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SpaceX moves Super Heavy booster to make room for Mechazilla arm installation
For the second time, SpaceX has removed the first potentially flightworthy Super Heavy from Starbase’s orbital launch mount – this time to reportedly make room for the installation of a pair of huge ‘Mechazilla’ arms.
Designed with three primary purposes in mind, SpaceX has decided to outfit Starbase’s Starship launch tower – an almost 500 ft (150m) tall framework – with three massive arms that CEO Elon Musk has informally deemed “Mechazilla.” The first of those arms is a relatively simple swinging structure that has already been installed on the tower and outfitted with a giant claw-like appendage. Once a few more parts are installed and a bit more plumbing completed, that “quick disconnect arm” or QD arm will help stabilize Super Heavy during Starship installation and connect the massive reusable upper stage to the pad’s tank farm and power supplies while still on the ground.
The star of the show, though, has always been a pair of even larger arms that are hoped to one day all SpaceX to catch Super Heavy boosters and Starships out of the air.
Of course, those catcher arms – deemed chopsticks by SpaceX employees – have more than one purpose. Likely explaining why they were ever considered in the first place, SpaceX’s Starbase launch site – situated walking distance from the Gulf of Mexico on the South Texas coast – was always going to have to deal with extreme weather and high winds on a practically daily basis. Additionally, conditions that are already disruptive at sea level become a near-constant nightmare for vertical launch vehicle integration, where Starship and Super Heavy are effectively hollow cylinders with extensive surface areas that need to be regularly and precisely manipulated 50-150m (200-450 ft) above the ground.
Already, SpaceX regularly has to halt work involving cranes and boom lifts at Starbase. For Starbase (Boca Chica) to ever be able to support regular orbital Starship launches, let alone the dozens to hundreds per year Musk has hinted at, cranes were never going to be a viable long-term solution for the all-weather capabilities and rapid reusability SpaceX requires. In other words, whether SpaceX ever actually manages to routinely ‘catch’ the world’s largest rocket booster and upper stage in the future, a tower with giant arms (or some other exotic crane-free solution) was always going to be needed at Starbase.
Mauricio, thanks for the shout-out. I got some great feedback from folks and updated this diagram once more. Added another @NicAnsuini photo to show the scale of these parts! pic.twitter.com/o54hdBITfL— LunarCaveman (@LunarCaveman) September 16, 2021
This is all to say that the Starship launch tower’s massive pair of arms – (in)famous for Musk’s plans to catch rockets – have a more immediate and guaranteed purpose: lifting, stacking, and otherwise manipulating Starship and Super Heavy in almost all weather conditions. Using tiny hardpoints located just under Super Heavy’s grid fins and (once installed) under Starship’s forward flaps, the chopstick arms will be mounted on a carriage that will attach to rails installed on the exterior of three of the tower’s arms. A complex system of cables, winches, motors, and pulleys will then attach to that carriage, giving the carriage and its arms the ability to move up and down the tower.
In theory, that means that the launch tower arms will be able to drop down, grab Super Heavy off of a SpaceX transporter, and lift it onto the orbital launch mount. Then, once the quick disconnect arm has swung into place and ‘grabbed’ Super Heavy’s interstage to secure it, the main arms will again drop down, grab Starship off of another transporter, and raise the 50m (~165 ft) rocket around 100m off the ground to install it on top of Super Heavy. Finally, the QD arm can then connect Starship to the pad systems.
SpaceX has been working around the clock on those chopstick arms for months. However, thanks to information shared by a forum member who visited Starbase and briefly chatted with one of the SpaceX technicians on-site, they might be almost finished. According to the employee they spoke with, SpaceX planned to temporarily remove Super Heavy Booster 4 from the orbital launch mount to make room for Mechazilla chopstick arm installation as early as this weekend (now come and gone) or next week. Mere days later, SpaceX returned B4 to a transport stand and moved the booster out of the way. In other words, having already been proven right with Super Heavy, it appears that SpaceX really does intend to install the Starship launch tower’s chopstick arms and carriage as early as this week. Stay tuned for more!
Elon Musk
SpaceX just got the green light Starship has waited years for
The FAA has cleared Starship Flight 14, setting up SpaceX’s first orbital attempt on Monday.
SpaceX has cleared the last regulatory hurdle standing between Starship and its first trip to orbit. The Federal Aviation Administration issued the launch license for Starship Flight 14 late Saturday, keeping the mission on track for liftoff Monday, September 28, from Pad 2 at Starbase, Texas.
The 75 minute launch window opens at 7:15 a.m. Central, and Boca Chica Beach closures are also scheduled for September 29 and 30 as backup dates. This will be Starship’s first revenue generating mission.
The license was the missing piece after SpaceX completed a full wet dress rehearsal with Booster 21 and Ship 41 on September 24. At the time, the company said the flight remained on track pending regulatory approval. Because Flight 14 flies an orbital profile, the FAA had to sign off on a modified license that met its safety, payload and financial responsibility requirements.
Observers combing through the new FAA paperwork also noticed that lightning no longer appears among Starship’s listed launch hazards. If that holds, it matters more for where Starship is headed than for Monday’s attempt. Florida and Louisiana, home to LC-39A and the planned Starbase Louisiana site, see some of the most frequent lightning in the United States.
SpaceX tells the FCC that Starship Flight 14 is going to orbit
Flight 14 is the mission SpaceX has been building toward for months. Ship 41 will carry 26 Starlink V3 satellites, the first operational V3 units to be deployed, and attempt roughly six orbits at about 275 kilometers over a flight lasting just under 10 hours. SpaceX says the ship will only perform its orbital insertion burn after flight controllers confirm enough hardware redundancy remains for the deorbit burn at the end of the mission. Ship 41 is targeting a splashdown in the Pacific west of Chile, while Super Heavy will return to the Gulf of Mexico.
The date carries some symbolism as well. A Monday launch would come 10 years and one day after Elon Musk first presented the Interplanetary Transport System, the design that became Starship, at the International Astronautical Congress in Guadalajara, Mexico.
SpaceX has not announced what comes next, but air traffic planning slides reported this week, list Flight 15 no earlier than October 19 and a first Starship launch from LC-39A in Florida no earlier than October 30. Both dates depend on how Monday goes.
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SpaceX completes another secret Pentagon launch, adding to suspected Starshield buildout
SpaceX launched the classified USSF-385 mission from Vandenberg, landing its booster on a tenth flight.
SpaceX launched another classified mission for the U.S. Space Force from California early Saturday morning, and the Falcon 9 booster that carried it landed on a drone ship in the Pacific for the tenth time. The USSF-385 mission lifted off from Space Launch Complex 4E at Vandenberg Space Force Base at 7:00 a.m. PT.
Booster B1100 touched down on Of Course I Still Love You roughly eight and a half minutes after liftoff. It was the booster’s tenth flight and tenth successful landing, following the NROL-95 national security mission and eight Starlink launches. Its previous flight, a Starlink Group 15 mission on August 22, came just 35 days earlier. SpaceX ended its livestream shortly after the landing, which is standard for classified payloads, and neither the company nor the Space Force has said what the rocket carried.
Watch Falcon 9 launch the USSF-385 mission from pad 4E in California https://t.co/CAdbx85Ydy
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) September 26, 2026
USSF-385 is the fourth Space Force launch from the same Vandenberg pad in roughly six weeks, following USSF-366 on August 15, USSF-153 on September 10, and USSF-259 on September 17. When SpaceX flew USSF-366 in August, independent trackers noted that the rocket’s stage drop zones matched SpaceX’s Starlink Group 15 missions, pointing to Starshield, the government version of the Starlink satellite bus. The Space Force later cataloged 23 satellites after both USSF-366 and USSF-153, while USSF-259 placed 17 satellites into a different orbital plane, per KeepTrack. Launch databases describe USSF-385 the same way, though the payload remains officially unidentified.
The cadence lines up with the contracts, because in July, the Space Force awarded SpaceX $1.6 billion in task orders for 18 Falcon 9 missions from Vandenberg through the end of 2027. SpaceX also holds contracts to build pieces of that same network, which pushed its Pentagon contract total for 2026 past $8 billion.
Saturday’s flight was also the sixth and final Falcon 9 launch from Vandenberg in September, according to Spaceflight Now, while only one Falcon 9 flew from the East Coast this month as SpaceX shifts its Florida infrastructure toward Starship. Launch trackers list it as SpaceX’s 112th mission of 2026 and the 108th Falcon 9 flight of the year, with SLC-4E turned around about six and a half days after its previous launch.
The West Coast pad will not stay quiet for long, considering SpaceX has another Starlink mission scheduled from SLC-4E on September 30. Meanwhile, in Texas, the company is two days away from Starship Flight 14, which is targeting Monday at 7:15 a.m. CT for the vehicle’s first attempt to reach orbit.
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Tesla hints at new Roadster design in surprise clip
Tesla ended its Semi event with a Roadster teaser revealing a new front light bar.
Tesla closed out its Semi event in Nevada on Thursday night with a nod to its own history, dropping a short Roadster teaser that suggests the production car will look noticeably different from the prototype first shown in 2017.
“We can’t have a Semi event without the Roadster,” Tesla engineering executive Lars Moravy told the crowd before the clip played. The line was a deliberate callback. Tesla first revealed the next generation Roadster in November 2017 by driving it out of the back of a Semi trailer at the truck’s original unveiling in Hawthorne, California.
The new video opens on trailer doors swinging apart in the dark. A thin white light bar glows across what appears to be the nose of the car, Tesla and SpaceX logos flash over the frame, and the Roadster name appears before the clip ends on “See you next week.” Tesla posted the nine second clip on X after the livestream wrapped.
See you next week pic.twitter.com/BT52bGVxFu
— Tesla (@Tesla) September 25, 2026
The light bar is the most concrete design detail so far. The 2017 prototype used two separate curved headlamp pods, while a connected front light strip would bring the Roadster in line with the Cybertruck, Cybercab, Semi, and refreshed Model Y. Sawyer Merritt was among the first to point out what looked like part of a SpaceX logo in the video, something Tesla has not addressed.
That logo fits the buildup around the optional SpaceX Package, which Elon Musk has long said would use cold gas thrusters to improve acceleration and possibly allow the car to briefly leave the ground. Tesla’s “Go for launch” post on September 12 set the October 1 date, and invitations sent to reservation holders place the event in Waco, Texas, at 8:30 p.m. Eastern. Waco sits roughly 20 minutes from SpaceX’s McGregor rocket test site, where the FAA has put a temporary flight restriction in place from September 18 through October 2, covering a 1.5 nautical mile radius from the surface up to 10,000 feet.
Tesla is also taking money ahead of the reveal. The company reopened Roadster reservations earlier this week with a $5,000 refundable card payment, followed by a $45,000 wire transfer due within 10 days. That puts buyers at $50,000 committed before Tesla has published a price.
The original pitch set a high bar: 0 to 60 mph in 1.9 seconds before any upgrades, 620 miles of range, a top speed above 250 mph, and production in 2020. That timeline has slipped repeatedly, and Tesla has since pointed to production at Gigafactory Texas no earlier than 2027. The company has said next Thursday’s event will include pricing, specifications, and production targets, the three details original reservation holders have been waiting on for nearly nine years.
SpaceX just got the green light Starship has waited years for
SpaceX completes another secret Pentagon launch, adding to suspected Starshield buildout
