Connect with us

News

SpaceX rolls next Starship to the launch pad nine days after midair explosion

Starship SN15 is headed to the launch pad nine days after SN11's midair explosion. (NASASpaceflight - bocachicagal)

Published

on

Update: Right on schedule, SpaceX has transported Starship serial number 15 (SN15) from its Boca Chica rocket factory to a launch and test site just down the road.

SN15’s pad arrival comes just nine days after Starship SN11 – the last in a batch of four first-generation prototypes – exploded in midair some 30 seconds before a planned landing. While minor, SN11’s midair failure was undoubtedly a step backward relative to Starship SN10, which (briefly) became the first full-size prototype to land in one piece less than a month prior. Both SN8, SN9, and SN10 made it further into their identical flight tests, leaving SN11 somewhat high and dry and putting extra pressure on Starship SN15.

After Starship SN8’s unexpectedly successful December 2020 test flight, in which the rocket made it just a dozen or so seconds away from soft landing after more than six minutes in flight, SpaceX made the decision to scrap Starship SN12 and kill SN13 and SN14 before assembly could begin. Effectively a gamble that SN8-SN11 would produce enough of a foundation for future testing to start off on, it’s hard to say if that gamble paid off.

All four Starship flights managed the extraordinary feat of more than four minutes of powered flight and spent two minutes free-falling like no rocket ever before them, but they also made it clear that both Raptor and autogenous pressurization (using gasified propellant to pressurize Starship’s tanks) are not quite mature enough for reliable launches and landings. Featuring “hundreds of improvements,” many of which were hopefully designed to tackle some of those shortcomings, it’ll be up to Starship SN15 to attempt to carry that torch forward – and, with any luck, further than any prototype before it.

Advertisement

After SpaceX unexpectedly used a Monday road closure to deliver its first custom-built rocket fuel tank, plans for the next Starship test campaign and launch have begun to solidify.

Most importantly, the initial schedule for Starship serial number 15’s (SN15) test campaign appears to be clear. As of Wednesday, April 7th, road closures filed by SpaceX suggest that the first of a new group of upgraded Starships will be transported from build site to launch pad as early as 11am-1:30pm CDT (UTC-5) on Thursday, April 8th. Once SN15 is installed on ‘Suborbital Pad A,’ SpaceX means to waste no time and has scheduled a 7am-12pm road closure on Friday.

As usual, the weekend will once again be free of any testing or activity requiring road closures, but SpaceX has already cordoned off noon to 8pm on Monday and Tuesday (April 12/13) to continue putting its newest Starship prototype to the test.

SpaceX technicians and engineers work to put the finishing touches on the weld joining Starship SN15’s two halves and remove scaffolding ahead of the rocket’s trip to the launch pad. (NASASpaceflight – bocachicagal)

While road closure notices no longer offer any real detail, a few basic details can still be inferred. The April 7th closure, for example, warns that SpaceX only plans to intermittently close the highway but not Boca Chica Beach – implying that the window poses no threat to residents or beachgoers. Historically, that means that something will be transported – likely Starship SN15, in this case.

On Friday, SpaceX has scheduled a full five-hour closure of both the highway and beach, implying that some kind of testing is likely on the books. The same goes for Monday and Tuesday, but with longer eight-hour closures.

Advertisement

More likely than not, assuming Starship SN15’s pad transport and launch mount installation goes smoothly, SpaceX will use the shorter Friday window to complete a basic ambient pressure test – filling the rocket with ambient-temperature nitrogen gas to test its complex plumbing and propellant tanks for leaks. Continuing the IFF (if and only if) string, SpaceX will then spend the weekend preparing Starship SN15 for a cryogenic proof test and thrust structure stress test – simulating the thrust of three Raptors after loading the rocket with extremely cold liquid nitrogen (LN2).

SpaceX will then most likely spend another one or two days inspecting Starship SN15 and removing the hydraulic ram used to simulated thrust from the launch mount the ship is installed on. Once SN15 and its mount are cleared, SpaceX can move into static fire testing. Given that – according to CEO Elon Musk – SN15 will debut Raptor engines with an unknown degree of upgrades, it’s reasonable to assume that SpaceX will take things relatively slowly and possibly perform more than one static fire test even if the first attempt is a total success.

If not and SpaceX continues to push hard like it did with SN10 and SN11, it’s not out of the question that Starship SN15 will be ready for its first launch attempt around Friday, April 16th or Monday, April 19th. Stay tuned for updates as SpaceX hopefully rolls the rocket to its Boca Chica, Texas launch site later today.

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.

Advertisement
Comments

Energy

Tesla’s newest “Folding V4 Superchargers” are key to its most aggressive expansion yet

Tesla’s folding V4 Supercharger ships 33% more per truck, cuts deployment time and cost significantly.

Published

on

By

Tesla V4 Supercharger installation ramping in Europe

Tesla is rolling out a folding V4 Supercharger design, an engineering change that allows 33% more units to fit on a single delivery truck, cuts deployment time in half, and reduces overall installation cost by roughly 20%.

The folding mechanism addresses one of the least glamorous but most consequential bottlenecks in charging infrastructure: getting hardware from factory floor to job site efficiently. By collapsing the form factor for transit and unfolding into an operational configuration on arrival, the new design dramatically reduces the logistics overhead that has historically slowed Supercharger rollouts, particularly at large or remote sites where multiple units are needed simultaneously.

The timing aligns with a broader acceleration in Tesla’s network strategy. In March 2026, Tesla’s Gigafactory New York produced its final V3 Supercharger cabinet after more than seven years and 15,000 units, pivoting entirely to V4 cabinet production. The V4 cabinet itself is already a generational leap, delivering up to 500 kW per stall for passenger vehicles and up to 1.2 MW for the Tesla Semi, while supporting twice the stalls per cabinet at three times the power density of its predecessor. The folding transport innovation layers logistical efficiency on top of that technical foundation.

Tesla launches first ‘true’ East Coast V4 Supercharger: here’s what that means

Tesla Charging’s Director Max de Zegher, commenting on the V4 cabinet when it launched, captured the operational philosophy behind these changes: “Posts can peak up to 500kW for cars, but we need less than 1MW across 8 posts to deliver maximum power to cars 99% of the time.” The design philosophy has always been about maximizing real-world throughput, not just peak specs, and the folding transport upgrade extends that thinking into the supply chain itself.

Continue Reading

Elon Musk

The Boring Company clears final Nashville hurdle: Music City loop is full speed ahead

The Boring Company has cleared its final Nashville hurdles, putting the Music City Loop on track for 2026.

Published

on

By

The Boring Company has cleared one of its most significant regulatory milestones yet, securing a key easement from the Music City Center in Nashville just days ago, the latest in a series of approvals that have pushed the Music City Loop project firmly into construction reality.

On March 24, 2026, the Convention Center Authority voted to grant The Boring Company access to an easement along the west side of the Music City Center property, allowing tunneling beneath the privately owned venue. The move follows a unanimous 7-0 vote by the Metro Nashville Airport Authority on February 18, and a joint state and federal approval from the Tennessee Department of Transportation and the Federal Highway Administration on February 25. Together, these green lights have cleared the path for a roughly 10-mile underground tunnel connecting downtown Nashville to Nashville International Airport, with potential extensions into midtown along West End Avenue.

Music City Loop could highlight The Boring Company’s real disruption

Nashville was selected by The Boring Company largely because of its rapid population growth and the strain that growth has placed on surface infrastructure. Traffic has become a persistent problem for residents, convention visitors, and airport travelers alike. The Music City Loop promises an approximately 8-minute underground transit time between downtown and the Nashville International Airport (BNA), removing thousands of vehicles from surface roads daily while operating as a fully electric, zero-emissions system at no cost to taxpayers.

The project fits squarely within a broader vision Musk has championed for years. In responding to a breakdown of the Loop’s construction costs, Musk posted on X: “Tunnels are so underrated.” The comment reflected a longstanding belief that underground transit represents one of the most cost-effective and scalable infrastructure solutions available. The Boring Company has claimed it can build 13 miles of twin tunnels in Nashville for between $240 million and $300 million total, a fraction of what comparable projects cost elsewhere in the country.

The Las Vegas Loop, The Boring Company’s first operational system, has served as a proof of concept. During the CONEXPO trade show in March 2026, the Vegas Loop transported approximately 82,000 passengers over five days at the Las Vegas Convention Center, demonstrating the system’s capacity during large-scale events. Nashville draws millions of convention visitors and tourists each year, and local business leaders have pointed to that same capacity as a major draw for supporting the project.

The Music City Loop was first announced in July 2025. Construction began within hours of the February 25 state approval, with The Boring Company’s Prufrock tunneling machine already in the ground the same evening. The first operational segment is targeted for late 2026, with the full route expected to be complete by 2029. The project represents one of the largest privately funded infrastructure efforts currently underway in the United States.

Continue Reading

Elon Musk

Elon Musk demands Delaware Judge recuse herself after ‘support’ post celebrating $2B court loss

A banner on the post read “Katie McCormick supports this,” using LinkedIn’s heart-in-hand “support” icon, an endorsement stronger than a simple “like.” Musk’s lawyers argue the action creates “a perception of bias against Mr. Musk,” warranting immediate recusal to preserve judicial impartiality.

Published

on

elon musk
Ministério Das Comunicações, CC BY 2.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s legal team has filed a motion demanding that Delaware Chancellor Kathaleen McCormick disqualify herself from an ongoing high-stakes Tesla shareholder lawsuit.

The filing, submitted March 25, cites an apparent LinkedIn “support” reaction from McCormick’s account to a post celebrating a $2 billion jury verdict against Musk in a separate California securities-fraud case.

The move escalates long-simmering tensions between Musk, Tesla, and the Delaware judiciary, where McCormick previously presided over the landmark challenge to Musk’s record $56 billion 2018 compensation package.

Delaware Supreme Court reinstates Elon Musk’s 2018 Tesla CEO pay package

The LinkedIn post was written by Harry Plotkin, a Southern California jury consultant who assisted the plaintiffs who sued Musk over 2022 tweets about his Twitter acquisition. Plotkin praised the trial team for “standing up for the little guy against the richest man in the world.”

The New York Post initially reported the story.

A banner on the post read “Katie McCormick supports this,” using LinkedIn’s heart-in-hand “support” icon, an endorsement stronger than a simple “like.” Musk’s lawyers argue the action creates “a perception of bias against Mr. Musk,” warranting immediate recusal to preserve judicial impartiality.

McCormick swiftly denied intentional endorsement. In a letter to attorneys, she stated she was unaware of the interaction until LinkedIn notified her. She wrote:

“I either did not click the ‘support’ icon at all, or I did so accidentally. I do not believe that I did it accidentally.”

The chancellor maintains the reaction was inadvertent, but critics, including Musk allies, call the explanation implausible given the platform’s deliberate interface.

McCormick’s central role in the Tesla pay-package litigation underscores the stakes. In Tornetta v. Musk, in January 2024, she ruled the 2018 performance-based stock-option grant, potentially worth $56 billion at the time and now valued far higher, was invalid.

The package consisted of 12 tranches of options, each vesting only after Tesla achieved ambitious market-cap and operational milestones. McCormick found Musk exercised “transaction-specific control” over Tesla as a controlling stockholder, the board lacked sufficient independence, and proxy disclosures to shareholders were materially deficient.

Applying the entire-fairness standard, she concluded defendants failed to prove the deal was fair in process or price and ordered full rescission, an “unfathomable” remedy she described as necessary to deter fiduciary breaches.

After the ruling, Tesla shareholders ratified the package a second time in June 2024. McCormick rejected that ratification in December 2024, holding that post-trial votes could not cure defects.

Tesla appealed. On December 19 of last year, the Delaware Supreme Court unanimously reversed the rescission remedy while largely leaving McCormick’s liability findings intact. The high court deemed total unwinding inequitable and impractical, restoring the package but awarding the plaintiff only nominal $1 damages plus reduced attorneys’ fees. Musk ultimately received the full award.

The current recusal motion arises in yet another Tesla derivative suit before McCormick. Legal observers say granting it could signal heightened scrutiny of judicial social-media activity; denial might reinforce perceptions of an insular Delaware bench.

Broader fallout includes accelerated corporate migration out of Delaware, Musk himself moved Tesla’s incorporation to Texas after the first ruling, and renewed debate over whether the state’s specialized courts remain the gold standard for corporate governance disputes.

A decision is expected soon; whichever way it lands, the episode highlights the fragile balance between judicial independence and public confidence in high-profile litigation.

Continue Reading