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SpaceX fires up Starship and Super Heavy booster hours apart
SpaceX appears to have successfully fired up a Starship and Super Heavy booster hours apart, testing a total of three new Raptor 2 engines on the two rockets.
SpaceX says it completed a two-engine static fire with Starship 24 less than three hours after the company successfully ignited a Raptor 2 engine installed on a rocket prototype for the first time. That earlier test, performed by Super Heavy Booster 7, was also the first time SpaceX used its new Starbase orbital launch site to support a static fire test and the second-ever static fire of a Starship booster prototype. Had the company called it quits after Booster 7 survived its first intentional trial by fire, it would have still been an exceptionally successful day.
But SpaceX wasn’t done.
Instead, after Booster 7’s seemingly flawless single-Raptor static fire at 5:25 pm CDT, SpaceX loaded Starship 24 with a small amount of liquid oxygen and methane propellant and ignited two of the ship’s six engines around 8:18 pm. It was not initially clear how many engines were involved but a tweet from SpaceX later confirmed it was two. More likely than not, one of those engines was a sea level-optimized Raptor with a smaller bell nozzle and the other was a vacuum-optimized Raptor with a much larger nozzle.
Almost ten months ago, Starship 20 – SpaceX’s first potentially orbital-class Starship prototype – began static fire testing in a somewhat similar way. Its first day of static fires began with a single Raptor Vacuum engine and ended with a simultaneous RVac and sea-level Raptor test in October 2021. In some ways, SpaceX has been a bit less cautious with Starship 24, which is the second potentially orbital-class prototype to begin proof testing. Ship 24 already has all six Raptors installed, whereas Ship 20 only had four of six engines installed during its first static fire tests. SpaceX also took about three weeks to progress from Ship 20’s first static fire test to its first static fire of all six engines, whereas it appears that Ship 24 could potentially attempt its first six-engine test just a few days to a week later.
On the other hand, Ship 24’s path to its first static fire was substantially longer than Ship 20’s. Ship 20 completed its first static fire test(s) just 25 days after its first proof test, referring to the process of verifying that the prototype was in good working order before moving on to riskier testing with flammable propellant and intentional ignitions. Ship 20 also completed its first six-engine static fire 46 days after testing began. Ship 24, meanwhile, took 75 days to go from its first proof test to its first static fire – almost three times slower than Ship 20, a prototype that was essentially the first of its kind.
It’s possible that Ship 24’s upgraded Raptor 2 engines are partially or fully to blame. Instead of jumping straight into ‘hot’ Raptor testing like Ship 20, which began that particular campaign with a partial-ignition preburner test, SpaceX put Ship 24 through seven ‘spin-prime’ tests before its first static fire. For Raptor, spin-primes test the ignition step before preburner ignition, which is itself a step before main combustion chamber ignition (where the engine starts to produce meaningful thrust). Raptor startup procedures likely involve flowing high-pressure gaseous helium, nitrogen, or propellant (oxygen/methane) through the engine to spin up its turbopumps, ‘priming’ them for preburner and main combustion chamber ignition.
On Raptor 1, the preburners would ignite once a high enough flow rate was achieved, producing hot gas that the main combustion chamber would mix and ignite one last time to start the engine. In a recent interview with Tim Dodd (“The Everyday Astronaut”), CEO Elon Musk revealed that SpaceX was able to “remove torch igniters” from Raptor 2’s main combustion chamber (MCC). It’s unclear if that means that Raptor 2 now has zero MCC igniters, but a major change in the overall ignition process could explain why the start of Ship 24 and Booster 7 engine testing was so sluggish. So could the unintended explosion Booster 7 caused when SpaceX attempted to spin-prime all 33 of its Raptor 2 engines at once.
Regardless, SpaceX has finally crossed that particular Rubicon and, with any luck, Raptor 2 testing will begin to speed up on both Starship 24 and Super Heavy Booster 7. SpaceX has test windows scheduled on August 11th, 15th, and 16th. A warning distributed to Boca Chica, Texas residents on August 10th confirmed that the company intends to perform at least one more static fire test on the 11th.
Elon Musk
SpaceX nails “Lucky 13” astronaut launch, leaning into Tesla tradition and superstition
SpaceX launched Crew-13 astronauts to the ISS Thursday, setting up a record fast Dragon docking.
SpaceX launched NASA’s Crew-13 mission to the International Space Station on Thursday morning, getting four astronauts to orbit despite a forecast of thunderstorms and gusty winds that had threatened to push the flight to Friday.
Falcon 9 lifted off from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station at 11:10 a.m. ET carrying Dragon Grace, NASA confirmed. On board are NASA commander Jessica Watkins, NASA pilot Luke Delaney, Canadian Space Agency astronaut Joshua Kutryk and Roscosmos cosmonaut Sergey Teteryatnikov. The first stage booster, B1101, landed at Landing Zone 40 beside the pad on its third flight after previously supporting Crew-12 and a Starlink mission.
Liftoff of Crew-13! pic.twitter.com/vteT0DXMTh
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) October 1, 2026
It was the first spaceflight for Delaney, Kutryk and Teteryatnikov. Watkins, who flew on Crew-4 in 2022, became the first NASA astronaut to launch aboard a Crew Dragon twice.
Before launch, the crew rode to the pad in Teslas, a tradition on NASA’s SpaceX crew flights since 2020. This time the cars carried specialty plates reading “Lucky 13.” Watkins said the mission patch leans into the number on purpose, as a nod to Apollo 13 and the resilience of that crew.
Grace is now on a short trip to the station. Docking at the forward port of the Harmony module is scheduled for about 7 p.m. ET, roughly 7 hours and 50 minutes after liftoff, which Space.com notes would be the fastest Crew Dragon transit to the ISS yet. Most Dragon flights take around 15 to 24 hours to catch the station. Hatch opening is planned for 8:25 p.m. ET.
The launch came more than two weeks later than originally planned. An oxidizer leak was found in Grace’s propulsion system in August, and NASA and SpaceX added time for tests. That pushed back the return of Crew-12, which has been aboard the station since February and is now set to splash down off Southern California next week. Crew-13 is expected to stay about six months.
SpaceX rescue mission for stranded ISS astronauts nears end — Here’s when they’ll return home
SpaceX already holds NASA orders for crew rotations through Crew-17, while Boeing is preparing an uncrewed Starliner flight to the station as early as December.
Crew-13 was only the first of three SpaceX launches planned for Thursday, as Teslarati previewed on Wednesday. A Falcon 9 launched its Transporter-18 mission from California today, where Google will be launching its first orbital artificial intelligence (AI) test satellite. Meanwhile, Falcon Heavy is set to launch the classified NROL-97 mission for the National Reconnaissance Office from Launch Complex 39A at 11:53 p.m. ET. Its two side boosters will return to Landing Zones 1 and 2, which means Central Florida could hear up to three sonic booms in a single day. The busy stretch follows Starship’s Flight 14 on Monday, which reached orbit for the first time.
Tesla has moved its Wireless Charging efforts for its electric vehicles forward, as it had a new patent published today, one that it submitted back in March.
The patent describes a system for detecting foreign objects on the wireless charging pad under varying temperatures, aiming to mitigate any undesired results that could come from something being on top of the charging pad.
🚨 Tesla has a new patent application published today, which was submitted back in March, for a Wireless Charging Pad:
“The present disclosure relates to methods and systems that can reliably detect foreign objects on a wireless charging pad under varying temperatures. In some… pic.twitter.com/LIeLfZAuDJ
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) October 1, 2026
The abstract of the patent states:
“The present disclosure relates to methods and systems that can reliably detect foreign objects on a wireless charging pad under varying temperatures. In some examples, an object detector can utilize a set of inductive coils included in resonant tanks, and excite the resonant tanks using signals in a range of frequencies including or near a nominal resonant frequency of the resonant tanks. The object detector can detect a metal object based on resistance of a coil increasing and inductance of the coil decreasing. By analyzing the shifts and/or distributions in resonant frequencies and output magnitudes (e.g., output voltage peaks), the object detector can distinguish between changes of frequencies and magnitudes caused by temperature and those caused by foreign objects to accurately detect the foreign objects.”
The object detection system will utilize a set of inductive coils included in resonant tanks, and “excite the resonant tank using signals in a range of frequencies including or near a nominal resonant frequency of the tanks.” Metal can be detected by an increase in the coil’s resistance and a decrease in the coil’s inductance.
By analyzing shifts or disruptions in resonant frequencies and output magnitudes, the system can detect foreign objects. These types of safeguards need to be implemented through the normal operation of the charging pads.
Tesla says its Cybercab wireless charging efficiency is ‘well above 90%’
Tesla plans to utilize wireless charging with Cybercab and Robotaxi-enabled units to help streamline the fully autonomous experience from A to Z. The last thing the company wants to do is have any sort of small obstruction preventing the rider from experiencing Robotaxi as intended.
Tesla has launched its newest iteration of the Model 3 in China with a slew of new features, including the highly requested V2L (vehicle-to-load) feature and a new interior option.
The Model 3 now has a 16″ front touchscreen with improved resolution, a black headliner, V2L capabilities, Zen Grey interior in the Premium and Performance trims, as the White option has officially been discontinued, and 19″ Dark Nova Wheels, which are standard on the Model 3 Premium only.
🚨 Tesla has launched the Model 3 in China with a variety of new features and specs:
✅ 16” front touchscreen
✅ Black Headliner
✅ V2L Capability
✅ Zen Grey interior (Premium & Performance only)
✅ 19” Dark Nova wheels (Model 3 Premium only)
✅ Zen Grey Interior option… pic.twitter.com/ltTAEIYi2Z— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) October 1, 2026
The touchscreen in the U.S. version of the Model 3 is just 15.4″, so the newly upgraded screen is .6″ larger. Additionally, the Black Headliner, now standard on Model Y vehicles in the U.S., is coming to China.
Additionally, Tesla’s decision to end the white interior option has also made its way to the Asian market, as Zen Grey is the lighter color consumers can now go with. It is slightly different from the previously offered White option:
These options are available in China, Australia, and New Zealand as well, as Giga Shanghai serves those markets, bringing its mass-market vehicles to those countries in the South Pacific.
The Model 3 trims are now priced at:
- Rear-Wheel-Drive – 235,500 yuan (~$35,000)
- Long Range Rear-Wheel-Drive – 259,500 yuan ($38,700)
- Long Range All-Wheel-Drive – 285,500 yuan (~$42,600)
- Performance – 339,500 yuan (~$50,600)
These features have yet to make their way to the U.S., which might upset some buyers, but it is probably a good sign that Tesla will bring these changes to U.S. trims sometime next year. Potentially, these could come even sooner, as they could be used to stimulate demand for the year-end sales push.
Nevertheless, when things start at Giga Shanghai, they usually end up in the U.S. market. Tesla has also already started to install things like the Black Headliner and larger touchscreen in certain U.S.-built vehicles, so these things will be easy to implement across other vehicles in the lineup.
SpaceX nails “Lucky 13” astronaut launch, leaning into Tesla tradition and superstition
Tesla moves forward on Wireless Charging for vehicles
