SpaceX's Starship reaches orbit, but SPCX slips 1% to $147, still 35% below its June high
Flight 14 got to orbit on one engine and was cut from a planned 10 hours to about three. The stock, 9% above its $135 IPO price, treated the milestone as already priced in.
SpaceX's Starship reached orbit for the first time on Monday, on its 14th test flight from Starbase, Texas. The stock did not celebrate. Space Exploration Technologies (Nasdaq: SPCX) was at $147.13 at 10:55 a.m. ET, down 1.0% from Friday's $148.68 close, according to Nasdaq.com, on a day the Nasdaq Composite was also lower.
What actually happened on the flight
The headline is "orbit", and that is true. The detail matters for anyone valuing the rocket program:
- Liftoff was at 8:48 a.m. ET, CNBC reported, and the booster made a soft splashdown off the Texas coast.
- An engine went out on the ship during the climb. Fox Business reported that controllers still called the ship "go" for orbit and that it completed its orbital burn on a single Raptor engine, reaching orbit about 26 minutes after liftoff.
- The mission was cut short. The plan was a roughly 10-hour flight circling Earth six times. SpaceX later chose to deorbit the ship after about three hours in orbit, Fox Business reported.
- Payload: CNBC reported the flight deployed 26 of SpaceX's new Starlink V3 satellites.
So this was a real milestone reached with a fault on board and a shortened timeline. None of the 13 earlier flights were designed to reach orbit, CNBC noted, and Musk had once said Starship would get there in 2022.
Why the stock cares about Starship at all
Starship is the delivery truck for Starlink. SpaceX says one Starship can carry 60 Starlink V3 satellites, about 20 times the capacity of a Falcon 9 launch, according to CNBC. Starlink was SpaceX's largest segment and its only profitable one as of the second quarter, CNBC reported. Monday's 26 satellites were less than half of a full Starship load, which is why investors will want to see full-capacity flights before treating the cost curve as proven.
Where SPCX stands against its own history
| Reference point | Price | Monday 10:55 a.m. vs that point |
|---|---|---|
| IPO price (June) | $135.00 | +9.0% |
| First trade, June 12 | $150.00 | -1.9% |
| 52-week high (intraday, June 16) | $225.64 | -34.8% |
| 52-week low | $104.83 | +40.4% |
| Friday close, Sept. 25 | $148.68 | -1.0% |
Nasdaq.com puts SpaceX's market value at about $2.0 trillion. Monday's volume was 37.2 million shares by 10:55 a.m., against a 95 million daily average, so there was no rush of buyers on the news. The stock has also traded in a tight band since mid-September: every close from Sept. 16 to Sept. 25 was between $148.03 and $154.81.
What traders are watching
The read-through from Monday is simple: an orbital Starship was expected by the market, so the stock is being moved by the same rates and tech selling hitting the rest of the Nasdaq. The next tests are a full flight plan completed without an engine loss, a full 60-satellite load, and the NASA test flight SpaceX is preparing for next year. SpaceX COO Gwynne Shotwell has said the company also plans to launch "AI compute satellites" in 2027, CNBC reported. For the wider Musk holdings picture, see our breakdown of the Musk empire, and for the day's market backdrop, this morning's before the bell.
Sources: CNBC; Fox Business; CNBC on the $135 IPO price; Nasdaq.com quote and price history. Percentage moves are our calculations. This is market information, not investment advice.
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