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SpaceX to replace Falcon 9’s titanium grid fins with steel on Starship’s Super Heavy booster
Following a question on Twitter about how SpaceX intends to manufacture the truly massive grid fins shown in renders of Starship’s Super Heavy booster, CEO Elon Musk revealed that SpaceX will build them out of welded steel.
For the first several years of Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy booster recovery operations, SpaceX built grid fins – used for maneuvering the rockets at high speeds – out of aluminum. With Falcon 9 Block 5, aluminum grid fins were phased out entirely in favor of larger titanium fins, necessitated by exceptionally high-speed reentries that nearly melted through the aluminum fins on several occasions. Now, SpaceX wants to move from titanium to steel fins for its next-generation Starship launch vehicle.
Welded steel— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 3, 2019
In response to the Twitter user’s question, Musk simply stated that Super Heavy’s grid fins would be manufactured out of “welded steel”, certainly keeping with the CEO’s now well-known love for the material. In October 2018, Musk finally managed to convince most of the senior engineers reporting to him that – despite years of work and full-scale testing – SpaceX needed to radically redesign Starship.
Prior to this radical change, SpaceX had spent at least 2-3 years on a Starship design (formerly Big F_____ Spaceship; BFS) made almost entirely out of carbon fiber composites, an extremely lightweight material that can be optimized for high strength. However, as Musk ultimately concluded in late 2018, although carbon composites are undeniably light and strong (optimal for spaceflight), they have extremely low heat tolerance and can react violently with supercooled liquid oxygen. Built almost entirely out of aluminum alloys with similarly low melting points, Falcon 9 has also struggled with the challenges posed by material choices, made far more difficult by the need to recover and reuse orbital-class rocket stages.
Musk ultimately decided that redesigning Starship with steel (alloys with particularly high melting points and good strength) was the right way to go. According to Musk, the high-quality carbon fiber composites SpaceX was originally pursuing cost something like $130,000 per metric ton, translating to a truly gobsmacking cost – accounting for unavoidable wastage – of $400M-$500M or more just to buy the materials needed to build a single Starship and Super Heavy booster. Steel, on the other hand, is quite literally 50 times cheaper, costing SpaceX around $2500 per ton, or as little as $10M in structural materials for each ship/booster pair.
Man of Stainless Steel
Speaking at a September 28th presentation on the 2019 status of Starship’s design, CEO Elon Musk couldn’t praise his decision to move to stainless steel enough, describing it as likely being the single best design decision he has ever made. It remains to be seen if the eccentric self-taught engineer’s decision was the correct one, but the progress SpaceX has made in just 10-11 months is undeniable. SpaceX has gone from a nearly blank slate to Starhopper’s 150m (500ft) test flight in ~6 months and gone from nothing to Starship Mk1 in another 6 or so months.
According to Musk, the properties of stainless steel – mainly a high melting point/working temperature and a tendency to strengthen at cryogenic temperatures – mean that the relatively heavy material is able to produce a launch vehicle that could eventually be far lighter and higher-performance than one made with carbon composites (BFR) or aluminum alloys (Falcon 9). Thanks to those properties, Starship/Super Heavy will become much stronger when filled with cold propellant and will also require little to no external heat shielding on its leeward half, whereas a reusable Al/composite rocket would require major thermal protection on nearly all exposed surfaces.
As part of the move to remove any ultra-expensive nonessential materials from the designs of Starship and Super Heavy, Musk has apparently also turned his gaze on the booster’s grid fins. As described at the top of this article, SpaceX replaced Falcon 9’s aluminum grid fins with titanium fins, requiring the company to create the largest single-piece titanium casting in the world. Musk has repeatedly indicated that each grid fin is extremely expensive.
In light of their expense, Musk (or SpaceX) has seemingly decided that future (larger?) SpaceX rockets will try to avoid large, titanium castings. Super Heavy nevertheless still needs massive grid fins: official renders published by SpaceX last month revealed a new diamond shape for the booster’s fins, and Musk later took to Twitter to reveal that they would be made out of welded steel instead of titanium.
Based on SpaceX’s official 2019 Super Heavy renders, the booster’s grid fins measure approximately 7m by 3m (23 ft by 10 ft), dwarfing Falcon 9’s titanium fins (perhaps 2m by 1.2m) with something like 8-10 times the surface area. Although 301-series stainless steel has a melting point and heat capacity roughly 15% lower than Grade 5 titanium, its strength characteristics are otherwise similar, while also remaining mechanically functional at almost three times the working temperature of titanium (840C vs. 330C).
Most importantly, not only is 301 steel roughly 15-20 times cheaper than titanium, but the process of fabricating large steel components – particularly with welding instead of casting – is dramatically faster, easier, and cheaper than working with and forming titanium. With their reasonably similar properties and the increased size of Super Heavy, it’s likely that steel grid fins would exhibit little to no ablation during even the hottest atmospheric reentries, and it would nevertheless be extremely easy and cheap to either repair or replace fins in the unlikely event of damage.
Given just how quickly and relatively easily SpaceX has built full-scale flight hardware out of steel and assuming there are no technical showstoppers caused by changing scales, it wouldn’t be surprising in the slightest to see SpaceX fabricate and test welded steel grid fins on Falcon 9 boosters in the near future.
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Tesla adjusts Robotaxi safety monitor strategy in Austin with new service area
The positioning of the driver, as well as the driver’s hands being closer to the steering wheel, is more similar to what Tesla is doing in the Bay Area Robotaxi program than it is to what it has done in Austin.

Tesla has adjusted its Robotaxi safety monitor strategy in Austin after it expanded its service area in the city last week for the third time.
Tesla has been operating its Robotaxi platform in Austin since June 22. The vehicles have been operated without a driver, but Tesla has placed safety monitors in the passenger’s seat as a precaution.
The safety monitors are responsible for performing any necessary interventions and maintaining a safe and comfortable cabin for riders as they experience Tesla’s first venture into the driverless ride-sharing space.
Last week, Tesla expanded its service area in Austin for the third time, expanding it from about 90 square miles to 170 square miles. The expansion included new territory, including the Austin-Bergstrom International Airport, Tesla’s Gigafactory Texas, and several freeways.
Tesla Robotaxi geofence expansion enters Plaid Mode and includes a surprise
The freeway is an area that is uncharted territory for the Tesla Robotaxi program, and this fact alone encouraged Tesla to switch up its safety monitor positioning for the time being.
For now, they will be riding in the driver’s seat when routes require freeway travel:
Sept 1 in Austin and our Robotaxi arrived with Tesla safety driver in the driver seat, similar to the Bay area (no logo on the car). Here’s that first moment when I realized, our autonomous car was heading onto the freeway. pic.twitter.com/1QfyN2Ubzf
— Gail 🇺🇸 (@gailalfaratx) September 2, 2025
The positioning of the driver, as well as the driver’s hands being closer to the steering wheel, is more similar to what Tesla is doing in the Bay Area Robotaxi program than it is to what it has done in Austin.
This is sure to draw criticism from skeptics, but it is simply a step to keep things controlled and safe while the first Robotaxi drives take passengers on the highway with this version of the Full Self-Driving software.
This FSD version differs from the one that customers have in their own vehicles, but CEO Elon Musk has indicated something big is coming soon. FSD v14 is coming to vehicles in the near future, and Musk has said its performance is pretty incredible.
Tesla’s Elon Musk shares optimistic teaser about FSD V14: “Feels sentient”
News
Tesla has best month ever in Turkey with drastic spike in sales
Tesla managed to sell 8,730 Model Y vehicles in Turkey, outpacing almost every competitor by a substantial margin. Only one brand sold better than Tesla in August in Turkey, and it was Renault.

Tesla had its best monthly performance ever in Turkey in August, thanks to a drastic spike in sales.
Tesla saw an 86 percent bump in sales of the new Model Y in Turkey in August compared to July, dominating the market.
The performance was one of Tesla’s best in the market, and the company’s sales for the month accounted for half of all EV sales in Turkey for August, as it dominated and led BYD, which was the second-best-selling brand with just 1,639 units sold.
Tesla managed to sell 8,730 Model Y vehicles in Turkey, outpacing almost every competitor by a substantial margin. Only one brand sold better than Tesla in August in Turkey, and it was Renault.
Turkey reported 8,730 Tesla sales and 10.6% market share in August. BEV penetration is 21.3% and Tesla has 49.9% of this segment. 🇹🇷
• Market share is 558 basis points or 111% above the 3-month trailing average of 5.0%
• Tesla second best-selling brand
• Model Y best-selling… pic.twitter.com/qLhX7VQWXp— Roland Pircher (@piloly) September 2, 2025
Electric vehicles are, in some ways, more desirable than their gas counterparts in Turkey for several reasons. Most of the reasoning is financial.
First, EVs are subject to a lower Special Consumption Tax in Turkey. EVs can range from 25 percent to up to 170 percent, but this is less than the 70 to 220 percent rate that gas-powered vehicles can face. The tax is dependent on engine size.
Additionally, EVs are exempt from the annual Motor Vehicle Tax for the first ten years, providing consumers with a long-term ownership advantage. There are also credits that can amount to $30,000 in breaks, which makes them more accessible and brings down the cost of ownership.
Let’s not forget the other advantages that are felt regardless of country: cheaper fuel costs, reduced maintenance, and improved performance.
The base Model Y is the only configuration available in Turkey currently.
News
Tesla is upgrading airbag safety through a crazy software update
“This upgrade builds upon your vehicle’s superior crash protection by now using Tesla Vision to help offer some of the most cutting-edge airbag performance in the event of a frontal crash.”

Tesla is upgrading airbag safety through a crazy software update, which will utilize the company’s vision-first approach to enable better protection in the event of an accident.
Over the years, Tesla has gained an incredible reputation for prioritizing safety in its vehicles, with crash test ratings at the forefront of its engineers’ minds.
This has led to Tesla gaining numerous five-star safety ratings and awards related to safety. It is not just a statistical thing, either. In the real world, we’ve seen Teslas demonstrate some impressive examples of crash safety.
Everything from that glass roof not caving in when a tree falls on it to a Model Y surviving a drive off a cliff has been recorded.
However, Tesla is always looking to improve safety, and unlike most companies, it does not need a physical hardware update to do so. It can enhance features such as crash response and airbag performance through Over-the-Air software updates, which download automatically to the vehicle.
In Tesla’s 2025.32 Software Update, the company is rolling out a Frontal Airbag System Enhancement, which aims to use Tesla Vision, the company’s camera-based approach to self-driving, to keep occupants safe.
The release notes state (via NotaTeslaApp):
“This upgrade builds upon your vehicle’s superior crash protection by now using Tesla Vision to help offer some of the most cutting-edge airbag performance in the event of a frontal crash. Building on top of regulatory and industry crash testing, this release enables front airbags to begin to inflate and restrain occupants earlier, in a way that only Tesla’s integrated systems are capable of doing, making your car safer over time.”
The use of cameras to predict a better time to restrain occupants with seatbelts and inflate airbags prior to a collision is a fantastic way to prevent injuries and limit harm done to those in the vehicle.
The feature is currently limited to the Model Y.
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