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SpaceX tweaks Starship's Super Heavy rocket booster as design continues to evolve
CEO Elon Musk says that SpaceX continues to evolve the design of its next-generation Starship spacecraft and Super Heavy rocket booster, a process of continuous improvement the company has successfully used for a decade.
Designed to place more than 100 metric tons (220,000 lb) of payload into Low Earth Orbit (LEO), Starship would effectively double (and possibly triple) the expendable performance of SpaceX’s existing Falcon Heavy rocket. Critically, it would be able to dramatically outclass Falcon Heavy (and Falcon 9 even more so) in a fully reusable configuration, meaning that both the Starship upper stage and Super Heavy booster could be recovered and reused.
Since SpaceX first publicly revealed its next-generation launch vehicle and Mars ambitions in September 2016, the path to realizing the dream of a fully-reusable super heavy-lift launch vehicle has been decidedly windy. After making the radical decision to move entirely from carbon composites to stainless steel in late 2018, the Starship design has remained relatively similar, coalescing around a specific concept that has matured to full-scale tank tests. Now, Musk says that Super Heavy’s design was tweaked slightly to make the booster even taller than before, while he later noted that Starship’s design also continues to “[evolve] rapidly.”
According to Musk, the Super Heavy booster will be stretched by a steel ring or two, reaching a new height of ~70m (230 ft). In other words, Starship’s first stage alone will measure as tall as the entirety of a Falcon 9 or Falcon Heavy rocket – first stage, second stage, and payload fairing included. Powered by up to 37 Raptor engines, a Super Heavy booster could produce more than ~90,000 kN (19,600,000 lbf) of thrust at liftoff – an incredible 12 times as much thrust as SpaceX’s workhorse Falcon 9 rocket.
Starship, meanwhile, will be a beast of an orbital-class upper stage on its own, measuring at least 50m (165 ft) tall and weighing some 1350 metric tons (3 million lb) fully-fueled. Stacked on top of Super Heavy, a Starship ‘stack’ would reach a staggering 120m (395 ft) and weigh more than 5000 metric tons (11 million lb) once loaded with liquid oxygen and methane propellant.
In simple terms, Starship/Super Heavy should be the tallest, heaviest, and most powerful launch vehicle ever assembled once it heads to the launch pad for the first time. While SpaceX is making great daily progress its ever-growing South Texas rocket factory, built up from next to nothing in a matter of months, it could still be quite some time before that milestone is within reach.
SpaceX’s process of continuously tweaking and improving the design and production of its rockets does typically have that effect. However, it’s more a symptom of the company’s approach to hardware and software development. Instead of working slowly and carefully from nothing to a preconceived finished product, SpaceX typically seeks to design, build, and test the minimum viable product, gradually improving (or entirely replacing) past ideas, designs, and hardware until overarching goals are fully achieved.
With Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy, this meant beginning with Falcon 1, a dead-simple proof-of-concept rocket. After successfully reaching orbit, SpaceX expanded its Falcon 9 development program, itself focused initially on the minimum viable product – a full-scale expendable rocket. Since Elon Musk founded SpaceX in 2002, the goal has always been to build a fully-reusable rocket – the company has simply chosen the far more sustainable and practical approach of tackling only a select few problems at a time.
The Starship and Falcon development programs aren’t directly comparable but it’s safe to say that Starship is currently still in the very early stages of hardware development. Shortly after revealing Super Heavy’s height growth, Musk noted that Starship’s design is also being tweaked.
Sketching out a rough series of upgrades that could feasibly be made to the reusable spacecraft’s currently design, Musk thinks that Starship’s conical tank domes (and thus Super Heavy’s, too) could be flattened. That might allow an extra ~3m (10 ft) of propellant tank space to be squeezed into the same 50m Starship length, improving performance by simply using the vehicle’s fixed volume more efficiently.
With a nascent factory quite literally churning out Starship hardware, these tweaks are a whole different animal. Thanks to data and insight gathered from testing actual full-scale Starship tanks, up to and including fully-assembled tank sections, SpaceX will be able to guide its continuous improvement with even greater precision, honing in on the next-generation rocket’s orbital launch debut.
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The in-car Tesla Theater is among the most unique features available within the cars. When charging, parked, camping, or just hanging out, vehicle occupants can access a variety of streaming platforms on the large center screen, helping keep them entertained during downtime.
However, the Theater might be getting plenty more streaming platforms, something that owners have requested for some time.
Tesla owners recently discovered that visiting Apple TV in the vehicle browser can launch a fullscreen interface that looks and behaves like a dedicated application rather than an ordinary webpage:
Today I learned that if you go to Apple TV in the Tesla browser, it will open up an actual Apple TV app, fully functional. Not just the site.
Apparently there are more apps than just the few that show on the apps page. pic.twitter.com/os1Ypfm4JR
— Jason W (@jmwilt21) August 20, 2026
The experience drops the usual address bar and browser chrome, presenting catalogs, continue watching rows, and playback controls in the same window Tesla Theater already uses for its listed services. Independent testers soon found similar treatment for HBO Max, Paramount+, Peacock, Disney+, and Prime Video when those sites are opened from the car browser.
This shift is a plausible early signal that Tesla is widening Theater support without a formal software note. Theater has long been a set of web views rather than native applications, so recognizing extra domains and stripping the browser frame is a small server-side change that can expand the catalog quickly.
Owners still lack permanent Theater icons for the newly recognized services, and video remains limited to Park, yet the smoother launch is a meaningful step toward a broader lounge while charging.
Tesla Theater arrived with software version 10 in September 2019. The first video services were Netflix, YouTube, and Hulu, available only while parked and originally tied to WiFi. Spotify arrived in the same era as music rather than Theater video. Disney+ joined officially in July 2021 with the 2021.24 update, giving owners another major catalog on the center screen. Twitch and TikTok later appeared among the default Theater tiles, and Tesla Tutorials remained a persistent educational tile.
Not every addition stayed put. In December 2023, a Holiday software build removed the Disney+ tile for many United States owners after a public dispute involving advertising on X. Hulu stayed visible even though Disney owned it. Visiting disneyplus.com in the browser often restored the tile, which suggested the removal was a recognition list change rather than a complete block. Owners have also reported occasional blank Theater grids after updates, usually fixed by language toggles, resets, or later firmware.
Tesla axes Disney+ from vehicles with Musk-Iger rivalry, but there’s a workaround
Code archives from 2024 listed many unused source names, including Apple TV and Prime Video, that never became official icons, which now looks like groundwork for the current fullscreen browser behavior.
Now that this hint toward an expanded Theater experience has been recognized, Tesla could follow through with these additional shortcuts as a sign that more streaming platforms are available in Teslas than ever before.
Tesla recently received its largest order for the all-electric Semi from Einride, a Swedish transport service, for 500 units, a groundbreaking invoice to receive before the first deliveries begin.
Even more remarkable, Einride CEO Roozbeh Charli said in a recent interview that he expects his company to take delivery of all 500 — the entire order — before the end of 2027. He even expects to have 75 Tesla Semi units in the Einride fleet before the end of this year.
🚨 Einride CEO Roozbeh Charli on the Tesla Semi partnership:
“If we start with the Amazon announcement that we did earlier this year, that was on the back of having gone through a proving period together with them and proving out our technology. Then we took that next step in… pic.twitter.com/oazkXjwoig
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) August 28, 2026
Charli said the Tesla partnership was part of a broader push, along with its earlier partnership with Amazon. Einride is assisting Amazon with the use of its Saga AI platform, which helps eliminate questions about budgeting and forecasting for logistics companies.
The Semi, as well as Tesla’s production and subsequent delivery of the units to Einride, will help the company “to have a good supply of vehicles that we can deploy on the [Saga AI] platform,” Charli said. “Tesla is also a relationship we’ve had for a while, and as the Tesla Semi deliveries are firming up, we decided to do a larger commitment to that and deploy that on our platform.”
In its initial announcement, Einride said it anticipated taking delivery of the trucks over the next two years, but now it appears the company is expecting all 500 units within the next 16 months.
Built at a dedicated factory in Sparks, Nevada, the Tesla Semi has been perhaps the biggest and most intensive testing process the company has ever had for a single vehicle model. For the past several years, Tesla has been working with many companies, most notably Frito-Lay and PepsiCo, to gain knowledge on the performance on regional routes.
Tesla plans to launch the Semi officially on September 24, five months after production started ramping.
Additionally, drivers have said they are happy about the Semi’s performance and that its numerous safety and productivity features have made their jobs and routes much easier.
Tesla Cybercab is using a unique strategy for picking up the correct rider, which is a crucial part of ride-hailing to ensure people end up in the right place and are charged the correct price.
Cybercab will utilize an RGB strip in its front light bar that will illuminate in a variety of different colors to mark itself.
This identifying mark will also appear in the Robotaxi app, giving riders in the same location a notable distinction in an effort to avoid any confusion regarding who should get in each vehicle.
🚨 Tesla is using different light bar colors to help riders understand which vehicle is theirs
Pretty cool strategy pic.twitter.com/eGMpEMeRpc
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) August 27, 2026
Other ride-hailing services use similar strategies: Lyft and Uber rides are recognizable through driver identity, vehicle type and color, as well as license plate. Waymo will display the rider’s initials on top of the vehicle, letting them know that the specific vehicle for them has arrived.
Tesla’s strategy is unique and interesting, but there are some flaws. Cybercab’s main purpose is aimed toward being an autonomous ride for all, including those who have disabilities like being blind or even color blind.
Tesla will likely have something in the pipeline for those who cannot see colors or have limited vision. There will definitely be multiple ways to identify which vehicle is the one that “you” specifically ordered.
Cybercab is set to start giving public rides next Thursday, September 3, in Austin, as it announced a dedicated event last week and invited many members of the Tesla community.
Additionally, members of the public will be invited as well. Tesla has been offering employee rides in Cybercab for nearly two months.
Tesla Theater might be getting plenty more streaming platforms
Tesla Semi’s biggest adoptee gives an update on production timeline
