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SpaceX takes simplicity to new extremes with two new Starship mechanisms

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In the first two parts of a three-part interview with YouTube creator Tim Dodd, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has delved into two new Starship and Super Heavy mechanisms that take his pursuit of simplicity to new extremes.

Around the turn of the month, Starship’s first flightworthy Super Heavy booster was outfitted with a niche form of aerodynamic control surfaces known as grid fins. Those multi-ton car-sized fins have been expected ever since the original form of Starship was first revealed in 2016. What was unexpected, however, was the fact that Booster 4’s grid fins quite clearly had no retraction or deployment mechanism and were instead fixed in a deployed position after installation.

Meanwhile, just a month after SpaceX performed a partial test of the mechanisms meant to latch Starship and Super Heavy together and deploy the ship in flight, Musk says that SpaceX has also decided to almost entirely remove any recognizable separation mechanism.

In rocketry, there are generally two distinct types of launch vehicle separation strategies. All require some kind of actuating latch or frangible bolts to attach and detach stages. The differences arise during stage separation. Some rockets (particularly Russian vehicles) rely on hot staging, in which a separating stage will ignite its engine(s) slightly before or at the same time as its released, blasting the stage below it. More commonly, rocket upper stages are jettisoned a significant difference from lower stages before igniting and heading towards orbit with either small solid rocket motors, small vernier thrusters, or – in SpaceX’s case – spring-like mechanisms that can be tested on the ground and reused.

Sidestepping decades of precedent, Musk says that Starship will have no separation mechanism at all. Instead, at some point during the design or testing process, Musk decided that a separation mechanism was entirely superfluous and that the same effect could be more or less replicated by using existing systems on Super Heavy. By using the booster’s gimballing Raptor engines to impart a small but significant rotation on the rocket moments before separation, Super Heavy could effectively flick Starship away from it – a bit like how SpaceX currently deploys Starlink satellites from Falcon by spinning the upper stage end over end and letting the spacecraft just float away thanks to centripetal forces.

Because Starship is something like five times heavier than Super Heavy at stage separation, the ship would effectively float away from the booster in a straight and stable line, use cold gas thrusters to settle its propellant, and ignite its six Raptor engines to head to orbit. In return for the slightly unorthodox deployment profile, if this new approach works, SpaceX can entirely preclude the development of a pusher/spring system capable of pushing a ~1300 ton Starship away from Super Heavy. That approach is possible on Starship in large part because the ship’s six Raptor engines are completely tucked away inside a skirt, meaning that there is zero chance of nozzles being damaged by impacting the booster interstage.

The situation with Super Heavy’s grid fins is not dissimilar. By keeping the fins deployed at all times, SpaceX doesn’t need to develop a complex retraction mechanism that maintains a mechanical linkage while still providing enough strength to push and drag a several-hundred-ton rocket around at hypersonic speeds.

Notably, during Tim Dodd’s tour and interview, Musk revealed that another SpaceX employee – not him – was responsible for that design change, throwing up a bit of a foil to the common notion that Musk is very authoritarian and inflexible as chief engineer. Combined with a surprisingly elegant and responsive five-step approach to engineering, it’s clearer than ever that there is a great deal of well-considered method behind the surface-level madness of some of Musk and SpaceX’s less intuitive decisions.

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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Armored Tesla Cybertruck “War Machine” debuts at Defense Expo 2025

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Tesla Megapacks chosen for 548 MWh energy storage project in Japan

Tesla plans to supply over 100 Megapack units to support a large stationary storage project in Japan, making it one of the country’s largest energy storage facilities.

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Tesla’s Megapack grid-scale batteries have been selected to back an energy storage project in Japan, coming as the latest of the company’s continued deployment of the hardware.

As detailed in a report from Nikkei this week, Tesla plans to supply 142 Megapack units to support a 548 MWh storage project in Japan, set to become one of the country’s largest energy storage facilities. The project is being overseen by financial firm Orix, and it will be located at a facility Maibara in central Japan’s Shiga prefecture, and it aims to come online in early 2027.

The deal is just the latest of several Megapack deployments over the past few years, as the company continues to ramp production of the units. Tesla currently produces the Megapack at a facility in Lathrop, California, though the company also recently completed construction on its second so-called “Megafactory” in Shanghai China and is expected to begin production in the coming weeks.

READ MORE ON TESLA MEGAPACKS: Tesla Megapacks help power battery supplier Panasonic’s Kyoto test site

Tesla’s production of the Megapack has been ramping up at the Lathrop facility since initially opening in 2022, and both this site and the Shanghai Megafactory are aiming to eventually reach a volume production of 10,000 Megapack units per year. The company surpassed its 10,000th Megapack unit produced at Lathrop in November.

During Tesla’s Q4 earnings call last week, CEO Elon Musk also said that the company is looking to construct a third Megafactory, though he did not disclose where.

Last year, Tesla Energy also had record deployments of its Megapack and Powerwall home batteries with a total of 31.4 GWh of energy products deployed for a 114-percent increase from 2023.

Other recently deployed or announced Megapack projects include a massive 600 MW/1,600 MWh facility in Melbourne, a 75 MW/300 MWh energy storage site in Belgium, and a 228 MW/912 MWh storage project in Chile, along with many others still.

What are your thoughts? Let me know at zach@teslarati.com, find me on X at @zacharyvisconti, or send us tips at tips@teslarati.com.

Tesla highlights the Megapack site replacing Hawaii’s last coal plant

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Elon Musk responds to Ontario canceling $100M Starlink deal amid tariff drama

Ontario Premier Doug Ford said, opens new tab on February 3 that he was “ripping up” his province’s CA$100 million agreement with Starlink in response to the U.S. imposing tariffs on Canadian goods.

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NORAD and USNORTHCOM Public Affairs, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Elon Musk company SpaceX is set to lose a $100 million deal with the Canadian province of Ontario following a response to the Trump administration’s decision to apply 25 percent tariffs to the country.

Starlink, a satellite-based internet service launched by the Musk entity SpaceX, will lose a $100 million deal it had with Ontario, Premier Doug Ford announced today.

Ford said on X today that Ontario is banning American companies from provincial contracts:

“We’ll be ripping up the province’s contract with Starlink. Ontario won’t do business with people hellbent on destroying our economy. Canada didn’t start this fight with the U.S., but you better believe we’re ready to win it.”

It is a blow to the citizens of the province more than anything, as the Starlink internet constellation has provided people in rural areas across the globe stable and reliable access for several years.

Musk responded in simple terms, stating, “Oh well.”

It seems Musk is less than enthused about the fact that Starlink is being eliminated from the province, but it does not seem like all that big of a blow either.

As previously mentioned, this impacts citizens more than Starlink itself, which has established itself as a main player in reliable internet access. Starlink has signed several contracts with various airlines and maritime companies.

It is also expanding to new territories across the globe on an almost daily basis.

With Mexico already working to avoid the tariff situation with the United States, it will be interesting to see if Canada does the same.

The two have shared a pleasant relationship, but President Trump is putting his foot down in terms of what comes across the border, which could impact Americans in the short term.

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