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SpaceX Starship prototype kicks off gauntlet of tests for the fifth time
Hours after a successful Falcon 9 launch, a SpaceX Starship prototype has kicked off a challenging gauntlet of tests for the fifth time in hopes of becoming the first to take flight.
Five days after the ~30m (~100 ft) tall steel rocket was transported from the factory to the launch pad, SpaceX has fully integrated it with a brand new launch mount – built from scratch after operator error caused Starship SN4 to explode and destroy the prior mount. Assembled and outfitted with great haste, the new mount was completed just a day or two before Starship SN5 was moved to the pad and installed on top of it.
Triggered by a quick disconnect umbilical panel fuel leak that effectively caused a bomb-like fuel-air explosion, Starship SN4’s May 29th demise occurred shortly after a Raptor static fire test that was likely one of the last hurdles standing between SpaceX and the first full-scale Starship flight test. That fated static fire itself occurred a single day after SpaceX crossed a major regulatory milestone with an official FAA launch license for an effectively unlimited number of suborbital Starship flights. Now transformed into a pile of scorched scrap metal, Starship SN4 has passed the torch to Starship SN5.
Effectively identical to the gauntlet of tests Starship SN4 completed in the weeks prior to its destruction, Starship SN5 has kicked off its own test campaign with an ambient pressure test – a low-risk method of checking a pressure vessel for leaks. Starship SN5 apparently passed that first test without issue and SpaceX is now in the midst of loading the rocket tank section with cryogenic liquid nitrogen as a chemically neutral and nonexplosive stand-in for live liquid oxygen and methane propellant. (SN4 serves as a perfect illustration of why initial cryo proof tests are performed with LN2 instead of real propellant.)
SN4 was actually the first full-scale Starship prototype to survive a full cryogenic proof test, achieving 7.5 bar (~110 psi), so SN5’s success is far from guaranteed. Still, given SpaceX’s iterative, clockwork-like approach to development means that it’s far more likely than not that Starship SN5 will pass all the tests that its predecessor did – and then some.
If Starship SN5’s cryo proof is successful, SpaceX has a few options available. Depending on the level of confidence in SN5, SpaceX could proceed directly into installing a single Raptor engine on the rocket’s triple-engine thrust structure and move on to wet dress rehearsals (WDRs) with methane and oxygen propellant. If a more cautious approach is preferred, SpaceX could perform a WDR or two before installing a Raptor engine. Either way, once the WDR phase is complete, Starship SN5 can begin live Raptor engine testing, starting with turbopump prime and preburner tests and culminating in one or several static fires.
Finally, once preburner and static fires have been completed without issue, SpaceX can begin to seriously prepare SN5 for its inaugural hop test, likely targeting an altitude of ~150m (~500 ft) before landing a few hundred feet from the launch mount. For now, many steps remain in the interim before Starship SN5 is even close to a hop test, but it shouldn’t take long to find out how long we’ll have to wait.
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Elon Musk
SpaceX Starship just nailed something it’s never done before
SpaceX’s Starship flew successfully Friday, landing both stages and deploying its first Starlink V3 satellites.
Starship’s thirteenth test flight delivered exactly what SpaceX needed with a clean liftoff, two successful stage recoveries, and the first real payload the vehicle has ever carried to space. Booster 20 and Ship 40 lifted off at 5:51 p.m. CT from Starbase, and by the time the mission wrapped roughly an hour later, both halves of the rocket had done exactly what they were supposed to do.
Booster 20 separated from Ship 40 a few minutes into the flight and stuck a controlled splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico about six minutes after liftoff. That is a meaningful turnaround from Flight 12 in May, when the booster lost several engines during its boostback burn before a hard water landing attempt.
Starship as seen from Starlink satellites pic.twitter.com/e2hvfmnewh
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 25, 2026
Starship 40’s performance was arguably the bigger win. The vehicle deployed the first 20 operational Starlink V3 satellites Starship has ever carried, then flew a suborbital arc to a landing in the Indian Ocean that SpaceX commentator Dan Huot called the company’s softest splashdown yet. “This is a dream scenario for this team that’s trying to get this heat shield data,” Huot said on the live broadcast, according to Space.com’s live coverage. “I’m a little over the moon right now. Wow. Lucky number 13.”
Unlike the mass simulators SpaceX flew on Flight 12, these were production Starlink V3 satellites, meant to extend solar arrays and antennas and attempt to link with the broader constellation before reentering minutes later. Getting real hardware through a full deploy sequence on only the second flight of the V3 generation keeps Starship on schedule for the payload work NASA is counting on for future Artemis lunar landings.
What an awesome launch, really seems like everything went super well and it was all incredibly smooth.
SpaceX is awesome. Very interested to see how the market will respond on Monday pic.twitter.com/KSHmyBfV55
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) July 25, 2026
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) July 25, 2026
The flight also arrives at a moment when SpaceX needed a win. SPCX has traded below its $135 IPO price since mid-July, as Teslarati reported when the mission slipped to Friday, and short interest has climbed to roughly a third of the tradable float. A clean flight will not fix a balance sheet, but it does answer the one question SpaceX absolutely needed answered this week: whether the fixes made after the July 16 abort would hold up under real flight conditions. They did, on both stages, on the first try after the redesign.
SpaceX has not set a target date for Flight 14, though the company has said it wants to push toward an orbital attempt on the next mission. After Friday, that goal looks a lot more within reach.
Tesla’s Supercharger Diner in Los Angeles dominated the company’s global usage rankings after just one year, proving the concept is more than just a one-off novelty location that will fade away.
The performance could incite the company to build more locations, something that CEO Elon Musk has hinted at for some time.
Tesla’s Supercharger Diner delivered 21.2 GWh of energy in its first year of operation, the company’s head of Charging, Max de Zegher, revealed on X. Of the top 10 most utilized Supercharger locations in Tesla’s global infrastructure, the Diner in Los Angeles was the most used by drivers, and it wasn’t particularly close:
Tesla Diner opened exactly 1 year ago. Inspiring that futuristic places like this exist.
It’s our highest usage Supercharger in the world: 21.2 GWh delivered in a year, 1.6k sessions/day.
Top 10 Superchargers by energy delivered: https://t.co/9YvJ8lw696 pic.twitter.com/koB3AUJHws
— Max (@MdeZegher) July 21, 2026
On its launch day one year ago, nobody was too sure what the Tesla Diner would be about. It seemed like an interesting concept, and considering it had been in the works for years, it was a highly anticipated launch that many were looking forward to.
Based on its success, we could see additional Diners with Superchargers built throughout the United States, and potentially beyond. Musk has said on several occasions that the company would be willing to bring the Diner idea to more markets.
Tesla makes major change at Supercharger Diner amid epic demand
Of the markets that Musk has mentioned, both Palo Alto and Austin have come to be perceived as ideal selections. However, there are no concrete plans as of now to build new Supercharger Diners anywhere; the location on Santa Monica Boulevard will remain the exclusive spot to pick up Tesla-inspired eats, at least for the time being.
Tesla short sellers won big following the company’s massive fall on Wall Street after it reported subpar Earnings on Wednesday.
Tesla short sellers collected about $4.12 billion in single-day profits on Thursday, according to Bloomberg. Shares fell as much as 15 percent during Thursday’s session. It closed as one of the worst days for Tesla on Wall Street in the past three years.
Investors sold off the stock after Tesla said it would aggressively direct its spending toward AI and its Optimus robot project. The company had record revenues, which were driven by one of the strongest quarters in terms of vehicle deliveries in company history.
However, it missed EPS estimates by reporting just $0.33, a far cry from the $0.53 analysts expected.
S3 Partners reported that about 3 percent of Tesla’s outstanding stock is sold short. Managing Director at S3, Ihor Dusaniwsky, provided the short seller’s potential profit, as well as another figure: shorts have likely had paper gains of $8.92 billion this year, as Tesla shares are down 30 percent in 2026.
Tesla (TSLA) Q2 2026 earnings results: miss on EPS, beat on revenue
Tesla has burned short sellers many times in the past, but the company’s latest Earnings Call was a chance for those skeptics to taste some payback. Although the company gave some very transparent information regarding future projects, the rollout of Robotaxi, Optimus, and Semi, many investors took their profits on Thursday.
Notable short sellers like Michael Burry have been transparent about their skepticism around Tesla shares. Burry just revealed three weeks ago that he had opened up a new short on the stock, stating he shorted Tesla shares at $416.22. “Happy it jumped back to this level,” he said in a blog post.
At the time of publication, Tesla shares were down about 3 percent and the stock was trading at $309.92.
SpaceX Starship just nailed something it’s never done before
Tesla’s Supercharger Diner probably just secured more locations
