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SpaceX Starship prototype kicks off gauntlet of tests for the fifth time

SpaceX's fifth full-scale Starship prototype has kicked off a gauntlet of tests just hours after a Falcon 9 launch. (NASASpaceflight - bocachicagal)

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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.

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SpaceX’s fifth full-scale Starship prototype has kicked off a gauntlet of tests just hours after a Falcon 9 launch. (NASASpaceflight – bocachicagal)

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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Eric Ralph is Teslarati's senior spaceflight reporter and has been covering the industry in some capacity for almost half a decade, largely spurred in 2016 by a trip to Mexico to watch Elon Musk reveal SpaceX's plans for Mars in person. Aside from spreading interest and excitement about spaceflight far and wide, his primary goal is to cover humanity's ongoing efforts to expand beyond Earth to the Moon, Mars, and elsewhere.

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Tesla says texting and driving capability is coming ‘in a month or two’

“In the next month or two, we’re going to look at the safety statistics, but we’re going to allow you to text and drive, essentially.”

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Credit: Tesla

Tesla CEO Elon Musk said that within the next month or two, the company will be able to open the ability for people to text and drive because its Full Self-Driving suite will be robust enough to allow drivers to take their attention away from the road.

In its current state, Tesla Full Self-Driving is a supervised driver assistance suite that requires the vehicle operator to maintain control of the vehicle and pay attention to the road surroundings.

However, the company has been aiming to release a fully autonomous version of the Full Self-Driving suite for years, teasing its future potential and aiming to release a Level 5 suite as soon as possible.

CEO Elon Musk believes the company is on the cusp of something drastic, according to what he said at yesterday’s Annual Shareholder Meeting.

One thing Musk hinted at was that the company should be able to allow those sitting in the driver’s seat of their cars to text and drive “in the next month or two,” as long as the statistics look good.

He said:

“In the next month or two, we’re going to look at the safety statistics, but we’re going to allow you to text and drive, essentially.”

The company recently transitioned to its v14 Full Self-Driving suite, which is its most robust to date, and recently expanded to Cybertruck, completing its rollout across the vehicle lineup.

Currently, Tesla is running v14.1.5, and when major improvements are made, that second number will increase, meaning v14.2 will be the next substantial improvement.

Musk said that v14.3 will be when you can “pretty much fall asleep and wake up at your destination.”

We’ve heard a considerable amount of similar statements in the past, and Tesla owners have been conditioned to take some of these timeframes with autonomous driving with a grain of salt.

However, with the upgrades in FSD over the past few months, especially with the rollout of Robotaxi in Austin, which does not utilize anyone in the driver’s seat for local roads, it does not seem as if autonomy is that far off for Tesla.

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Tesla Semi undergoes major redesign as dedicated factory preps for deliveries

The Semi has been one of the most anticipated products in the Tesla lineup due to the disruption it could cause in the trucking industry.

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Tesla put its all-electric Semi truck through quite a major redesign as its dedicated factory for the vehicle is preparing for initial deliveries to the public starting next year.

The Semi has been one of the most anticipated products in the Tesla lineup due to the disruption it could cause in the trucking industry.

It has already been in numerous pilot programs for some pretty large companies over the past couple of years, PepsiCo. being one of them, and it is moving toward first deliveries to other companies sometime in 2026.

Yesterday at the 2025 Annual Shareholder Meeting, Tesla unveiled its new Semi design, which underwent a pretty significant facelift to match the aesthetic and vibe of the other vehicles in the company’s lineup.

Additionally, Tesla announced some other improvements, including changes to efficiency, and some other changes that we did not get details on yet.

The first change was to the design of the Semi, as Tesla adopted its blade-like light bar for the Class 8 truck, similar to the one that is used on the new Model Y and the Cybertruck:

There also appear to be a handful of design changes that help with aerodynamics, as its efficiency has increased to 1.7 kWh per mile.

Tesla also said it has an increased payload capability, which will help companies to haul more goods per trip.

All of these changes come as the company’s Semi Factory, which is located on the same property as its Gigafactory in Reno, Nevada, is just finishing up. In late October, it was shown that the Semi facility is nearly complete, based on recent drone imagery from factory observer HinrichsZane on X:

Tesla Semi factory looks nearly complete

The factory will be capable of producing about 50,000 Tesla Semi units annually when it is completely ramped. The company has major plans to help get the Semi in more fleets across the United States.

Other entities are also working to develop a charging corridor for electric Class 8 trucks. The State of California was awarded $102 million to develop a charging corridor that spans from Washington to Southern California.

Another corridor is being developed that spans from Southern California to Texas, and 49 applicants won $636 million from the Department of Transportation for it.

Tesla requested funding for it, but was denied.

The Semi has been a staple in several companies’ fleets over the past few years, most notably that of Frito-Lay and PepsiCo., who have reported positive experiences thus far.

Musk said last year that the Semi had “ridiculous demand.”

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Tesla Cybercab production starts Q2 2026, Elon Musk confirms

Elon Musk highlighted that the fully autonomous vehicle will be the first Tesla designed specifically for unsupervised self-driving.

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Credit: Tesla/X

Tesla CEO Elon Musk confirmed that production of the company’s autonomous Cybercab will begin in April 2026, and its production targets will be quite ambitious. 

Speaking at Tesla’s 2025 Annual Shareholder Meeting, Musk highlighted that the fully autonomous vehicle will be the first Tesla designed specifically for unsupervised self-driving.

A robotaxi built for an autonomous world

Musk described the Cybercab as a clean-slate design optimized for autonomy, with no steering wheel, pedals, or side mirrors. “It’s very much optimized for the lowest cost per mile in an autonomous mode,” Musk said, adding that every Tesla produced in recent years already carries the hardware needed for full self-driving.

The Cybercab will be assembled at Giga Texas and will serve as the company’s flagship entry into the commercial robotaxi market. Musk emphasized that the project represents Tesla’s next evolutionary step in combining vehicle manufacturing, artificial intelligence, and mobility services.

One Cybercab every ten seconds

Musk reiterated that the Cybercab’s production process is more closely modeled on consumer electronics assembly than on traditional automotive manufacturing. This should pave the way for outputs that far exceed conventional automotive products.

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“That production is happening right here in this factory, and we’ll be starting production in April next year. The manufacturing system is unlike any other car. The manufacturing system of the Cybercab, it’s closer to a high volume consumer electronics device than it is a car manufacturing line. So the net result is that I think we should be able to achieve, I think, ultimately, less than a 10-second cycle time, basically a unit every 10 seconds.

“What that would mean is you could get on a line that would normally produce, say, 500,000 cars a year at a one minute cycle time, Model Y. This would be maybe as much as 2 million or 3 million, maybe ultimately it’s theoretically possible to achieve a 5 million unit production line if you can get to the 5-second cycle time,” the CEO said.

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