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SpaceX rolls next Starship to the launch pad nine days after midair explosion
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.
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.
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.
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.
Elon Musk has acknowledged that early discussions with Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) could bring the company into his ambitious Terafab semiconductor project, signaling a possible partnership with the world’s leading contract chipmaker.
Musk confirmed that early talks are underway, but as of right now, they are “just discussions.” There is no confirmation of a deal nor dismissal of the possibility of one, leaving open the prospect of one of the largest advanced-chip collaborations under discussion in the U.S.
@wholemars Just discussions, but something may come of it
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 3, 2026
The report that speculated on potential discussions between Terafab and TSMC comes from Tim Culpan, who outlined a few ways the collaboration could operate. One is TSMC using the project as an “anchor customer” for future facilities in Texas, potentially contributing process expertise, operational know-how, or capacity while Terafab provides capital, long-term purchase commitments, or both.
Tesla and SpaceX jointly developed the Terafab project, with Intel already participating on the tech side. Elon Musk announced the project in March, and it intends to produce more than one terawatt of AI compute capacity annually once fully built.
Company statements place the first phase at approximately $16.8 billion in cost, with later filings pointing to a total that could reach well into the tens of billions across multiple stages.
Intel joined the effort in April 2026 and is expected to supply its 14A manufacturing process for the full-scale plant.
Musk has said existing suppliers, including Samsung and TSMC, remain important for near-term needs; Tesla already has production arrangements with Samsung for AI5 and AI6 chips, but that future demand from Optimus robots, Cybercab vehicles, and planned space-based data centers will eventually exceed what the global industry can currently deliver.
Terafab is positioned as the long-term answer to that projected shortfall, and Tesla did something similar during COVID to avoid a chip shortage. This is just a much larger-scale solution.
If the partnership were to materialize, it would add TSMC’s industry-leading strategies to a project that already combines Tesla’s and SpaceX’s capital and offtake with Intel’s process technology. For now, the only public confirmation is Musk’s brief acknowledgement that conversations are occurring.
Tesla’s early strategy for charging units operating within its Robotaxi fleet reveals that the company surely has not lost any of that scrappy DNA that took it from an unlikely success story to the most valuable carmaker in the world.
An observer at a Tesla Supercharger in Austin spotted ten total Robotaxi vehicles arrive: one Cybercab and nine Model Y units. A Tesla employee was waiting at the lot and allowed each unit to park itself; every car that arrived had nobody in it.
Tesla wins FCC approval for wireless Cybercab charging system
The Tesla employee would walk around and plug each car in, adjusting the parking if needed:
So look at what I found. This is how Tesla charges unsupervised robotaxis at a public supercharger. Here is a driverless Cybercab showing up with no one in it. There are 9 other Model Ys that showed up too. A Tesla employee is walking around and plugging each of them in. She also moves the cars if they are not positioned well enough to charge. I love this process. One person charges multiple robotaxis at once
— Abhimanyu Yadav (@WorldlyReviewer) October 3, 2026
It’s a very interesting strategy, but extremely understandable at this early point in the Robotaxi program. It’s only been out for about 15 months, and Cybercab just entered the fleet in early September.
On top of that, Tesla is still working tirelessly on its wireless charging apparatus, and a new patent was just published regarding that product last week.
However, this is just another example of how Tesla still has plenty of that scrappy DNA leftover from the “production hell” days, when CEO Elon Musk slept on the floor of the factory, employees were working crazy hours, Tesla was building Sprung Structures to build cars in, and the company was tiptoeing on the brink of bankruptcy.
@Teslarati Sheer magnitude of the entire production system is hard to appreciate. Almost every element of production is >75% automated. Only wire harnesses & general assembly, which are <10% of production costs, are primarily manual.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 12, 2020
For now, Tesla is utilizing a simple system for recharging its ride-hailing vehicles, and that is a Tesla employee doing it manually until another solution presents itself. Sure, it’s not the most high-tech thing, and it certainly is not what people might have expected at this point in time, but it works, and it’s keeping the entire suite running.
Tesla is expanding its Robotaxi service hours by pushing the time back by one hour, keeping the ride-hailing service operational until 11 p.m., one hour later than previously.
CEO Elon Musk confirmed the change and offered a specific reason the expansion has been gradual: the system still needs to reliably avoid small pets that are difficult to see after dark, as they commonly blend into the color of the road, especially when they’re grey.
The latest adjustment restores only a fraction of the operating window the service once held. When paid Robotaxi rides began in Austin on June 22, 2025, vehicles ran from 6 a.m. to midnight.
In September 2025, Tesla lengthened the day to a 2 a.m. close, producing a 20-hour window that stayed in place for most of the following year. By early August of this year, the cutoff had already been pulled back; an August 26 update formalized hours of 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. across Austin and several other markets.
The October move to 11 p.m. therefore leaves the Austin day one hour shorter than the original launch schedule and three hours shorter than the 2025 peak.
Musk addressed the constraint directly after the announcement. “The main thing we’re trying to solve is making sure that we don’t run over pets when they’re hard to see at night,” he wrote. “Literally trying to avoid grey kittens on grey tarmac in the dark.”
Robotaxi operating hours moved from 10pm to 11pm.
The main thing we’re trying to solve is making sure that we don’t run over pets when they’re hard to see at night. Literally trying to avoid grey kittens on grey tarmac in the dark.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 3, 2026
The example points to a low-contrast perception problem in which a small animal can blend into the road surface under limited lighting.
Tesla’s vehicles rely on cameras and neural-network processing rather than lidar; Musk has previously argued that advanced vision software can extract useful information even in low light by analyzing photon counts, but the pet-detection case remains the stated limiter in later hours.
The modest schedule change arrives alongside faster growth in the purpose-built Cybercab fleet. Texas registration data tracked by observers showed the Austin Cybercab count rising sharply in recent weeks, reaching 169 vehicles after more than 100 were added in a short span.
Tesla has indicated that a broader shift toward 24-hour operation is tied to the upcoming FSD v15 software release expected this month on Robotaxi vehicles. Until that capability is validated for the edge cases Musk described, the company continues to add service time incrementally rather than jumping straight to overnight coverage.
The one-hour extension gives Austin riders a later option for evening trips while the underlying detection work continues.
Elon Musk teases TSMC as potential Terafab partner
Tesla reveals early Robotaxi charging strategy, showing scrappy DNA
