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SpaceX’s next Starship starts to take shape as Elon Musk talks next steps
Less than a day after SpaceX successfully hopped a full-scale Starship prototype for the first time, the company has begun stacking the next rocket and Elon Musk is talking next steps.
Almost immediately after Starship SN5 took to the sky on a 150m (500 ft) hop debut, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk was talking about the company’s next near-term goals for the next-generation launch vehicle’s test program. To an extent, he had already offered a rough overview through various interviews and tweets over the last year or so. Aside from continuing to gradually refine Starship and Super Heavy designs and the processes used to manufacture and test those rockets, a few major proofs of concept stand between SpaceX and total confidence in the current architecture.
As far as basic rocketry goes, SpaceX’s 150m Starship hop has functionally proven that the company’s exotic, rule-of-thumb-breaking approach to Starship production and assembly can be feasibly refined into something capable of producing extraordinarily cheap orbital-class rockets. While a massive achievement, it doesn’t guarantee that the rockets produced will be reusable – let alone rapidly and easily reusable.
As of now, it can be safely stated that SpaceX has solved all major challenges involved in routinely and reliably landing and reusing orbital-class rocket boosters (first stages). It’s hard and surprises are always a possibility, but the landing records of Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy boosters speak for themselves. For the colossal booster Starship needs to reach orbit, the Falcon family’s success means that Super Heavy recovery and reuse is more a question of “when” than “if”.
Starship, on the other hand, is going to offer many different challenges – some unprecedented for SpaceX and others unprecedented in the entire history of spaceflight. For Starship to be able to support a level of reuse compatible with what the Super Heavy booster is likely to achieve, SpaceX will have to create the biggest and most effortlessly reusable orbital-class spacecraft ever built.
Even heavier than NASA’s Space Shuttle orbiter, Starship will also rely almost entirely on the unproven technology of on-orbit cryogenic propellant transfer to reach beyond low Earth orbit (LEO). To survive orbital-velocity reentries while still being rapidly and cheaply reusable, Starship will further have to push the envelope of heat shield technologies. Last but certainly not least, in its current iteration, Starship relies on a truly unprecedented style of recovery to efficiently land back on Earth.
It’s this last bit where CEO Elon Musk’s recent comments and recent activity at SpaceX’s Starship factory come in. According to Musk, SpaceX intends to perform at least several more smaller hops (a la SN5) “to smooth out [the] launch process.” It’s unclear which prototype(s) will be involved in that series of hops but after SpaceX is satisfied with the state of launch operations, the plan is to “go high altitude with body flaps.” Based on past comments, it’s safe to assume that Musk is referring to a plan to launch a Starship to 20 km (~12 mi).
After reaching 20 km, Starship would orient itself belly down – a bit like a skydiver – and quite literally fall its way to ~1 km altitude before attempting an aggressive Raptor-powered pitch-over maneuver and last-second landing. By using Earth’s atmosphere much like a skydiver trying to slow down, Starship will theoretically be able to dramatically reduce the amount of propellant it needs to land.
That high-altitude launch and landing demonstration will also be the first time a Starship truly needs aerodynamic control surfaces (i.e. “body flaps”) to safely complete a flight test. According to NASASpaceflight.com info, Starship SN8 – also the first full-scale prototype to be built out of a different steel alloy – will be the first ship to receive functional flaps and a nosecone. If initial tests go according to plan, SN8 will also be the first ship to attempt a skydiver-style landing as described above. As far as full-scale aerodynamics goes, such a landing is loosely understood at best. For an orbital-class spacecraft, it’s even more of a wildcard.
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Regardless, just hours after Starship SN5’s successful hop debut, SpaceX began stacking the first of several already finished Starship SN8 sections. Based on the assembly of past prototypes, the ship’s tank section could reach its full height just a few weeks from now, while subsequent nosecone and flap installations are uncharted territory.
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Tesla just officially confirmed it has built its 10 millionth car, a major milestone for the company that started producing sustainable electric powertrains less than two decades ago.
In that time, Tesla has truly revolutionized the automotive industry, disrupting the idea of what a car should be, how it should be fueled, and how it truly impacts day-to-day life.
10 million vehicles produced globally.
Congrats to all Tesla teams! pic.twitter.com/JkcraR63bs— Tesla Manufacturing (@gigafactories) July 30, 2026
Tesla achieved this feat across four production facilities: the Fremont Factory in Fremont, California, Gigafactory Shanghai in China, Gigafactory Berlin in Germany, and Gigafactory Texas in Austin, Texas.
The 10 millionth vehicle was a Diamond Black Model Y.
Over the course of the past roughly 18 years, Tesla has evolved its lineup from a sporty sedan built on a Lotus body to a lineup of various body styles, performance metrics, and other characteristics that make each one unique.
This is an incredible achievement for a company that is young compared to what it goes up against. When Tesla entered the automotive market, Ford, GM, and Stellantis widely dominated the playing field. Since then, Tesla has caused such a disruption that these three massive brands had to scramble to create EV projects of their own.
Despite their best efforts, they have not been able to match the prowess or the effectiveness of Tesla. They are all reliant on Tesla’s charging infrastructure, their software is inferior, and their self-driving projects are elementary in comparison.
Tesla felt its fair share of growing pains over the years as well. As recent at 2019, there were complaints about build quality, paint quality, and overall luxuriousness. These things have all been improved upon through the company’s maturity, and these strides in quality have led to this 10 million vehicle production achievement, something that other small-and-scrappy EV makers will hope to accomplish one day.
SpaceX just picked up another $1.6 billion from the Pentagon, with the U.S. Space Force awarding two task orders worth $1.6 billion to fly 18 Falcon 9 missions from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California through the end of 2027. The launches will carry satellites for the Space Based Sensing and Targeting portfolio, a set of programs meant to help the military detect and track airborne threats and relay that information across forces in near real time.
The award falls under National Security Space Launch Phase 3 Lane 1, the Space Force’s faster, commercial style procurement track for missions that do not require the military’s most demanding certification process. It is also the largest single order publicly disclosed under that program so far, and the first task order issued since the Space Force nearly tripled Lane 1’s contract ceiling from $5.6 billion to $17 billion on July 17.
SpaceX to become America’s Military data backbone for missiles, drones, and warfighters
Eric Zarybnisky, the Space Force’s acting portfolio acquisition executive for space access, said the entire process, from identifying the requirement to signing the contract, took about two months, including a month set aside for companies to prepare proposals.
SpaceX is not just launching these satellites. It already holds the contracts to build two of the programs within the same portfolio, $4.16 billion for the Space Based Airborne Moving Target Indicator system and $2.29 billion for the Space Data Network Backbone, which Teslarati covered in May. That means SpaceX is now responsible for both building key pieces of the military’s next generation sensing network and getting them into orbit.
With this latest award, SpaceX’s Pentagon contract total for 2026 alone tops $8 billion, adding to a defense portfolio that already includes the Golden Dome missile defense software group SpaceX joined in April and a string of GPS launches it inherited after ULA’s Vulcan rocket ran into a booster anomaly, which we detailed in March.
Lane 1’s vendor pool technically includes seven companies: SpaceX, ULA, Blue Origin, Rocket Lab, Stoke Space, Impulse Space, and Relativity Space. In practice, SpaceX remains the only provider with the combination of launch cadence, flight proven Falcon 9 hardware, and West Coast infrastructure to support a campaign requiring roughly one Vandenberg launch a month for the next year and a half.
Some lawmakers have flagged the growing concentration of national security launches with one company as a risk worth watching. For now, the Space Force keeps backing SpaceX, with it being the company that shows up ready to launch.
Elon Musk shed two new bits of detail on Starship following its 13th test launch, which was an overwhelming success.
SpaceX launched Starship for the 13th time last Friday after two delays: one on Monday when several Raptor engines did not ignite, and another on Thursday due to unfavorable weather conditions in Starbase, Texas.
The launch was overwhelmingly successful. SpaceX was able to complete a necessary test of the heat shield tiles by increasing the acceleration of Starship from launch throughout the flight; 20 Starlink v3 satellites were released with no issue; the Super Heavy Booster landed safely in the Gulf of America, Ship successfully reignited engines while in space; and it also splashed down without incident in the Indian Ocean.
SpaceX Starship just nailed something it’s never done before
Nevertheless, more details are coming out about Starship, and Musk is doing the talking.
Starship Will Be Retrieved in the Ocean
Musk revealed on Tuesday night that Starship would be recovered by a ship in the Indian Ocean. SpaceX routinely tries to recover Starship after splashdown in an effort to find out more about the flight by examining the spacecraft afterward.
We’re sending a ship out to recover Starship https://t.co/fUqUZTITO9
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 28, 2026
This helps engineers find out more about why things might have happened, allows them to examine any potential damage or anomalies that might have occurred, and increases the chances of an even more successful flight next time thanks to the additional information recovered.
Ship Could Have Been Caught by Tower Arms, Musk claims
Musk has already indicated that SpaceX will plan to attempt a catch of Starship with the 14th test flight. While this would be a major accomplishment, it would be an expected next step, considering the fact that the Super Heavy Booster has already been caught by the chopsticks on numerous occasions.
The ship landing was precise, meaning that it would have been caught by the tower arms https://t.co/6nbNrRfX9P
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 29, 2026
A ship catch would be a great indication of where SpaceX stands in terms of reusability and launch cadence. A successful catch with relatively no incidents would be a good sign that SpaceX is nearing a more frequent launch of Starship, but also that the reusability of the massive rocket would be something many would expect in the near future.
It is a necessity to make life multiplanetary.
Tesla just built it 10 millionth car
SpaceX scores another massive Pentagon deal to support military satellites
