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SpaceX rapidly stacks Starship and Super Heavy with ‘Mechazilla’
For the second time ever, SpaceX has used Starbase’s ‘Mechazilla’ tower and arms to stack a Starship upper stage on top of a Super Heavy booster.
This time around, though, SpaceX clearly learned a great deal from its second February 9th Starship stack and was able to complete the stacking process several times faster on March 15th. During the second attempt, depending on how one measures it, it took SpaceX around three and a half hours from the start of the lift to Starship fully resting on Super Heavy. With Stack #3, however, SpaceX was able to lift, translate, lower, and attach Starship to Super Heavy in just over an hour.
Oddly, SpaceX managed that feat without a claw-like device meant to grab and stabilize Super Heavy during stacking operations. For Stack #2, all three arms were fully in play. First, a pair of ‘chopsticks’ – giant arms meant to grab, lift, and even recover Starships and boosters – grabbed Ship 20, lifted it close to 100 meters (~300 ft) above the ground, rotated it over top of Super Heavy, and briefly paused. A third arm – known as the ship quick-disconnect or umbilical arm – swung in and extended its ‘claw’ to grab onto hardpoints located near the top of Super Heavy. Once the booster was secured, the ‘chopsticks’ slowly lowered Ship 20 onto Booster 4’s interstage and six clamps joined the two stages together.
A few hours after the two were clamped together, an umbilical device located on the swing arm extended and connected to Ship 20. It’s unclear if the panel was actually used in any way but the umbilical is designed to connect Starship to ground systems to supply propellant, power, communications, and other consumables. Regardless, the device did appear to connect to Starship. Prior to Stack #3, however, SpaceX removed both of the swing arm’s ‘claws,’ meaning that it had no way to grab onto Super Heavy. That diminished capability clearly appeared to have zero impact on the ease or speed of the stacking process given that it was completed a full three times faster than Stack #2.
That could imply that the claw is either completely unnecessary or only needed when attempting stacking operations in extreme winds. What is clear is that the claw removal likely only shaved a handful of minutes off of the full stacking process. What really saved time on Stack #3 was a faster lift and fewer pauses throughout – especially while lowering Starship the last several meters onto Super Heavy. During Stack #2, SpaceX took close to an hour and a half to fully lower Ship 20. The same sequence took just ~20 minutes during Stack #3.
Still, after the impressively rapid one-hour stack, it then took SpaceX close to two hours to connect the swing arm’s umbilical to Starship, leaving plenty of room for improvement. Ultimately, assuming SpaceX can speed up the start of the stacking process and replicate its Starship success with Super Heavy, which will also need to be grabbed and installed on an even more complex launch mount, it’s possible that Starbase’s orbital launch integration system is already capable of supporting multiple Starship launches per day. Of course, SpaceX has yet to demonstrate that the orbital launch site can be turned around in a matter of hours after being subjected to the violence and stresses of a Starship launch.
More significantly, SpaceX has never even attempted an orbital Starship launch, recovery, or reuse. That leaves the company in the unusual position of building and testing expensive, specialized support equipment before it actually knows that the rocket that equipment is designed to support is in any way capable of taking advantage of it. For an orbital spacecraft the size of Starship, only the Space Shuttle comes anywhere close and NASA’s all-time record for orbiter turnaround was 54 days. SpaceX has technically flown two Falcon 9 boosters twice in 27 days but no matter how impressive that feat is, reusing a far smaller suborbital booster is vastly easier than reusing a massive orbital spacecraft.
At the end of the day, it’s not really SpaceX’s fault that it’s still waiting for permission to attempt orbital test flights. Nonetheless, the growing gap in maturity between Starship and Super Heavy and the orbital launch site designed to support them continuously raises the risk that SpaceX will have to extensively redesign the rocket, its support equipment, or both if significant problems arise during orbital test flights.
Up next, there’s a chance that SpaceX could attempt to cryoproof Starship while on top of Super Heavy – or perhaps both stages at once. While SpaceX has performed more than half a dozen cryoproofs of Ship 20 and Booster 4 using the orbital launch site’s propellant storage and distribution system, it hasn’t fully tested the hardware needed to route hundreds of tons of propellant hundreds of feet into the air – essential for full-stack testing and launch operations.
Elon Musk
SpaceX just got pulled into the biggest Weapons Program in U.S. history
SpaceX joins the Golden Dome software group, deepening its role in America’s most expensive defense program.
SpaceX has joined a nine-company group developing the core operating software for the Golden Dome, America’s next-generation missile defense system. According to a Bloomberg report, SpaceX is focused on integrating satellite communications for military operations and is working alongside eight other defense and artificial intelligence companies, including Anduril Industries, Palantir Technologies, and Aalyria Technologies, to build software connecting missile defense capabilities.
The Golden Dome concept dates back to President Trump’s 2024 campaign, and on January 27, 2025, he signed an executive order directing the U.S. Armed Forces to construct the system before the end of his term. The system is planned to employ a constellation of thousands of satellites equipped with interceptors, with data centers in space providing automated control through an AI network.
FCC accepts SpaceX filing for 1 million orbital data center plan
Space Force Gen. Michael Guetlein, director of the Golden Dome initiative, has described the software layer as a “glue layer” that would enable officers to manage and control radars, sensors, and missile batteries across services. The consortium is aiming to test the platform this summer.
Trump selected a design in May 2025 with a $175 billion price tag, expected to be operational by the end of his term in 2029, though the Congressional Budget Office projected the cost could reach $831 billion over two decades.
The Golden Dome role is only the latest in a string of military wins for SpaceX. As Teslarati reported, the U.S. Space Force awarded SpaceX a $178.5 million task order on April 1, 2026 to launch missile tracking satellites for the Space Development Agency, covering two Falcon 9 launches beginning in Q3 2027. That came on top of more than $22 billion in government contracts held by SpaceX as of 2024, per CEO Gwynne Shotwell, spanning NASA resupply missions, classified intelligence satellites through its Starshield program, and military broadband.
The accumulation of defense contracts, now including a seat at the table on the most expensive weapons program in U.S. history, positions SpaceX as the dominant infrastructure provider for American national security in space. With a SpaceX IPO still on the horizon, each new contract adds weight to what is already one of the most consequential companies in aerospace history, raising real questions about how much of America’s defense architecture will depend on a single private operator before it ever trades publicly.
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Tesla pulls back the curtain on Cybercab mass production
Tesla’s Cybercab drives itself off the Gigafactory Texas line in a striking new production video.
Tesla has provided a first look from inside a production Cybercab as it drove itself off the assembly line at Gigafactory Texas. The video footage, posted on X, opens on the factory floor with robotic arms and assembly equipment visible through the Cybercab windshield, and follows the car through a branded tunnel marked “Cybercab”, before autonomously navigating itself to a holding lot.
The first Cybercab rolled off the Giga Texas production line on February 17, 2026, with Musk writing on X, “Congratulations to the Tesla team on making the first production Cybercab.” April marked the official shift to volume production. The Giga Texas line is being prepared to produce hundreds of units per week, with 60 units already spotted on the Gigafactory campus earlier this month.
Purpose-built for autonomy
Cybercab in production now at Giga Texas pic.twitter.com/Y9qG3KyWBa
— Tesla (@Tesla) April 23, 2026
The Cybercab was first revealed publicly at Tesla’s “We, Robot” event in October 2024 at Warner Bros. Studios in Burbank, California, where 20 pre-production units gave attendees rides around the studio lot. Musk said he believed the average operating cost would be around $0.20 per mile, and that buyers would be able to purchase one for under $30,000. The two-seat design is deliberate. Musk noted that 90 percent of miles driven involve one or two people, making a compact two-passenger vehicle the most efficient configuration for a fleet-scale robotaxi. Eliminating rear seats also removes complexity and cost, supporting that sub-$30,000 target.
Tesla’s annual production goal is 2 million Cybercabs per year once several factories reach full design capacity. The Cybercab has no steering wheel, no pedals, and relies entirely on Tesla’s vision-based FSD system. What the video shows is the first evidence of that system working not as a demo, but as a production reality, driving itself off the line and into the world.
🚗 Our first ride in Tesla Cybercab last October: pic.twitter.com/kGqIqgJPRn https://t.co/BITCXFhbVd
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) April 22, 2025
Elon Musk
Elon Musk talks Tesla Roadster’s future
Elon Musk confirmed the Roadster as Tesla’s last manually driven car, with a debut coming soon.
During Tesla’s Q1 2026 earnings call on April 22, Elon Musk made a brief but notable comment about the long-awaited next generation Roadster while describing Tesla’s future vehicle lineup. “Long term, the only manually driven car will be the new Tesla Roadster,” he said. “Speaking of which, we may be able to debut that in a month or so. It requires a lot of testing and validation before we can actually have a demo and not have something go wrong with the demo.”
That single statement is the entire Roadster update from yesterday’s call, and while it represents another timeline shift, it comes as no surprise with Tesla heads-down-at-work on the mass rollout of its Robotaxi service across US cities, and the industrial scale production of the humanoid Optimus.
The fact that Musk specifically framed the Roadster as the last manually driven Tesla is significant on its own. As the rest of the lineup moves toward full autonomy, the Roadster becomes something rare in the Tesla-sphere by keeping the driver in control. Driving enthusiasts who buy a $200,000 supercar are not doing so to be passengers. They want the physical connection to the road, the feel of acceleration under their own input, and the experience of controlling something with that level of performance. FSD, however capable it becomes, removes that entirely. The Roadster signals that Tesla understands this distinction and is building a car specifically for the people who consider driving itself the point.
Tesla isn’t joking about building Optimus at an industrial scale: Here we go
The specs for the Roadster Musk has teased over the years are genuinely unlike anything in production. The base model targets 0 to 60 mph in 1.9 seconds, a top speed above 250 mph, and up to 620 miles of range from a 200 kWh battery. The optional SpaceX package takes it further, rumored to add roughly ten cold gas thrusters operating at 10,000 psi, borrowed directly from Falcon 9 rocket technology. With thrusters, Musk has claimed 0 to 60 mph in as little as 1.1 seconds. In a 2021 Joe Rogan interview he went further, stating “I want it to hover. We got to figure out how to make it hover without killing people.” Tesla filed a patent for ground effect technology in August 2025, suggesting the hover concept has not been abandoned. The starting price remains $200,000, with the Founders Series requiring a $250,000 full deposit. Some reservation holders placed those deposits in 2017 and are approaching a full decade of waiting.
With production now targeted for 2027 or 2028 at the earliest, the Roadster remains Tesla’s most audacious promise and its longest-running delay. But if what Musk is testing lives up to even half of what he has described, the demo alone should be worth waiting for.
Elon Musk says the Tesla Roadster unveiling could be done “maybe in a month or so.”
He said it should be an extraordinary unveiling event. pic.twitter.com/6V9P7zmvEm
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) April 22, 2026
SpaceX just got pulled into the biggest Weapons Program in U.S. history
Tesla pulls back the curtain on Cybercab mass production
