News
SpaceX’s Starship/Super Heavy rocket needs a launch pad and work is already starting
According to SpaceX job posts published early this month, the company has already begun the process of looking for the engineer or engineers that will be responsible for preparing both Starship/Super Heavy and its prospective pad facilities for the rocket’s inaugural launches.
Per one of those posts, Starship/Super Heavy’s “initial launch capability” will be achieved at Kennedy Space Center’s historic Launch Complex 39A (also known as Pad 39A), a facility SpaceX has leased since 2014 and launched from since 2017. Originally constructed in the 1960s to support Saturn V, the largest operational US rocket ever built, Pad 39A spent another three decades supporting dozens of Shuttle launches until the latter was also retired, after which SpaceX took over the historic facility. Although SpaceX has specifically discussed plans to ultimately turn its South Texas outpost into a full-fledged orbital launch site, that will be an extremely slow and expensive endeavor and Pad 39A makes sense for several reasons.
Building rocket launch facilities is hard
Even though SpaceX has still tended to aggressively outperform its competitors and peers, the process of building a new launch complex from scratch is extremely challenging. For example, after SpaceX suffered a catastrophic failure of Falcon 9 at Pad 40 (LC-40) in September 2016, the company had to conduct extensive refurbishment and even tacked on some pre-planned upgrades. Still, a large portion of the pad remained intact, including the flame trench (with minor damage), hangar facilities, and more.
Ultimately, it took SpaceX more than 10 months and $50M to repair, rebuild, and upgrade LC-40. The biggest single ticket item was likely the new transporter/erector and its associated launch mount and water deluge system, followed by new plumbing and communications infrastructure throughout the pad. By far the most time-consuming and expensive process, however, is laying a foundation for the launch pad itself, most of which SpaceX was able to skip at Pad 40 after some relatively minor repairs and modifications.
Although Blue Origin is as tightlipped as space startups come, owner Jeff Bezos has indicated that the companies large-scale LC-36 pad – built from a clean slate – was part of an overall investment of “more than $1 billion”. That is split between LC-36, a new factory, and a more general-use campus in and around Cape Canaveral, Florida. Building a factory is even more expensive than launch facilities, so the overall cost of building LC-36 from scratch is likely somewhere between $150M and $300M, although it could be even more expensive.
LC-36 is being built for New Glenn, a rocket that will produce roughly 75% as much thrust as Falcon Heavy and ~25% as much thrust as Starship’s Super Heavy booster at liftoff. This is all to make a simple point: if SpaceX means to do so, building a new Super Heavy-class launch pad at Boca Chica is going to take a bare minimum of a year and $100M+ (assuming Blue Origin has been somewhat inefficient, as usual). SpaceX’s current setup is unambiguously dedicated to far lower-thrust Starhopper (and maybe Starship) test flights, whereas an orbital launch complex capable of surviving Super Heavy liftoffs would be at least 5X larger and involve extensive foundation-laying and far more concrete.
All things considered, it’s thrilling that SpaceX is already in the process of designing and – soon – constructing the launch complex (or add-on hardware) that will support the first suborbital and orbital launches of Starship and Super Heavy. Per the aforementioned Launch Engineer job post, it seems all but certain that visible work at Pad 39A could begin at any moment, regardless of whether SpaceX has plans to subtly modify the existing 39A facilities or build something entirely new within its borders.
According to SpaceX VP of Commercial Sales Jonathan Hofeller, “the goal is to get orbital as quickly as possible, potentially even this year, with the full stack operational by the end of next year and then customers in early 2021.” In short, Starship and Super Heavy-compatible launch facilities are going to be needed at 39A (and, eventually, Boca Chica) far sooner than later. Even if it’s likely that the vehicle development will suffer delays that could push Starship’s orbital launch debut into 2021 or beyond, launch pad design and construction is challenging and slow but still fairly predictable. and it is certainly better to be early than to be late. In short, the next 12 months are going to be wild.
Check out Teslarati’s Marketplace! We offer Tesla accessories, including for the Tesla Cybertruck and Tesla Model 3.
Tesla is ending Cybertruck production sometime in mid-2027, according to CEO Elon Musk.
Musk made the announcement on X last night, which came as a shock to many. He said that the Cybertruck will end production “to make room for increased Cybercab production” at Gigafactory Texas.
It is a huge blow to the fans of Tesla who have come to love the Cybertruck and identify with it as a symbol of their fandom. It has been the best-selling electric pickup, but it has had an underwhelming sales performance in terms of what was expected. This is mostly due to Tesla not meeting the prices it planned to offer the Cybertruck, as its unveiling and actual release were four years apart.
Tesla will be winding down production of the Cybertruck at Gigafactory Texas around the middle of next year to make room for increased Cybercab production
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 6, 2026
Overall, the responses were mixed. Some fans understood the move toward Cybercab production, especially as Tesla is truly pushing the autonomous future through its Robotaxi platform. However, others did not understand it.
“Damn, how many Cybercabs do you guys need?” one response read. Another said it was “Sad but understandable.”Even analyst Gary Black had responded to the news, stating he hoped Tesla planned to replace it with a traditional pickup design.
It doesn’t seem like that will be the case.
Tesla is so hell-bent on delivering autonomy and eventually providing a driverless service that owning a car seems like an arbitrary idea, according to their thesis. Instead, Cybercabs will be available to pick you up and drop you off on demand, safely, without any human help.
As a result, Tesla has thinned its lineup considerably, and one can only ask where the vehicle lineup goes from here. Eventually, it seems like Cybercab could be the only vehicle that Tesla will sell.
Elon Musk
SpaceX’s next Starship flight set to make history on Friday the 13th
SpaceX is targeting Friday, November 13 for Starship Flight 15 and its first ship catch.
SpaceX is targeting Friday, November 13 for Starship Flight 15, the mission the company plans to use for its first attempt at catching the ship itself with the launch tower.
SpaceX Vice President of Launch Kiko Dontchev shared the date on stage at the UP.Summit on Thursday, according to Ars Technica’s Eric Berger, who was in attendance. It is the first launch target to come directly from a SpaceX executive. Until now, the public schedule had relied on FAA air traffic planning slides, which listed Flight 15 for no earlier than November 8 and later November 12. SpaceX has not posted an official mission page yet, and no launch time has been shared.
The date lands inside the window Elon Musk sketched out last month. Speaking at Giga Texas on October 10, Musk said the flight would “probably launch a little bit before Thanksgiving,” as Teslarati reported. On SpaceX’s third quarter earnings call ten days later, he confirmed that Flight 15 would try to catch both the Super Heavy booster and the ship, and put the odds of a successful ship catch at “more likely than not.” SpaceX also aired an animation of the maneuver during that webcast, showing the ship swinging vertical over Starbase before dropping into the tower’s chopsticks.
The hardware is ready. Booster 22 fired all 33 of its Raptor engines for a full duration static fire at Pad 2 on October 25. Ship 42 followed with a single engine burn simulating a deorbit maneuver on October 26 and a 60 second firing of all six engines the next day, according to NASASpaceflight. Ship 42 had already rehearsed the catch in September, when the Pad 2 arms lifted it into position and crews connected the quick disconnect arm while the vehicle hung from the tower.
The remaining hurdle is regulatory. The FAA’s Starship page does not yet list a Flight 15 license. SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell said in October that, after “significant constructive engagement with the FAA,” she expects the license to cover a return to the launch site and a tower catch for both stages. Bringing the ship home means a reentry path that heads toward land, rather than ending over open ocean as every Starship flight so far has.
SpaceX has caught Super Heavy three times, on Flights 5, 7 and 8, but the ship comes back from orbital velocity and has never been caught. Flight 14 on September 28 was the first Starship to reach orbit, deploying 26 Starlink V3 satellites before splashing down despite an early engine shutdown that Musk blamed on engine computer software.
Musk has called a successful ship catch “the first time that there’s been full recovery of an orbital class rocket,” and he has already named the step after it: a Flight 16 where both the booster and the ship fly again. NASASpaceflight reports that Ship 43, the next vehicle in line, is set for static fire testing in December.
EVgo has tapped Tesla Superchargers for its most recent efforts to expand its charging presence in the United States, a move that seems logical based on the effectiveness of the automaker’s own infrastructure.
EVgo opened its first Supercharger site in Illinois, a 12-stall station near downtown Chicago at 3145 South Ashland Avenue in the Riverside Square & River’s Edge center, right beside a grocery store. This marks the start of the company’s plan to deploy hundreds of Supercharger stalls across the United States, primarily at grocery-anchored Regency Centers properties where drivers can shop, eat, or run errands while they charge.
We’ve opened our first EVgo Supercharger location in Illinois, marking the start of our plan to add hundreds of Supercharger stalls across the U.S.
Designed for both NACS and CCS vehicles with Magic Dock technology, these new sites help make fast charging more accessible and convenient for all EV drivers. Learn more: https://t.co/V92t5FDryQ
— EVgo Fast Charging Network (@evgonetwork) November 5, 2026
The new location uses Tesla’s Magic Dock technology so both NACS and CCS vehicles can plug in natively without drivers needing to carry their own adapters. Peak power reaches 325 kW at this site, with pricing set between $0.25 and $0.35 per kWh depending on the hour—the same rate for Tesla and non-Tesla drivers.
The stalls also appear in Tesla’s in-car navigation and Trip Planner, making them easy for Tesla owners to find and route to. Illinois has seen EV registrations rise nearly 60 percent over the past two years, and EVgo’s broader network has experienced more than 700 percent growth in charging demand over three years, so the timing fits the market’s trajectory.
Choosing Tesla hardware through the Supercharger for Business program turns out to have been a smart, practical move.
Tesla’s V4 stalls and cabinets deliver high, reliable power with a proven track record of strong uptime, while Magic Dock delivers true dual-standard compatibility in one package. Because the sites show up in Tesla’s navigation tools, EVgo instantly gains visibility among millions of existing Tesla drivers, which should raise utilization and help the company double its addressable market as more vehicles adopt NACS. EVgo still owns the stations and sets pricing, yet benefits from Tesla’s established hardware, longer cables, and operational support.
The result is faster, lower-risk infrastructure expansion that serves every EV driver—Tesla or otherwise—with convenient, high-power charging at everyday retail locations. For drivers, that means fewer adapters, more predictable stops, and a denser network just as electric vehicles become everyday transportation.
Tesla is ending Cybertruck production
SpaceX’s next Starship flight set to make history on Friday the 13th
