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SpaceX Starship launch delayed to Tuesday by poor FAA planning
Update: CEO Elon Musk says that SpaceX’s fourth high-altitude Starship launch has been delayed from Monday to Tuesday after an FAA inspector – recently required to be onsite for launches – was inexplicably more than six hours late.
While the smallest grain of salt is warranted given Musk’s recently vitriolic relationship with the FAA, the CEO has every reason not to lie about a federal regulatory agency that SpaceX almost fundamentally depends on. As such, the implication is that a lone FAA inspector – only recently required by the FAA itself to be onsite for SpaceX Starship launches – was somehow more than four or five hours away from Boca Chica, Texas by 11am CDT, March 29th.
The only possible explanation for such a delay is that a single inspector – lacking virtually any of the resources afforded to large government agency – missed a flight on a public airline, had a flight canceled at the last second, or was somehow stranded in the middle of nowhere by car issues. As any sane human familiar with air or car travel would know, those issues happen and should always be anticipated. Knowing full well that it had just changed SpaceX’s Starship launch license just two weeks prior to prevent flights without an inspector present, the FAA does not appear to have prepared for those issues in even the most basic sense, failing to ensure alternate methods of transport or two redundant inspectors.
In essence, due either to severe underfunding, general ineptitude, some childish attempt to assert dominance, or some combination of all three, the FAA has explicitly disrespected the hundreds of (possibly 1000+) SpaceX employees working around the clock for weeks to launch Starship SN11 as quickly as possible. Given that the FAA itself distributed Temporary Flight Restrictions (TFRs) for SN11’s Monday launch on Saturday and noted plans for the launch more than a day prior, the giant regulatory agency had no less than 24-48 hours of prior warning even if they’d somehow ignored or missed SpaceX’s own CEO announcing a delay to March 29th on March 26th.
If a regulatory agency like the FAA is incapable of ensuring that an inspector can stand around at a launch the agency itself required an inspector be present for days prior, the same apparatus assuredly should not and cannot be trusted to regulate systems as complex as modern aircraft, spacecraft, and rockets. If the FAA is, in fact, up to the challenge of responsibly regulating those systems with the public’s best interest in mind, then failing a task as simple as ensuring its own inspector is transported, on time, from Point A to Point B is a conscious decision or mistake. Either way, something clearly needs to change.
CEO Elon Musk says that SpaceX has delayed Starship serial number 11’s (SN11) high-altitude launch debut from Friday to Monday to best ensure that the company can “land & fully recover” the 50-meter-tall steel rocket.
First and foremost, the weekend will allow SpaceX times time for “additional checkouts” and scour Starship SN11 and the data it’s produced during testing for any red flags or minor issues. While plans for a same-day static fire and launch didn’t pan out on Friday, March 26th, SpaceX did manage the first half, firing up just one of Starship’s three Raptors to verify the health of the replacement engine after a Thursday Raptor swap. The test marked the first time SpaceX has intentionally fired up just one of the Raptors installed on a three-engine Starship prototype, so the delay will provide extra time to ensure that all three are still looking good.
Standing down SN11 until probably Monday. Additional checkouts are needed. Doing our best to land & fully recover.— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 26, 2021
The weather in Boca Chica, Texas has also taken a turn for the worse in the last few days, so the extra few days will also (hopefully) allow time for wind, visibility, and precipitation conditions to improve. According to Musk, Starship SN11 is now scheduled to fly as early as Monday “afternoon” and, as usual, SpaceX will offer live coverage of the fourth high-altitude launch and landing attempt beginning a few minutes before liftoff.
With a little luck, the Starship prototype will be able to continue a trend of iterative improvement and one-up Starship SN10 with a slightly softer landing and no explosion minutes after touchdown. Stay tuned for updates both here and on SpaceX’s social media platforms to catch the official webcast.
Tesla Robotaxi ride-hailing without a Safety Monitor is proving to be a difficult task, according to some riders who made the journey to Austin to attempt to ride in one of its vehicles that has zero supervision.
Last week, Tesla officially removed Safety Monitors from some — not all — of its Robotaxi vehicles in Austin, Texas, answering skeptics who said the vehicles still needed supervision to operate safely and efficiently.
BREAKING: Tesla launches public Robotaxi rides in Austin with no Safety Monitor
Tesla aimed to remove Safety Monitors before the end of 2025, and it did, but only to company employees. It made the move last week to open the rides to the public, just a couple of weeks late to its original goal, but the accomplishment was impressive, nonetheless.
However, the small number of Robotaxis that are operating without Safety Monitors has proven difficult to hail for a ride. David Moss, who has gained notoriety recently as the person who has traveled over 10,000 miles in his Tesla on Full Self-Driving v14 without any interventions, made it to Austin last week.
He has tried to get a ride in a Safety Monitor-less Robotaxi for the better part of four days, and after 38 attempts, he still has yet to grab one:
Wow just wow!
It’s 8:30PM, 29° out ice storm hailing & Tesla Robotaxi service has turned back on!
Waymo is offline & vast majority of humans are home in the storm
Ride 38 was still supervised but by far most impressive yet pic.twitter.com/1aUnJkcYm8
— David Moss (@DavidMoss) January 25, 2026
Tesla said last week that it was rolling out a controlled test of the Safety Monitor-less Robotaxis. Ashok Elluswamy, who heads the AI program at Tesla, confirmed that the company was “starting with a few unsupervised vehicles mixed in with the broader Robotaxi fleet with Safety Monitors,” and that “the ratio will increase over time.”
This is a good strategy that prioritizes safety and keeps the company’s controlled rollout at the forefront of the Robotaxi rollout.
However, it will be interesting to see how quickly the company can scale these completely monitor-less rides. It has proven to be extremely difficult to get one, but that is understandable considering only a handful of the cars in the entire Austin fleet are operating with no supervision within the vehicle.
Tesla has given its biggest hint that Full Self-Driving in Europe is imminent, as a new feature seems to show that the company is preparing for frequent border crossings.
Tesla owner and influencer BLKMDL3, also known as Zack, recently took his Tesla to the border of California and Mexico at Tijuana, and at the international crossing, Full Self-Driving showed an interesting message: “Upcoming country border — FSD (Supervised) will become unavailable.”
FSD now shows a new message when approaching an international border crossing.
Stayed engaged the whole way as we crossed the border and worked great in Mexico! pic.twitter.com/bDzyLnyq0g
— Zack (@BLKMDL3) January 26, 2026
Due to regulatory approvals, once a Tesla operating on Full Self-Driving enters a new country, it is required to comply with the laws and regulations that are applicable to that territory. Even if legal, it seems Tesla will shut off FSD temporarily, confirming it is in a location where operation is approved.
This is something that will be extremely important in Europe, as crossing borders there is like crossing states in the U.S.; it’s pretty frequent compared to life in America, Canada, and Mexico.
Tesla has been working to get FSD approved in Europe for several years, and it has been getting close to being able to offer it to owners on the continent. However, it is still working through a lot of the red tape that is necessary for European regulators to approve use of the system on their continent.
This feature seems to be one that would be extremely useful in Europe, considering the fact that crossing borders into other countries is much more frequent than here in the U.S., and would cater to an area where approvals would differ.
Tesla has been testing FSD in Spain, France, England, and other European countries, and plans to continue expanding this effort. European owners have been fighting for a very long time to utilize the functionality, but the red tape has been the biggest bottleneck in the process.
Tesla Europe builds momentum with expanding FSD demos and regional launches
Tesla operates Full Self-Driving in the United States, China, Canada, Mexico, Puerto Rico, Australia, New Zealand, and South Korea.
Elon Musk
SpaceX Starship V3 gets launch date update from Elon Musk
The first flight of Starship Version 3 and its new Raptor V3 engines could happen as early as March.
Elon Musk has announced that SpaceX’s next Starship launch, Flight 12, is expected in about six weeks. This suggests that the first flight of Starship Version 3 and its new Raptor V3 engines could happen as early as March.
In a post on X, Elon Musk stated that the next Starship launch is in six weeks. He accompanied his announcement with a photo that seemed to have been taken when Starship’s upper stage was just about to separate from the Super Heavy Booster. Musk did not state whether SpaceX will attempt to catch the Super Heavy Booster during the upcoming flight.
The upcoming flight will mark the debut of Starship V3. The upgraded design includes the new Raptor V3 engine, which is expected to have nearly twice the thrust of the original Raptor 1, at a fraction of the cost and with significantly reduced weight. The Starship V3 platform is also expected to be optimized for manufacturability.
The Starship V3 Flight 12 launch timeline comes as SpaceX pursues an aggressive development cadence for the fully reusable launch system. Previous iterations of Starship have racked up a mixed but notable string of test flights, including multiple integrated flight tests in 2025.
Interestingly enough, SpaceX has teased an aggressive timeframe for Starship V3’s first flight. Way back in late November, SpaceX noted on X that it will be aiming to launch Starship V3’s maiden flight in the first quarter of 2026. This was despite setbacks like a structural anomaly on the first V3 booster during ground testing.
“Starship’s twelfth flight test remains targeted for the first quarter of 2026,” the company wrote in its post on X.
Tesla Robotaxi ride-hailing without a Safety Monitor proves to be difficult
Tesla gives its biggest hint that Full Self-Driving in Europe is imminent
