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SpaceX installs Starship Raptor engine, moves next test forward as storms near

SpaceX has installed a Raptor engine on Starship SN6 ahead of the rocket's first static fire and hop test. (NASASpaceflight - bocachicagal)

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SpaceX has installed a Raptor engine on its sixth Starship prototype in preparation for a static fire test that is now scheduled later this week.

Originally planned no earlier than (NET) Monday, August 24th, SpaceX recently moved the Starship test window forward 24 hours to Sunday, August 23rd. Why is a mystery but the company may be attempting to squeeze in the test before a tropical storm is expected to make landfall in South Texas.

Per NOAA, the impact of that storm will begin to be felt at SpaceX’s Boca Chica factory as early as Sunday, bringing with it a ~20-40% chance of rain showers and thunderstorms from Sunday to Thursday, at minimum. SpaceX weathered a glancing blow from Hurricane Hanna just a few weeks ago and it’s looking like the week of August 23rd will have fairly similar – if not milder – conditions.

Starship SN6 offers a glimpse of its landing legs on August 12th. (NASASpaceflight – bocachicagal)

The forecast for Sunday shows a 20% chance of rain storms and thunderstorms, meaning that there’s at least an 80% chance that SpaceX – barring technical delays – will be able to attempt Starship SN6’s first static fire test sometime between 8am and 8pm local (UTC-5). Like all previous SNx Starship prototypes, that test will begin with a wet dress rehearsal – pressurizing and loading the rocket with liquid methane and oxygen – and proceed into what is known as a Raptor spin prime.

If the engine spins up its turbopumps with pressurized helium (spin prime) without issue, SpaceX will recycle the flow and follow with a preburner tests, ensuring that the hardware that turns Raptor’s propellant into combustible gas is working as expected. Finally, if both of those tests are completed, SpaceX will recycle the flow once again (essentially moving the countdown clock back) and attempt a Raptor ignition and static fire.

Given enough confidence in the engine and Starship prototype, SpaceX could technically move directly from a WDR into a static fire attempt with no delay in between, as a static fire technically begins with a sort of (incredibly brief) spin prime and preburner test. It’s more likely that SpaceX will choose a more cautious multi-step test for the first major Raptor operations with a new Starship prototype.

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Starship SN6, August 13th. (NASASpaceflight – bocachicagal)
Raptor SN29, August 18th. (NASASpaceflight – bocachicagal)
SpaceX installed the engine on August 18th. (NASASpaceflight – bocachicagal)

Based on Starship SN5’s successful static fire and hop test debut just three weeks ago, Starship SN6 could be ready for its own hop debut as early as Friday, August 28th, assuming a successful static fire on the first attempt and a few aborted hop attempts after that. If SpaceX avoids all delays, SN6 could technically hop as early as Thursday. According to CEO Elon Musk, the reason SpaceX is attempting another short Starship hop in the first place is to “smooth out [the] launch process” and “make flights simple & easy — many per day.”

As such, it’s actually reasonable to assume that SpaceX will try to test and hop Starship SN6 more quickly than SN5. Whether the company can manage that challenging feat with early Starship prototypes remains to be seen, of course, but if the coming storm doesn’t pose too much of a threat, we’ll find out soon enough.

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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.

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Elon Musk’s X will start using a Tesla-like software update strategy

The initiative seems designed to accelerate updates to the social media platform, while maintaining maximum transparency.

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Ministério Das Comunicações, CC BY 2.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

Elon Musk’s social media platform X will adopt a Tesla-esque approach to software updates for its algorithm.

The initiative seems designed to accelerate updates to the social media platform, while maintaining maximum transparency.

X’s updates to its updates

As per Musk in a post on X, the social media company will be making a new algorithm to determine what organic and advertising posts are recommended to users. These updates would then be repeated every four weeks. 

“We will make the new 𝕏 algorithm, including all code used to determine what organic and advertising posts are recommended to users, open source in 7 days. This will be repeated every 4 weeks, with comprehensive developer notes, to help you understand what changed,” Musk wrote in his post.

The initiative somewhat mirrors Tesla’s over-the-air update model, where vehicle software is regularly refined and pushed to users with detailed release notes. This should allow users to better understand the details of X’s every update and foster a healthy feedback loop for the social media platform.

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xAI and X

X, formerly Twitter, has been acquired by Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence startup, xAI last year. Since then, xAI has seen a rapid rise in valuation. Following the company’s the company’s upsized $20 billion Series E funding round, estimates now suggest that xAI is worth tens about $230 to $235 billion. That’s several times larger than Tesla when Elon Musk received his controversial 2018 CEO Performance Award. 

As per xAI, the Series E funding round attracted a diverse group of investors, including Valor Equity Partners, Stepstone Group, Fidelity Management & Research Company, Qatar Investment Authority, MGX, and Baron Capital Group, among others. Strategic partners NVIDIA and Cisco Investments also continued support for building the world’s largest GPU clusters.

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Tesla FSD Supervised wins MotorTrend’s Best Driver Assistance Award

The decision marks a notable reversal for the publication from prior years, with judges citing major real-world improvements that pushed Tesla’s latest FSD software ahead of every competing ADAS system.

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Credit: Grok Imagine

Tesla’s Full Self-Driving (Supervised) system has been named the best driver-assistance technology on the market, earning top honors at the 2026 MotorTrend Best Tech Awards

The decision marks a notable reversal for the publication from prior years, with judges citing major real-world improvements that pushed Tesla’s latest FSD software ahead of every competing ADAS system. And it wasn’t even close. 

MotorTrend reverses course

MotorTrend awarded Tesla FSD (Supervised) its 2026 Best Tech Driver Assistance title after extensive testing of the latest v14 software. The publication acknowledged that it had previously criticized earlier versions of FSD for erratic behavior and near-miss incidents, ultimately favoring rivals such as GM’s Super Cruise in earlier evaluations.

According to MotorTrend, the newest iteration of FSD resolved many of those shortcomings. Testers said v14 showed far smoother behavior in complex urban scenarios, including unprotected left turns, traffic circles, emergency vehicles, and dense city streets. While the system still requires constant driver supervision, judges concluded that no other advanced driver-assistance system currently matches its breadth of capability.

Unlike rival systems that rely on combinations of cameras, radar, lidar, and mapped highways, Tesla’s FSD operates using a camera-only approach and is capable of driving on city streets, rural roads, and freeways. MotorTrend stated that pure utility, the ability to handle nearly all road types, ultimately separated FSD from competitors like Ford BlueCruise, GM Super Cruise, and BMW’s Highway Assistant.

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High cost and high capability

MotorTrend also addressed FSD’s pricing, which remains significantly higher than rival systems. Tesla currently charges $8,000 for a one-time purchase or $99 per month for a subscription, compared with far lower upfront and subscription costs from other automakers. The publication noted that the premium is justified given FSD’s unmatched scope and continuous software evolution.

Safety remained a central focus of the evaluation. While testers reported collision-free operation over thousands of miles, they noted ongoing concerns around FSD’s configurable driving modes, including options that allow aggressive driving and speeds beyond posted limits. MotorTrend emphasized that, like all Level 2 systems, FSD still depends on a fully attentive human driver at all times.

Despite those caveats, the publication concluded that Tesla’s rapid software progress fundamentally reshaped the competitive landscape. For drivers seeking the most capable hands-on driver-assistance system available today, MotorTrend concluded Tesla FSD (Supervised) now stands alone at the top.

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Elon Musk’s Grokipedia surges to 5.6M articles, almost 79% of English Wikipedia

The explosive growth marks a major milestone for the AI-powered online encyclopedia, which was launched by Elon Musk’s xAI just months ago.

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UK Government, CC BY 2.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

Elon Musk’s Grokipedia has grown to an impressive 5,615,201 articles as of today, closing in on 79% of the English Wikipedia’s current total of 7,119,376 articles. 

The explosive growth marks a major milestone for the AI-powered online encyclopedia, which was launched by Elon Musk’s xAI just months ago. Needless to say, it would only be a matter of time before Grokipedia exceeds English Wikipedia in sheer volume.

Grokipedia’s rapid growth

xAI’s vision for Grokipedia emphasizes neutrality, while Grok’s reasoning capabilities allow for fast drafting and fact-checking. When Elon Musk announced the initiative in late September 2025, he noted that Grokipedia would be an improvement to Wikipedia because it would be designed to avoid bias. 

At the time, Musk noted that Grokipedia “is a necessary step towards the xAI goal of understanding the Universe.”

Grokipedia was launched in late October, and while xAI was careful to list it only as Version 0.1 at the time, the online encyclopedia immediately earned praise. Wikipedia co-founder Larry Sanger highlighted the project’s innovative approach, noting how it leverages AI to fill knowledge gaps and enable rapid updates. Netizens also observed how Grokipedia tends to present articles in a more objective manner compared to Wikipedia, which is edited by humans.

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Elon Musk’s ambitious plans

With 5,615,201 total articles, Grokipedia has now grown to almost 79% of English Wikipedia’s article base. This is incredibly quick, though Grokipedia remains text-only for now. xAI, for its part, has now updated the online encyclopedia’s iteration to v0.2. 

Elon Musk has shared bold ideas for Grokipedia, including sending a record of the entire knowledge base to space as part of xAI’s mission to preserve and expand human understanding. At some point, Musk stated that Grokipedia will be renamed to Encyclopedia Galactica, and it will be sent to the cosmos

“When Grokipedia is good enough (long way to go), we will change the name to Encyclopedia Galactica. It will be an open source distillation of all knowledge, including audio, images and video. Join xAI to help build the sci-fi version of the Library of Alexandria!” Musk wrote, adding in a later post that “Copies will be etched in stone and sent to the Moon, Mars and beyond. This time, it will not be lost.”

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