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SpaceX already clearing Starship debris, preparing for next rocket rollout
Update: Half a day after Starship serial number 10 (SN10) became the first prototype to land in one piece, SpaceX has begun clearing its remains and preparing to roll the next rocket to the launch pad.
Never one to rest on its laurels, SpaceX appears to be wasting no time moving forward from Starship SN10’s successful landing and subsequent explosion. Almost a month ago, SpaceX stacked SN10’s successor – Starship SN11 – to its full height and has spent the last four weeks closing out the virtually identical rocket. As of SN10’s launch debut, Starship SN11 has been more or less finished and ready to roll to the launch pad for at least a week.
At the same time as SpaceX teams have begun the process of recovering SN10’s remains, the company also transported a large crane to the launch site – the same crane used to install Starships SN8, SN9, and SN10 at the launch pad. Stay tuned for updates as SpaceX prepares SN11 for a fourth high-altitude launch and landing attempt – this time with the goal of keeping the rocket intact after landing.
In a classically spectacular fashion, a SpaceX Starship prototype has successfully touched down in one piece for the first time ever, only to explode minutes later after catching itself on fire.
Rolled from SpaceX Boca Chica Starship factory to test and launch facilities just a mile down the road on January 28th, Starship SN10 lifted off just five weeks later – the fastest factory-to-launch flow yet. The speed of that turnaround was mainly made possible thanks to an exceptionally smooth test campaign, passing cryogenic proof and static fire tests after only a few attempts.
Prior to its second launch attempt, Starship SN10 automatically aborted a few seconds prior to its first attempt after the rocket’s flight computer determined that its three Raptor engines were producing more thrust than expected. Within half an hour of the abort, CEO Elon Musk took to Twitter to reveal the cause and stated that SpaceX would be tweaking the flight software’s thrust limits and recycling for another shot at launch around two hours later.
Up to the last 20 or so seconds of the 6.5-minute flight test, Starship SN10’s launch debut was virtually identical to Starships SN8 and SN9, both of which made it just one or two dozen seconds away from a soft landing. However, after SN9, SpaceX optimized the landing process to add additional redundancy, meaning that SN10 reignited all three of its Raptor engines – instead of just two – for its flip and landing burn.
Exactly as planned, SN10 fired up those engines, autonomously analyzed their performance, and then shut down two Raptors to leave the best-behaving engine to complete the final landing burn. Unlike SN8 and SN9, that maneuver went about as well as it could have, nearly slowing SN10 to a hover with one (seemingly) healthy engine to take it the rest of the way to the ground.
After all that heroic effort and for the first time ever, Starship SN10 proceeded to touch down in one piece. Through the eyes of a drone hovering far away from the launch complex, the landing couldn’t exactly be considered ‘soft,’ however, and SN10 impacted the landing zone with some substantial momentum – likely far too much for its tiny legs to handle.
However, more importantly, SN10 appeared to ignite one or two of its own gaseous oxygen or methane vents, triggering a fire that remained visible until well after the hard – but intact – landing. From official and unofficial views of the landed vehicle, Starship SN10 had a significant lean and appeared to have no more than a few inches to a foot of clearance between its aft skirt and the concrete pad. Remote-controlled firefighting spigots were able to extinguish any external sign of fire but that lack of clearance may have prevented the water from doing much inside the skirt, ultimately dooming Starship SN10.
Regardless of where exactly that fire ‘broke through,’ so to speak, the original cause of the fire – accidentally igniting a vent plume – is unlikely to be a hard problem to fix, and it’s safe to say that SN10’s intact landing is an extraordinary success for SpaceX. In its official webcast, SpaceX engineer John Insprucker confirmed that Starship SN11 is all but complete and could roll out to the launch pad to pick up where SN10 left off almost as soon as it’s safe to do so.
Elon Musk
Starlink passes 9 million active customers just weeks after hitting 8 million
The milestone highlights the accelerating growth of Starlink, which has now been adding over 20,000 new users per day.
SpaceX’s Starlink satellite internet service has continued its rapid global expansion, surpassing 9 million active customers just weeks after crossing the 8 million mark.
The milestone highlights the accelerating growth of Starlink, which has now been adding over 20,000 new users per day.
9 million customers
In a post on X, SpaceX stated that Starlink now serves over 9 million active users across 155 countries, territories, and markets. The company reached 8 million customers in early November, meaning it added roughly 1 million subscribers in under seven weeks, or about 21,275 new users on average per day.
“Starlink is connecting more than 9M active customers with high-speed internet across 155 countries, territories, and many other markets,” Starlink wrote in a post on its official X account. SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell also celebrated the milestone on X. “A huge thank you to all of our customers and congrats to the Starlink team for such an incredible product,” she wrote.
That growth rate reflects both rising demand for broadband in underserved regions and Starlink’s expanding satellite constellation, which now includes more than 9,000 low-Earth-orbit satellites designed to deliver high-speed, low-latency internet worldwide.
Starlink’s momentum
Starlink’s momentum has been building up. SpaceX reported 4.6 million Starlink customers in December 2024, followed by 7 million by August 2025, and 8 million customers in November. Independent data also suggests Starlink usage is rising sharply, with Cloudflare reporting that global web traffic from Starlink users more than doubled in 2025, as noted in an Insider report.
Starlink’s momentum is increasingly tied to SpaceX’s broader financial outlook. Elon Musk has said the satellite network is “by far” the company’s largest revenue driver, and reports suggest SpaceX may be positioning itself for an initial public offering as soon as next year, with valuations estimated as high as $1.5 trillion. Musk has also suggested in the past that Starlink could have its own IPO in the future.
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NVIDIA Director of Robotics: Tesla FSD v14 is the first AI to pass the “Physical Turing Test”
After testing FSD v14, Fan stated that his experience with FSD felt magical at first, but it soon started to feel like a routine.
NVIDIA Director of Robotics Jim Fan has praised Tesla’s Full Self-Driving (Supervised) v14 as the first AI to pass what he described as a “Physical Turing Test.”
After testing FSD v14, Fan stated that his experience with FSD felt magical at first, but it soon started to feel like a routine. And just like smartphones today, removing it now would “actively hurt.”
Jim Fan’s hands-on FSD v14 impressions
Fan, a leading researcher in embodied AI who is currently solving Physical AI at NVIDIA and spearheading the company’s Project GR00T initiative, noted that he actually was late to the Tesla game. He was, however, one of the first to try out FSD v14.
“I was very late to own a Tesla but among the earliest to try out FSD v14. It’s perhaps the first time I experience an AI that passes the Physical Turing Test: after a long day at work, you press a button, lay back, and couldn’t tell if a neural net or a human drove you home,” Fan wrote in a post on X.
Fan added: “Despite knowing exactly how robot learning works, I still find it magical watching the steering wheel turn by itself. First it feels surreal, next it becomes routine. Then, like the smartphone, taking it away actively hurts. This is how humanity gets rewired and glued to god-like technologies.”
The Physical Turing Test
The original Turing Test was conceived by Alan Turing in 1950, and it was aimed at determining if a machine could exhibit behavior that is equivalent to or indistinguishable from a human. By focusing on text-based conversations, the original Turing Test set a high bar for natural language processing and machine learning.
This test has been passed by today’s large language models. However, the capability to converse in a humanlike manner is a completely different challenge from performing real-world problem-solving or physical interactions. Thus, Fan introduced the Physical Turing Test, which challenges AI systems to demonstrate intelligence through physical actions.
Based on Fan’s comments, Tesla has demonstrated these intelligent physical actions with FSD v14. Elon Musk agreed with the NVIDIA executive, stating in a post on X that with FSD v14, “you can sense the sentience maturing.” Musk also praised Tesla AI, calling it the best “real-world AI” today.
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Tesla AI team burns the Christmas midnight oil by releasing FSD v14.2.2.1
The update was released just a day after FSD v14.2.2 started rolling out to customers.
Tesla is burning the midnight oil this Christmas, with the Tesla AI team quietly rolling out Full Self-Driving (Supervised) v14.2.2.1 just a day after FSD v14.2.2 started rolling out to customers.
Tesla owner shares insights on FSD v14.2.2.1
Longtime Tesla owner and FSD tester @BLKMDL3 shared some insights following several drives with FSD v14.2.2.1 in rainy Los Angeles conditions with standing water and faded lane lines. He reported zero steering hesitation or stutter, confident lane changes, and maneuvers executed with precision that evoked the performance of Tesla’s driverless Robotaxis in Austin.
Parking performance impressed, with most spots nailed perfectly, including tight, sharp turns, in single attempts without shaky steering. One minor offset happened only due to another vehicle that was parked over the line, which FSD accommodated by a few extra inches. In rain that typically erases road markings, FSD visualized lanes and turn lines better than humans, positioning itself flawlessly when entering new streets as well.
“Took it up a dark, wet, and twisty canyon road up and down the hill tonight and it went very well as to be expected. Stayed centered in the lane, kept speed well and gives a confidence inspiring steering feel where it handles these curvy roads better than the majority of human drivers,” the Tesla owner wrote in a post on X.
Tesla’s FSD v14.2.2 update
Just a day before FSD v14.2.2.1’s release, Tesla rolled out FSD v14.2.2, which was focused on smoother real-world performance, better obstacle awareness, and precise end-of-trip routing. According to the update’s release notes, FSD v14.2.2 upgrades the vision encoder neural network with higher resolution features, enhancing detection of emergency vehicles, road obstacles, and human gestures.
New Arrival Options also allowed users to select preferred drop-off styles, such as Parking Lot, Street, Driveway, Parking Garage, or Curbside, with the navigation pin automatically adjusting to the ideal spot. Other refinements include pulling over for emergency vehicles, real-time vision-based detours for blocked roads, improved gate and debris handling, and Speed Profiles for customized driving styles.
Starlink passes 9 million active customers just weeks after hitting 8 million
NVIDIA Director of Robotics: Tesla FSD v14 is the first AI to pass the “Physical Turing Test”
