News
US Air Force issues RFP for massive rockets, SpaceX’s BFR could be one of them
The US Air Force has released a Request For Proposal (RFP) that hopes to fund the development of multiple heavy-lift rocket prototypes to launch no later than 2021. The USAF specified on October 5 that it wants to partially fund prototype development for at least three promising US-sourced launch vehicles, while maintaining the options to select none of the proposals or even more than three. The purpose of these broad strokes is to provide the Air Force and US military in general redundant access to space by way of “at least two domestic…launch service providers” capable of meeting National Security Space (NSS) requirements.
However unlikely it may seem, NASA experienced this firsthand when two of the vehicles it funded, SpaceX’s Falcon 9 and Orbital-ATK’s Antares, experienced complete failures within less than a year of each other. Both vehicle failures destroyed supplies intended for the International Space Station and forced NASA to rely on Soyuz missions to fill the gaps created while producing considerable uncertainty for the agency. By funding two or more independent launch vehicles, the Air Force would lessen the impact of such failures, and this assured access is rightly perceived as an invaluable commodity in the military.
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- .While SpaceX’s own visualizations are gorgeous and thrilling in their own rights, Romax’s interpretation adds an unparalleled level of shock and awe. (SpaceX)
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- A render of Blue Origin’s larger New Glenn vehicle. (Blue Origin)
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- The only current render of OATK’s Next Generation Launcher. (OATK)
Several details in the latest proposal make it relatively easy to name the obvious prospective applicants. The payload requirements necessitate heavy lift or even super-heavy lift launch vehicles capable of placing anywhere from 5,000 to 37,500 pounds into a variety of Earth orbits, ranging from low Earth orbit (~500 mi) to direct transfer geostationary orbits (~19,200 mi). This narrows the field considerably, pushing out all smaller-scale vehicles. Also telling is a requirement that proposed launch vehicles make use of rocket propulsion systems (RPS) already funded for development by the USAF if at all possible.
Considering the inherently complex and difficult process of developing massive rockets, initial launch dates no later than 2021 (or 2024) likely mean that the vehicles being considered must already be under some level of serious development. This leaves us with four possible options in the US, undoubtedly not a coincidence given the RFP’s explicit goal of facilitating the creation of “at least three…prototypes as early as possible” and “at least two domestic…launch service providers”. These four vehicles are SpaceX’s BFR, Blue Origin’s New Glenn, ULA’s Vulcan, and Orbital-ATK’s NGL, all of which already have tentative inaugural launch dates clustered from 2019 to 2022. Perhaps even more revealing, all four vehicles can be expected to utilize several rocket propulsion systems (rocket engines) already funded by the Air Force, namely SpaceX’s Raptor, Blue Origin’s BE-4 and BE-3U, and Aerojet-Rocketdyne’s AR-1.
While the development of BE-4 and AR-1 have been somewhat veiled, SpaceX’s Raptor engine has publicly made a great deal of progress. As discussed during Elon Musk’s IAC 2017 presentation, the company has conducted an array of successful tests with its subscale Raptor program, to the tune of 42 individual hot-fire tests totaling more than 1,200 seconds. Musk also reported that the only thing preventing tests longer than 100 seconds was the size of the propellant tanks at the test stand, a genuinely impressive accomplishment if true. The sticking point, however, is how much difficulty SpaceX will have as they transfer to full-scale Raptor testing. The subscale Raptors being tested have a reported thrust of 1,000 kN, whereas the new full-scale thrust targets for BFR have settled on 1,700-1,900 kN, considerably smaller than the 3,000 kN figure from 2016 but still nearly a factor of two larger than the test articles SpaceX has had success with. In fact, educated speculation from SpaceX fans suggest that the operational Raptor as shown in 2017 may only need to be about 15% larger than the current test article(s). The pressure the full-size engine operates at will be considerably higher, so SpaceX’s work is not done by any means, but the company’s next-gen rocket propulsion system is arguably far closer to completion than any of its competitors’ offerings.
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- SpaceX’s subscale Raptor engine has completed more than 1200 seconds of testing in less than two years. (SpaceX)
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- A subscale version of BE-4 testing staged combustion and nozzle technology. (Blue Origin)
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- Aerojet-Rocketdyne’s AR-1 preburner conducted its first successful test earlier this year. (AR)
As far as we are publicly aware, SpaceX’s subscale Raptor testing has yet to result in a major failure and has largely been a great success. Blue Origin’s BE-4 is known to have experienced at least one critical failure during hot-fire testing, while AR-1 has not yet begun full engine tests but is well into concrete hardware testing. Blue Origin’ s BE-4 engine and its New Glenn rocket are currently expected to fly for the first time before 2020, with AR’s NGL tentatively planning for a 2021 inaugural flight, assuming the company chooses to continue pursuing its development.
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SpaceX has not yet specified when BFR or BFS will first take flight. Raptor is likely to begin full-scale testing relatively soon, and Musk revealed that SpaceX was aiming to begin construction of the first BFR as early as Q2 of 2018. It’s quickly starting to look like the U.S. is about to enter a sort of modern commercial space race and regardless of the outcome, the next several months and years are bound to be tense and exciting for SpaceX, Blue Origin, and the established incumbents as they battle for both public and private contracts.
Elon Musk
The Boring Company’s newest tunnel vehicle runs on Tesla parts and no one is driving it
The Boring Company’s new tunnel vehicle runs on Tesla Model 3 batteries and drive units.
The Boring Company just introduced a new piece of hardware, and it runs on parts pulled straight from a Tesla showroom. Liner Truck 3, unveiled in a post from the tunneling company’s official X account, is an all electric vehicle built around Tesla Model 3 battery packs and drive units, purpose built to move concrete tunnel segments to the boring machine face without a single person underground.
Introducing Liner Truck 3 — our latest fully electric tunnel vehicle.
– Tesla Model 3 battery and drive units
– Transports 22,000+ lb of concrete segments to the boring machine
– 28 miles of range
– 12 mph max operating speed
– Remotely piloted from Global OCC in Texas, with… pic.twitter.com/XB7FgSXnpy— The Boring Company (@boringcompany) August 7, 2026
The job itself is unglamorous but critical. Each precast segment run weighs more than 22,000 pounds, roughly the load of a full cement mixer, and Liner Truck 3 hauls that weight repeatedly between the surface staging area and wherever the Prufrock machine happens to be cutting.
The Boring Company said Liner Truck 3 is piloted remotely out of its Global Operations Control Center in Texas, extending the Zero-People-In-Tunnel approach the company has spent years building toward. An earlier version of a ZPIT liner truck was already tested at the company’s Bastrop, Texas research tunnels, and a factory tour released last month showed an employee flying a fully loaded liner truck with a PlayStation controller. Liner Truck 3 looks like the production version of that same idea, cleaned up and pushed into daily use.
The timing lines up with a company digging in more places than it ever has before. The Boring Company now has multiple Prufrock machines active or arriving in Nashville, where Music City Loop construction has been accelerating since February, and its Vegas Loop network keeps adding tunnel mileage on a near monthly basis. Every one of those projects depends on getting concrete segments to the cutting face fast enough to keep the boring machine from idling, which is exactly the bottleneck Liner Truck 3 is designed to remove.
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It also reinforces something Tesla owners have watched happen gradually across Musk’s companies: passenger car hardware finding a second life in heavy equipment. Model 3 drive units already move people through the Vegas Loop, and now the same components are hauling concrete underground in Nashville and wherever The Boring Company digs next. Whether that kind of component reuse extends further into TBC’s equipment lineup, or into other Musk owned industrial hardware, is the next thing worth watching.
SpaceX stock did the opposite of what most of Wall Street expected this week, when the day designed to be its most dangerous turned into a rally, and the rally kept going.
Thursday marked the first major lockup expiration since SpaceX’s June IPO, making roughly 911.5 million insider held shares eligible to trade for the first time, more than doubling the company’s public float. Analysts and short sellers had spent weeks bracing for a flood of selling, especially after the stock fell 13 percent following its first earnings report as a public company on Tuesday. Instead, shares rose 6.1 percent Thursday to close at $114.92, and by Friday they were trading near $129, up more than another 12 percent on the day.
SpaceX shorts get warned by Musk ally, echoing Tesla’s early struggles
The setup made the outcome notable. Short interest had climbed to roughly 34 percent of the float heading into earnings, among the highest of any large cap stock, with about 95 percent of available shares to borrow already on loan. CEO Elon Musk warned short sellers twice in the weeks before the lockup, writing on X that “the survival probability of firms who maintain a significant short position in SpaceX over time is very low,” then following up on the morning of earnings with “I try to warn them, but they just double down.”
When the newly unlocked shares hit the market and the selloff never showed up, some of that short position appears to have started unwinding. TipRanks reported that options activity shifted toward bullish strategies like put selling and risk reversals following the rally, with roughly $600 million in options premium trading Thursday alone. Retail buyers also stepped in during the earnings dip, according to Vanda Research.
The fundamentals behind the stock have not changed much in a week. SpaceX’s revenue nearly doubled year over year to $7.8 billion, with Starlink subscribers doubling to 12 million and the company’s AI segment growing 247 percent. What spooked investors on Tuesday was the spending side. Capital expenditures jumped to more than $18 billion for the quarter, up from $2.8 billion a year earlier, with AI investment alone rising from $749 million to $15.8 billion. Wall Street remains split on whether that spending is building infrastructure SpaceX needs or outrunning what the business can currently support, a debate Teslarati has tracked since shares first came under pressure.
None of that resolves the bigger question hanging over the stock. Thursday’s release was only the first of nine staggered lockup tranches, with roughly $800 billion worth of additional shares scheduled to become eligible through October, and Musk’s own stake stays locked until next June. If this week is any indication, the market is treating that supply as something it can absorb rather than something to fear, at least for now.
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News
The Boring Company’s newest Vegas Station has a permit quietly waiting behind it
Sahara Las Vegas opened a new Vegas Loop station, joining an exclusive two resort transit club.
Sahara Las Vegas opened a new Vegas Loop station Thursday, giving The Boring Company’s underground transit system its northernmost stop yet on the Strip. The station sits at Sahara’s Paradise Road entrance, on the southeast corner of Las Vegas Boulevard and Sahara Avenue, and connects riders to the Las Vegas Convention Center, other Strip resorts on the network and, eventually, Harry Reid International Airport.
The addition makes Sahara the second resort, after Fontainebleau opened its own station in January, to get a stop built at street level rather than tucked into the property itself. Sahara now joins Westgate as the only two Strip resorts offering both a Vegas Loop station and a stop on the Las Vegas Monorail, giving guests two separate ways to get around without leaving the property.
The Boring Company just doubled its tunneling power in Nashville
The bigger news buried in Thursday’s announcement is what comes next. Boring Company has already secured its first permit to tunnel north of Sahara Avenue, extending the network beyond where it currently ends, even though permits to push the Loop toward downtown Las Vegas still haven’t been granted. Crews are also working on a two mile dual tunnel line running from Westgate to a planned station at 4744 Paradise Road, just north of Tropicana Avenue, that Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority CEO Steve Hill has said the company hopes to open in time for November’s Las Vegas Grand Prix.
Ridership has grown alongside the buildout. The Loop moved roughly 82,000 passengers during CONEXPO in early March, a total the company highlighted on its own X account at the time, and the system has now carried more than 4 million passengers through 11 open stations since it began running in 2021. The airport connector tunnels, meant to give the Loop a direct link to Harry Reid, have slipped past their original first quarter target and remain under construction, with Boring Company director Mike Baier saying that a full opening is still a few months out.
For Sahara, the calculation is straightforward. Convention traffic drives a large share of Loop ridership, and a station at the property’s front door gives conventiongoers one more reason to book rooms on the Strip’s north end instead of closer to the convention center itself.
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The Boring Company’s newest tunnel vehicle runs on Tesla parts and no one is driving it
Elon Musk and SpaceX shrugs off the trading day Wall Street feared most
