 and Model Y vehicles.
The NHTSA found that the vehicles’ headlights may exceed maximum lighting levels. Tesla argued it was inconsequential and did not require a recall. pic.twitter.com/m8Jmm1teLL
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) July 16, 2026
The NHTSA disagreed, stating that Tesla’s conclusion that the headlights do not increase any risk was not an opinion it shared. The agency said it disagreed with Tesla’s assumption that glare is not increased to surrounding traffic. This issue could be highlighted even more in certain weather conditions.
Tesla will be required to remedy the issue, the NHTSA ruled:
“In consideration of the foregoing, NHTSA has decided that Tesla has not met its burden of persuasion that the subject FMVSS No. 108 noncompliance is inconsequential to motor vehicle safety. Accordingly, Tesla’s petition is hereby denied, and Tesla is consequently obligated to provide notification of and free remedy for that noncompliance under 49 U.S.C. 30118 and 30120.”
The issue here appears to be the angle of the headlights and the brightness they emit during operation. The NHTSA report states that:
“Tesla’s headlamp supplier, Marelli Automotive Lighting, tested 25 right-hand and 25 left-hand lamps, and for this sample, found the maximum photometric intensity measured in the 10°U to 90°U and 90°L to 90°R zone was between 136.2 cd and 230.1 cd for the right-hand lamps and between 117.5 cd and 160.3 cd for the left-hand lamps. According to Tesla, these tests revealed that the photometric intensity of the right-hand and left-hand headlamp lower beam on the subject vehicles may measure as much as 230.1 cd in the 10°U to 90°U and 90°L to 90°R zone, exceeding the maximum photometric intensity by 105.1 cd. Additionally, Tesla states that a left-hand lamp tested by a Transport Canada recognized laboratory measured a maximum of 171.27 cd in the 10°U to 90°U and 90°L to 90°R zone. Despite these measurements exceeding the allowed photometric maximum of 125 cd, Tesla believes that the subject noncompliance is inconsequential to motor vehicle safety.”
Tesla also argued at some points that the headlights had not been deemed responsible for any complaints, accidents, or injuries related to the noncompliance.
Lifestyle
NTSB findings on fatal Tesla crash tell a very different story
The NTSB confirmed the driver, not Tesla’s FSD, caused the fatal Texas house crash.
The National Transportation Safety Board released preliminary findings Wednesday confirming that a Tesla driver, not the vehicle’s software, caused a fatal crash in Katy, Texas in June. The driver, 44-year-old Michael Butler, had engaged Full Self-Driving Supervised mode on Rose Hollow Lane, a residential street with a 30 mph speed limit, before manually overriding the system by pressing the accelerator pedal all the way to 100%. Data recovered from the 2025 Tesla Model 3 showed the vehicle was traveling over 70 miles per hour when it struck a home and killed 76-year-old Martha Avila, who was inside. Weather was clear, the road was dry, and it was daylight.
Texas man charged in fatal Tesla crash where he blamed Autopilot
Butler told authorities he had passed out at the wheel. But security camera footage obtained by the NTSB told a different story, and showed the car accelerating through an intersection before leaving the road entirely. Police also found that Butler’s phone had Google searches including the terms “Tesla FSD not aggressive enough 2026” and “Tesla FSD too timid,” raising serious questions about how he was using the system before the crash. Butler has since been charged with manslaughter. The victim’s family has filed a lawsuit against both Butler and Tesla, alleging negligence.
The NTSB findings aligned directly with what Tesla VP of AI Software Ashok Elluswamy had already stated publicly on X in the weeks after the crash, writing that “the driver manually overrode self-driving by pressing the accelerator all the way to 100%.” The data confirmed his account.
Yup. In this case, the driver manually overrode self-driving by pressing the accelerator all the way to 100% of the accel pedal in this residential area. They reached a speed of 73 mph during the crash, and had the accelerator pressed even after the crash.
— Ashok Elluswamy (@aelluswamy) June 22, 2026
Elon Musk secretly acquires $1B energy company to power the AI future
Tesla has to fix a big problem with its old headlights, NHTSA says
