News
SpaceX returns Starship booster to factory after two major Raptor tests
For the sixth time this year, SpaceX has returned the same Super Heavy booster prototype to its South Texas Starship factory after completing several tests.
Why is unclear. Super Heavy Booster 7 left the factory for the first time in March 2022 and has been stuck in a seemingly continuous state of testing, rework, and retesting ever since. While the pace of testing and progress was in many ways more aggressive from 2019 to mid-2021, it still can’t be said that SpaceX has been slacking off in 2022. Booster 7 alone completed more than 24 distinct tests (including six static fires) between early April and late November.
But in a shift from the first three or so years of steel Starship development, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has ceased to be a consistent source of information on the purpose and results of many of those tests, even as NASA has begun to funnel hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars into the Starship program. Save for occasional tidbits from SpaceX, Musk, and NASA; or deep unofficial analyses of public information, the day-to-day or week-to-week status of Starship has generally been relegated to speculation. Over the last few months, that information void has only grown larger.
The update that's rolling out to the fleet makes full use of the front and rear steering travel to minimize turning circle. In this case a reduction of 1.6 feet just over the air— Wes (@wmorrill3) April 16, 2024
Perhaps the biggest near-term update this year came from a senior NASA official on October 31st. In an advisory briefing, Mark Kirasich – Deputy Associate Administrator for Artemis Campaign Development – offered a surprising amount of detail about SpaceX’s near-term plans and even reported that Starship’s first orbital test flight was expected as early as December 2022, pending several crucial tests. But more than five weeks later, SpaceX appears to have only made a modest amount of progress towards those milestones and has yet to attempt the two most important tests.
Kirasich: First orbital Starship/Super Heavy expected in December. Still waiting for full 33 engine test, wet dress rehearsel, and FAA licensing. Will land in ocean off Hawaii. pic.twitter.com/FktCggnPEe— Marcia Smith (@SpcPlcyOnline) October 31, 2022
Nonetheless, some progress – however indeterminate without official information – has been made. As of Kirasich’s briefing, SpaceX was in the middle of a relatively minor series of cautious propellant loading tests with Booster 7 and Ship 24, which were stacked on October 20th. After three more partial full-stack tests in the first seven days of November, Ship 24 was removed. Aside from the visible steps SpaceX took after, little is known about the outcome of those propellant loading tests.
Ship 24’s fate is a different story, but Super Heavy B7 appeared to make it through full-stack testing in great shape. On November 14th, Booster 7 completed a record-breaking 14-engine static fire, doubling its previous record of seven engines and likely becoming one of the most powerful rockets in history. Musk simply stated that the “test went well”.
Poor weather undoubtedly contributed, but it would be another 15 days before Booster 7’s next test. On November 29th, after an aborted test on the 28th, SpaceX followed Booster 7’s record-breaking 14-engine static fire with a longer 13-second test of 11 Raptors. Before engine ignition, SpaceX loaded Booster 7 with around 2800 tons (~6.2M lb) of liquid oxygen (LOx) propellant in less than 90 minutes, making it a partial wet dress rehearsal (the methane tank was barely filled) as well. Musk called it “a little more progress towards Mars” and SpaceX shared a photo of the static fire on Twitter, but the results of the test – meant “to test autogenous pressurization” – were kept mostly opaque.
That uncertainty didn’t help when two of Booster 7’s 33 Raptor engines were removed immediately after the long-duration test. Then, Booster 7 was removed from Starbase’s lone ‘orbital launch mount’ on December 2nd and rolled back to the factory’s High Bay assembly facility on December 3rd. Historically, SpaceX has only returned Booster 7 to the factory to repair damage or install missing hardware. Without official information, it’s impossible to say why Booster 7 returned for the sixth time.
The most optimistic explanation is that SpaceX brought the Super Heavy booster back to the factory to fully close out its engine section heat shield, which currently has 20 missing panels for each of its outer Raptor engines. But there’s a good reason that those panels were never reinstalled. Any replacements would need to be modified to ensure that the ad-hoc system installed to prevent the conditions that led to Booster 7’s first explosion from recurring can still be used for future static fire tests. Even then, it’s unclear why SpaceX would need to reinstall those panels now for Booster 7’s upcoming 33-engine static fire(s) and full-stack wet dress rehearsal(s) when they weren’t needed for 11 and 14-engine static fires and a dozen other fire-free tests.
Depending on why Booster 7 is back at the factory, there is a precedent for it returning to the launch site as early as next week. Alternatively, if major work or repairs are required, it could be six weeks before SpaceX returns the rocket to the launch pad. Given that the full wet dress rehearsals and one or several 33-engine static fires standing between Booster 7 and flight readiness will be riskier and more challenging than any other test the prototype has completed to date, there is no real chance that Starship will be ready for its first orbital launch this year.
In fact, without detailed information, especially regarding Ship 24’s mysterious state, it’s difficult to pinpoint a viable target for Starship’s orbital launch debut more specific than the first half of 2023. But with any luck, even if it requires a substantially longer wait, SpaceX’s recent decision to make Starbase move slower and break fewer things will hopefully pay off with a successful debut sometime next year.
Tesla has revealed plans through permit submissions for a massive Robotaxi charging hub in Austin, Texas.
Tesla plans to build the Supercharger hub in multiple phases, with the second phase potentially introducing wireless induction charging, something the company has been developing for the Robotaxi fleet.
Initially, 48 Tesla Robotaxi-geared Superchargers will be built on a lot just across from the St. Elmo, Texas, Service Center. There are about 80 additional spots that will not be impacted by phase 1 of the construction process.
Filings show that the second phase of the project will turn those 80 additional spots into wireless charging for Robotaxi, but it might be an error. The Key Notes state that item 3 is listed as “V4 Charging Cabinet to Support 80 Wireless Chargers in Phase 2. However, the drawings point to V3 Cabinets that are already tied to Superchargers:
There are roughly 128 total spots in the lot, but it is unclear if they will all be used for charging based on what appears to be some sort of typo in the blueprint.
A new Robotaxi fleet charging hub is coming soon to Austin, Texas!!
Permits have been filed for the installation of 48 (V3) stalls in a vehicle storage lot across the road from Tesla’s St Elmo service center. pic.twitter.com/xwRgSWDqht
— MarcoRP (@MarcoRPi1) August 18, 2026
This is among the first Robotaxi charging hubs Tesla has started to develop, as it currently has four others planned throughout various areas: one in Phoenix, one in San Antonio, another in Irving, which will serve the Dallas-Fort Worth area, and another in Las Vegas.
These projects are necessary as Tesla expands its Robotaxi program. Now that preparations have started for the public launch of Cybercab, Robotaxi will likely be expanding aggressively, especially over the next two to three years.
Last night, The Information reported that Tesla was planning to launch Cybercab as soon as the end of August. Hours later, Tesla then announced it was launching a competition for fans to potentially ride in Cybercab during its first public rides.
Tesla’s plan to expand its charging infrastructure in the regions where Robotaxi will initially operate is great preparation for the expanding service. There is still a lot to do, including launching the Cybercab on time.
Tesla got its largest order for the all-electric Class 8 Semi yet, a 500-unit order from Einride AB, a Swedish trucking company.
Einride made the announcement this morning following its second-quarter earnings call. The company said it plans to use 500 Tesla Semi units on its fleet intelligence platform, called Saga AI. The deployments will serve large companies like Amazon and will extend Einride’s electric freight network across logistics routes in California, New Jersey, Texas, Illinois, and Georgia.
🚨 Tesla has received a MASSIVE order from Swedish freight company Einride AB, which placed an order for 500 Tesla Semi trucks
Tesla’s biggest order for the Semi yet! pic.twitter.com/PrtLp5yzvh
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) August 18, 2026
The deployment is being carried out in several phases over the next two years as Tesla ramps production of the Semi at its dedicated production facility in Sparks, Nevada. Einride will receive its first Semi units in September.
Saga AI
Saga AI is Einride’s dedicated fleet intelligence platform. It enables scaled adoption of electric trucks for freight use and allows shippers to integrate electric capacity without the operational burden or capital risks of managing a fleet. This helps integrate cost-efficient logistics and makes budgeting and forecasting much more accurate.
Tesla Semi’s Adoption
The Tesla Semi is now gathering large-scale clients past those who have helped the company operate a Pilot Program to gain initial information and feedback from real-world drivers.
Perhaps the biggest and most notable is that of Frito-Lay and PepsiCo., who have worked with Tesla for the past several years to dial in the finer details of the truck, including its efficiency and operation-related components.
Tesla Semi gets strange-but-understandable comparison from Jay Leno
There has been tremendous progress in that time, and it even catalyzed Tesla to make some design changes, which were unveiled earlier this year.
But Einride CEO Roozbeh Charli says his company’s partnership with Tesla will continue to push those things forward:
“This deployment is yet another proof point that we can execute at the scale our customers demand. Working closely with Tesla to bring next-generation Semis into active operations quickly and at scale is a testament to the strength of that partnership, and how quickly this technology is maturing from promise to daily operations.”
Additionally, Dan Priestley, the Director of the Semi Program at Tesla, said the partnership is ideal due to Einride’s focus on sustainable transport:
“Einride is at the forefront of sustainable freight, and we are thrilled to deepen our relationship with them through this order of 500 Semis. EV heavy trucks provide lower costs per mile from fuel savings, reduced maintenance, and better uptime over diesel trucks. These savings increase further through operational efficiency when deploying EV trucks at scale, and we are excited that Einride recognizes this and look forward to supporting their deployments.”
Elon Musk
India tells Elon Musk’s X to “Follow the Law” in latest censorship update
Elon Musk says X now exposes government censorship, but India’s secrecy laws complicate that promise.
Elon Musk’s promise to make government censorship requests on X “clearly visible” is running into a wall in India, where the law forbids the very disclosure Musk is promising.
On August 15, Musk responded to an update from X’s open-source algorithm team by writing “Any censorship required by governments is now clearly visible.” The claim referred to a change X pushed two days earlier to its public xai-org/x-algorithm repository, which now includes a controversial filter written directly into the code. The filter suppresses posts from 665 accounts flagged by Brazil’s Superior Electoral Court from appearing in the For You feed of any viewer located in Brazil, unless the viewer already follows the account. The election tied to the filter is scheduled for October 4.
India’s government wasn’t as impressed, and responded on Monday that “X will have to follow the law of the land,” in response to Musk’s transparency push covered by the Times of India. The problem is structural rather than political. India issues content blocking orders under Section 69A of its IT Act, and Rule 16 of the accompanying 2009 Blocking Rules requires those orders to stay confidential. Publishing an India equivalent of the Brazil filter, naming specific accounts and citing specific government orders, would itself violate Indian law. Government use of Section 69A has grown from roughly 6,000 orders a year between 2018 and 2023 to about 24,300 in 2025, according to a Tech Times report.
The contrast puts Musk’s transparency pledge in an odd spot. It works largely as advertised in Brazil, where electoral law requires disclosure and X can point to specific account IDs and a specific court order in public code. It cannot work the same way in India, where the law requires the opposite. X users in India will keep seeing content disappear from search and their feeds without any public accounting of why, even as X tells the rest of the world that its censorship compliance is now inspectable.
This isn’t the first time X’s fights with a national government have shaped how the platform operates. Brazil’s Supreme Court ordered X to suspend the accounts of sitting lawmakers and journalists in 2024, a standoff that cost X its Brazilian revenue for months and froze Starlink’s local accounts before the investigation into Musk and X was closed in March with no evidence of wrongdoing found. X also sued California over a state law requiring moderation disclosures, arguing the mandate itself violated the First Amendment.
Whether India’s government pursues anything beyond a public statement remains to be seen. For now, the mismatch between what X can legally publish and what different governments legally allow it to publish is the real story behind Musk’s seven word claim.
Tesla reveals plans for Robotaxi charging hub in Austin
Tesla Semi gets its largest order yet
