SpaceX
SpaceX will build and launch Starship/Super Heavy in Texas and Florida, says Musk
According to SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, the company has plans to both build and launch BFR’s Starship upper stages and Super Heavy boosters at facilities located in Boca Chica, Texas and Cape Canaveral, Florida.
Indicative of SpaceX and Musk’s rapidly evolving plans for the next-generation, ultra-reusable launch system, the to stainless steel over carbon composites appears to continue to have a range of trickle-down consequences (or benefits) throughout the rocket’s design, production, launch, and operations. Given the 3+ radical, clean-sheet design changes the BFR program has undergone in about as many years, it’s hard to definitively conclude much about the latest iteration. Nevertheless, Musk’s indication that stainless steel BFRs may now be built simultaneously at multiple locations suggests that the construction of steel Starships and Super Heavies could be radically easier (and cheaper) than their composite predecessors.
Over the last several months, SpaceX’s manufacturing plans for the massive Starship and Super Heavy vehicles have effectively been up in the air from a public perspective. Official statements provided in January suggested that the first prototypes would be built in-situ after word broke that SpaceX had prematurely terminated a lease with the Port of Los Angeles, where the company had – throughout 2018 – been planning to construct a dedicated seaside BFR factory.
Likely for a variety of reasons, all of which are unknown, SpaceX apparently no longer has a pressing need for dedicated traditional manufacturing facilities at this point in time. Instead, the company is relying extensively on the largely unprecedented practice of building its first suborbital and orbital Starship and Super Heavy vehicles outdoors, much to the visible discomfort of aerospace industry practitioners, followers, and fans alike.
At a bare minimum, SpaceX’s decision to fabricate and assemble large-scale methalox rocket stages with quite literally zero protection from the elements may be one of the most ‘nontraditional’ things the habitually disruptive company has ever done. At the opposite end of the spectrum, building rockets outside could be perceived as an unfathomably foolish endeavor, radically increasing the risk of dangerous manufacturing defects, foreign objects debris (FOD) mitigation, and – ultimately – major vehicle failures. From such an external perspective, wholly lacking any insight from SpaceX itself, it’s difficult to conclude much of anything.
On the one hand, a highly-disciplined adherence to the tenets of best aerospace industry practices and responsible engineering could probably mitigate the risks of en 
Given that the production of orbital-class, super-heavy lift rockets has really only been attempted twice (Saturn V and Russia’s N1), both times with custom-built, environmentally-controlled factories, it’s likely that SpaceX is already suffering from the inherent uncertainty of the tasks at hand; forging new ground – especially in highly technical fields – is rarely easy or forgiving. Given the aforementioned challenges of building large and reliable rockets at all, challenges that regularly topple vehicles built in traditional factories, it will likely remain an open question if SpaceX can consistently build reliable, technologically-advanced rockets and spacecraft outside until those vehicles have quite literally proven themselves in orbit.
Toot Toot! Hopper is chomping at the bit today!
?@BocaChicaGal https://t.co/0ZEXcKOWwH pic.twitter.com/PEm7c12KTi— Chris B – NSF (@NASASpaceflight) March 18, 2019
Difficulties aside, it’s easy to understand why SpaceX (or maybe just Elon) is willing to at least attempt something that has never been done before. If the company could find a way to reliably build complex, high-performance rockets without the need for expensive factories, it could radically change the paradigm of rocketry by reducing the often eye-watering upfront costs of building giant launch vehicles. The ability to build rockets almost independently of dedicated factories or assembly facilities would also allow SpaceX to – as Musk said – build their vehicles where they launch, further minimizing the significant challenges and costs of transporting extremely large structures more than a couple of miles.
Regardless of the major challenges standing between SpaceX and its stainless steel Starship/Super Heavy aspirations, Elon Musk appears to be as confident as ever, frankly stating that Starship’s rate of progress “far exceeds” that of Falcon and Dragon. In other words, the apparent instability of the BFR program may actually end up being to its benefit, potentially resulting in a finished product that simultaneously takes less time to come to fruition and is ultimately much closer to its original design intent. At risk of putting the wrong words into Musk’s mouth, it seems that he believes that SpaceX might be able to arrive at a Starship/Super Heavy combo much closer to Falcon 9 Block 5 than Falcon 9 V1.0 and do so far sooner than most believe is possible.
Only time will tell. In the meantime, there will be plenty of fireworks, beginning as early as this week with the first static fire test – and potential hops – of SpaceX’s massive Starship Hopper. Stay tuned for updates!
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Investor's Corner
Tesla’s flying Roadster just revealed something bigger than the car
Analysts say the Roadster demo puts a Tesla and SpaceX merger back on the table.
The Roadster unveiling near Waco ended Thursday night, and by Friday morning much of the investor reaction had less to do with the car than with who owns the rocket technology inside it.
Wedbush analyst Dan Ives said the event “puts the Tesla/SpaceX relationship on the table in a tangible way,” pointing to the propulsion, pressure vessel and control hardware sitting on a Tesla product. Gene Munster of Deepwater Asset Management called the demo “a ridiculous display of engineering” with “no commercial value” beyond embarrassing traditional automakers, though he said it showed Musk wants the two companies together.
The more specific forecast came a day earlier from Barclays. Analyst Dan Levy told clients a deal could be announced before Tesla’s annual meeting, which must happen by December 6, and that an announcement in late October or early November could make shareholder approval harder. Barclays expects SpaceX to be the buyer in an all stock deal, with Tesla holders receiving SpaceX shares at a premium, based on market values of roughly $2.1 trillion for SpaceX and $1.5 trillion for Tesla. If nothing lands around the meeting, the bank still sees an announcement within 6 to 12 months.
The Roadster demo just added more weight to merger speculations. Tesla’s demo used cold gas thrusters and pressure tanks of the kind SpaceX uses on Falcon 9, and Musk described the car as a collaboration between Tesla and SpaceX engineers, as we mentioned in our breakdown of the three Roadster configurations.
Musk has not publicly addressed a deal since the event, as far as we have seen. His most direct answer remains the one he gave at the All In Summit, when he said that with so much collaboration, “who can imagine what action one might take” without ruling anything out. Ives has held to a 2027 timeline since his March note, and Musk pushed back on the China piece of the speculation when ARK floated a year end announcement in August.
The next test is Tesla’s third quarter earnings call on October 21. However, we recall in July that Musk told analysts, “we can’t talk about combining companies and that kind of thing on an earnings call,” so a clear answer wouldn’t be expected.
Elon Musk
Elon Musk says Tesla’s Roadster demo could be a bang, quite literally
Musk says tonight’s Roadster demo will be a banger, maybe literally. The clues add up.
Elon Musk spent Wednesday and Thursday stacking teases on top of Tesla’s Roadster event, and the wording is getting harder to read as routine hype. Tesla streams the unveil tonight at 7:55 p.m. Central on X. Musk has called it “a candidate for greatest product demo of all time,” then added that “this demo will be a BANGER, probably metaphorically, though some chance literally.”
New Roadster is
beyond movies,
beyond imagination,
beyond human,
yet still made
by humans
on Earth— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 15, 2026
The “some chance literally” part is the line to watch. The Roadster has been tied to a SpaceX option package since 2018, and as we reported when the date was announced, the system is reportedly codenamed A71 and uses cold gas thrusters fed by a composite overwrapped pressure vessel, the same tank design SpaceX uses on Falcon 9. Musk has said a thruster equipped car could reach 60 mph in about 1.1 seconds. Cold gas thrusters firing at full output are loud, and reports ahead of the event say the car will be unmanned with spectators kept several hundred yards back. A literal bang could simply mean a demonstration that sounds like one, though it is also an admission that something could go wrong on stage.
Then there is “Timing is everything,” which Musk posted a day earlier. Stocktwits noted that 7:55 p.m. is 19:55 on a 24 hour clock, which echoes 1955, the year Marty McFly travels to in Back to the Future. Musk has made that connection before. In 2019 he replied to an animation of a flying DeLorean by saying the new Roadster “will actually do something like this.” Nothing from Tesla confirms the movie reference, but the stream time was chosen by someone, and Tesla has not been shy about this kind of wink.
Also, Tesla said it moved the event because it “can only be held outdoors,” and Musk then wrote that the demo was postponed “due to high winds,” as Teslarati covered at the time. A car running a standing start in front of a crowd shrugs off wind. A car that leaves the ground does not. The venue near SpaceX’s McGregor test site and the FAA airspace closures reported around the original date point the same way, though we also noted the delay could be a plain safety precaution. Musk has also described the new Roadster as “beyond movies, beyond imagination, beyond human, yet still made by humans on Earth.”
The only official figures remain the 2017 ones: 620 miles of range, a top speed above 250 mph, a 1.9 second 0 to 60 time, and prices of $200,000 for the base car and $250,000 for the Founders Series. Production is expected at Giga Texas in 2027 or 2028. Tesla has said the event will cover pricing, specifications and production targets, and its livestream preview has the full rundown. Tesla reports third quarter earnings on October 21, so whatever lands tonight will be fresh going into that call. We will have live coverage as soon as the stream starts.
Elon Musk
Elon Musk breaks his silence on the Starlink impact to Ukraine drones
Musk says the US military and president set Starshield limits, not SpaceX, amid Ukraine complaints.
Elon Musk says the speed limit cutting out Ukraine’s military Starlink terminals is not SpaceX’s decision. In a post on X Wednesday, Musk wrote that “Starshield systems are owned and controlled by the US government. Any limits on speed or usage are decided by the US military and ultimately POTUS.” He added that Starlink is a commercial service limited to civilian or defensive activities and “cannot be used for offensive military action, as doing so would be inappropriate for a commercial company.”
He was replying to Mykhailo Fedorov, Ukraine’s former defense minister, who had thanked Musk for restoring connectivity at speeds up to 160 km/h and said removing the Starshield limit entirely is “now critical for Ukraine’s defense.”
Starshield systems are owned and controlled by the US government. Any limits on speed or usage are decided by the US military and ultimately POTUS.
Starlink is a commercial service owned and controlled by SpaceX. Usage of Starlink is limited to civilian or defensive activities and cannot be used for offensive military action, as doing so would be inappropriate for a commercial company.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 14, 2026
The complaint started Tuesday night, when Ukrainian officials said military terminals began losing service above roughly 100 mph. Presidential adviser Serhiy Beskrestnov said the defense forces got no warning and several missions were disrupted, as Teslarati reported earlier Wednesday. The 7th Rapid Reaction Corps told Reuters connections dropped for 10 to 20 seconds at speeds well below the limit, which made drones harder to control. Poland’s foreign minister, Radoslaw Sikorski, asked Musk on X whether he is “playing politics with your products again.”
That is why the Starlink and Starshield distinction matters. SpaceX introduced Starshield in 2022 as the government version of Starlink, with an initial focus on Earth observation, communications and hosted payloads. It won a Space Force contract in 2023 with a $70 million ceiling. In December 2024, the Pentagon moved Ukraine’s terminals onto Starshield, covering about 3,000 units across two contracts. Ukraine’s military connections therefore run through a service that Musk now says sits under Washington’s control.
While Musk’s post describes who holds authority, it does not infer that anyone ordered the limit, and neither SpaceX nor the US government has confirmed who set it. Ukrainian officials have pointed to the timing, which follows President Trump’s push for an energy ceasefire and Musk’s Saturday post that “Zelensky has gone too far.” The BBC noted Trump denied threatening to restrict intelligence sharing with Kyiv, and no evidence has been presented that Washington requested the cap.
The episode also revives a promise from 2025. After Poland accused him of threatening Ukraine’s access, Musk said Starlink “will never turn off its terminals” and would not be used as a bargaining chip. Poland has since supplied more than 29,000 terminals to Ukraine. Teslarati also covered Kyiv’s search for Starlink alternatives in 2025, and the latest dispute gives that search new urgency.
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