News
SpaceX’s first thrice-flown Cargo Dragon returns from orbit with Starship tiles intact
After a flawless reentry and splashdown on August 27th, SpaceX’s first thrice-flown Cargo Dragon spacecraft completed its latest mission, arriving in Port of Los Angeles aboard SpaceX vessel NRC Quest.
The successful completion of NASA Commercial Resupply Mission 18 (CRS-18) means that SpaceX is officially the first and only company to launch the same orbital spacecraft three times. Meanwhile, Cargo Dragon capsule C108 also happened to mark the first known orbital flight test of hardware that may be destined for use on SpaceX’s next-generation Starship launch vehicle, taking the shape of four ceramic tiles installed as part of its ablative PICA-X heat shield.
Cargo Dragon’s CRS-18 mission successfully lifted off on its way to the International Space Station (ISS) on July 25th and was berthed to the ISS roughly two days later, completed its delivery of several tons worth of cargo. During the launch webcast, one of the SpaceX hosts noted that black tiles visible on Cargo Dragon’s heat shield – distinct beside its silvery water-sealed PICA-X tiles – were prototypes of a ceramic heat shield material being analyzed for possible use on Starship.
CEO Elon Musk confirmed this after the first launch attempt was scrubbed by weather, stating that SpaceX was looking into the use of “thin [ceramic] tiles” to protect Starship’s windward (atmosphere-facing) half during orbital reentries. Prior to this development, Musk had proposed and posted videos of real-world tests of a steel Starship heat shield concept, in which extra energy could be wicked away by ‘transpiring’ liquid oxygen or methane through microscopic holes on each tile’s leading edge.
Although particular species of stainless steel do feature exceptionally high melting points and structural characteristics at ultra-high temperatures (> 1400C/2500F), some unofficial analyses of the numbers involved indicated that the density and weight of steel could rapidly hinder any benefits derived from its use as a heat shield. Musk appeared to confirm this in his July 24th comments, indicating that thin ceramic tiles on the windward side and nothing on the leeward side of Starship looked like the “lightest option”.
Indeed, ceramics were so prevalent on the Space Shuttle – the only semi-routinely reusable space plane ever developed – in large part because they can be made spectacularly light. The Shuttle’s main ceramic tiles had a density of 155 kg/m³ (9 lb/ft³), about five times denser than styrofoam or roughly the same density as freshly-fallen snow and balsa wood. Stainless steel is about 50 times denser, on average. To use Musk’s own 2017 turn-of-phrase, adding thick steel tiles to Starship’s already-steel skin was probably a bit too much like “building a box in a box”, whereas prioritizing ceramic tiles presumably cuts the shield’s mass by a factor of something like 20-100+.
Although the Shuttle did make extensive use of ceramic shielding, that shielding – specifically, reinforced carbon-carbon (RCC) tiles about as fragile as the material people are familiar with – and a mixture of organizational ineptitude infamously lead to the death 7 NASA astronauts and was generally a nightmare to deal with. SpaceX certainly won’t have to deal with the foam and solid rocket boosters that a lot of Shuttle’s ceramic problems can be traced to, but the company will likely be laser-focused on producing a form of ceramic shielding that isn’t nearly as fragile as Shuttle-derived materials.
The fact that Cargo Dragon’s ceramic Starship tile prototypes appear to be almost completely unscathed after their first orbital reentry is an excellent sign that SpaceX is making progress in the materials design and certification department, or is at least taking flight-testing extremely seriously.
SpaceX CEO Elon Musk is expected to provide an official update on Starship no earlier than late September, a presentation that will likely include details about the route the company is taking with the massive spaceship’s heat shielding.
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Investor's Corner
Elon Musk drops a Thanksgiving hint about Starship’s biggest test yet
Elon Musk says Starship Flight 15 will try to catch the ship itself, a first.
Elon Musk says SpaceX’s next Starship flight will try something nobody has done before, by catching the ship itself. Speaking to roughly 2,000 people at the X Takeover event at Giga Texas on Saturday, Musk said Flight 15 is about four to six weeks away and “probably launches a little bit before Thanksgiving, is my guess.”
That is a slip from earlier reporting, which had pointed to a launch as early as October 19. Musk explained why the date keeps moving. “We’re making a bunch of improvements to the rocket between every flight,” he said, adding that there are often hundreds, sometimes thousands, of small changes. This time the list is short, “but some of them take a fair bit of work and we’ve got to go inside the tank to make some of these changes.”
“We’re going to try to catch the ship, which is a super big deal,” Musk said. “If we do so, that’ll be the first time that there’s been full recovery of an orbital class rocket.” SpaceX has already caught the Super Heavy booster with the tower’s mechanical arms, and has talked about catching the ship since late 2025, but the upper stage has never been caught.
Musk also laid out what comes after. “The next big milestone would be to refly both the booster and the ship,” he said, describing a Flight 16 where “all parts of an orbital rocket are reflown.”
The reason SpaceX wants this comes down to cost and cadence. Every Starship ship so far has ended its flight in the ocean, and SpaceX expects most of those water landings to end in fireballs. A ship that returns to Starbase intact can be inspected and flown again. SpaceX’s IPO filing, says Starship V3 is designed to deliver 100 metric tons to orbit in a fully reusable configuration, that SpaceX aims to cut the cost to reach orbit by 99% or more versus the historical average, and that tower catches should allow “multiple launches per day.”
The payoff goes beyond cheaper launches. The next generation Starlink V3 satellites are too large for Falcon 9 and can only fly on Starship, which can carry up to 60 per flight. Flight 14 on September 28 deployed the first 26 of them after Starship reached orbit despite an early engine shutdown, as Teslarati reported. Musk blamed engine computer software, and said the heat shield “was extremely robust,” which he claimed in August had solved Starship’s biggest challenge.
NASA’s Moon plans depend on the same capability. NASA’s inspector general has described a lander mission that needs a propellant depot in low Earth orbit and more than 10 tanker flights, with SpaceX targeting one tanker launch every six days. That schedule only works if ships and boosters come back fast and fly again. Also, ship to ship propellant transfer has not been attempted yet.
One interesting hurdle yet to be explored is bringing the ship back to the launch site, with reentry over land, which will undoubtedly come with a lot of aviation safety reviews.
Lifestyle
Tesla’s mirrorless Cybercab will give riders a visibility upgrade
Tesla engineer confirms Cybercab update letting riders pull up rear and repeater cameras on demand.
Tesla is working on a Cybercab update that would let passengers pull up the vehicle’s rear and side cameras on demand, and the request came straight from a rider.
The exchange played out on X late Friday. Cybercab rider Dan Burkland shared photos of the two-seater’s cabin screen after an evening ride, praised the UI team’s work, and left one request: let riders open the rear and repeater cameras whenever they want, “especially for peace of mind.” Tesla UI software engineer Evan (@CarCoder) answered with two words: “In development.”
The Tesla UI team absolutely crushed it with the infotainment software. Nicely done @CarCoder!
One feature request: Allow folks to pull up the rear & repeater cameras on demand. This would be great especially for peace of mind. https://t.co/mNAOSLx6pE
— Dan Burkland (@DBurkland) October 10, 2026
The idea fits a pattern Teslarati has tracked since public rides began. Days after paid Cybercab service opened in Austin, Tesla sent riders a survey that asked them to rate the touchscreen, the app and the cabin, and to pick the features they wanted most. We reported on that survey in September, and a camera view is the kind of small software change Tesla can push quickly if riders keep asking.
It also speaks to something unique about the vehicle. With no steering wheel, no pedals and no driver, passengers have no mirror to check and no way to see behind them. The hardware is clearly built for camera awareness, from the repeater cameras to the rear camera. Letting a passenger look through those same cameras would give a nervous first time rider a way to confirm what is around the car.
The timing matters because the fleet is growing fast. Tesla’s Robotaxi account said on Saturday that more than 300 Cybercabs are now serving Austin, an eightfold increase in 30 days, and Tesla AI chief Ashok Elluswamy named Dallas as the next city. More cars and more cities mean more people riding in a driverless vehicle for the first time, which is exactly when small trust features carry weight.
For now, the feature is confirmed only as in development. If Tesla follows its usual pattern with Cybercab software, riders could see it appear in a point release without any announcement, and Teslarati will watch for it.
News
Tesla’s Cybercab fleet jumped 8x in a month, with Dallas up next
Tesla confirms its first official Cybercab fleet number as Austin scales fast and Dallas looms.
Tesla says more than 300 Cybercabs are now serving Austin, the first time the company has put an official number on its active Cybercab fleet. The figure came from the Robotaxi account on X on Saturday, which wrote that one month after launch the service had “scaled to 300+ Cybercabs serving Austin – an 8x increase in 30 days.”
Ashok Elluswamy, Tesla’s head of AI software, quoted the post with a line that carried the bigger news. “Two years since the 10/10 Cybercab WeRobot event, the cabs are everywhere in Austin now. Dallas soon,” he wrote. It is the first time Tesla has named the next city for public Cybercab rides.
One month after launch, we’ve scaled to 300+ Cybercabs serving Austin – an 8x increase in 30 days https://t.co/EagJy2JAsm
— Robotaxi (@robotaxi) October 10, 2026
Tesla opened Cybercab rides to the public in Austin on September 4, as Teslarati reported, a day after an invite only launch event. The ramp since then has been steep. Our September 28 report had the fleet at well over 100 units after availability jumped from 58 to 125 in a single week. On Thursday, Tesla added 150 Cybercabs to the Texas automated vehicle registry, lifting its registered count to 319 from 169. The first seven appeared on the registry on August 31.
RobotaxiTracker, a community site that counts vehicles from sightings and state records, listed 275 vehicles in unsupervised service in Austin on Saturday, 105 of them Cybercabs, which is well below Tesla’s figure. Tracker counts can lag official numbers, though Sawyer Merritt noted that Cybercab wait times in Austin stayed short on Saturday evening even with more than 2,000 fans in town for X Takeover.
Regulators are watching the rollout. NHTSA opened an audit query into Tesla’s certification that the Cybercab meets federal safety standards, and sworn answers are due October 30. Tesla reports third quarter earnings on October 21, which gives the company a natural venue to define its fleet numbers and put a date on Dallas.
Elon Musk drops a Thanksgiving hint about Starship’s biggest test yet
Tesla’s mirrorless Cybercab will give riders a visibility upgrade
Tesla’s Cybercab fleet jumped 8x in a month, with Dallas up next
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