News & Updates
The latest news and updates from companies in the WLTH portfolio.
SpaceX Starship launch aborted on the pad at the last moment
SpaceX's mega Starship rocket came within a second or so from blasting off on a test flight Thursday but some of the engines failed to start, triggering a launch abort. Elon Musk's company said it will have to figure out what went wrong before making another attempt to send Starship on a space-skimming flight halfway around the world. It was supposed to be the 13th flight for Starship, which at 407 feet (124 meters) tall with 33 main engines is the world's biggest and most powerful rocket. SpaceX's launch webcast showed the start of engine ignition three seconds before the planned liftoff, viewed from a drone high above the pad. Whichever engines fired abruptly shut down, with the rocket remaining anchored to the pad. The launch team immediately began draining the fuel from the rocket. "Next launch attempt hopefully in a few days," Musk announced via X. Everything had been going SpaceX's way, including the weather, until the partial engine ignition. Twenty of SpaceX's newest and most advanced Starlinks were on board Starship for release during the planned hourlong flight. The internet satellites were going to try communicating with Starlinks already in orbit while taking photos of Starship's heat shield. Neither the first-stage booster nor spacecraft were meant to be recovered, with both ending up in the sea. NASA is counting on Starship to land its astronauts on the moon in the next few years. The space agency has hired SpaceX and Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin to build and fly the lunar landers that will return humanity to the surface of the moon after an absence of more than half a century. Both companies need to have their landers -- Starship and Blue Moon -- ready to fly by next year so that the newly named Artemis III crew can practice docking their capsule with them in orbit around Earth. The mission after that -- Artemis IV planned for no earlier than 2028 -- would use one of those landers to take two astronauts to the moon's south polar region. ___ The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute's Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
SpaceX Starship launch aborted at the last moment
SpaceX's mega Starship rocket has come within a second or so from blasting off on a test flight but some of the engines failed to start, triggering a launch abort. Elon Musk's company said it will have to figure out what went wrong on Thursday before making another attempt to send Starship on a space-skimming journey halfway around the world. It was supposed to be the 13th flight for Starship, which at 124m tall with 33 main engines is the world's biggest and most powerful rocket. SpaceX's launch webcast showed the start of engine ignition three seconds before the planned liftoff, viewed from a drone high above the pad. Although the company did not elaborate, on-screen data showed four engines not firing, with the remaining 29 engines immediately shutting down and keeping the rocket anchored to the pad. It was the first time a full-scale Starship experienced a last-second abort like this. The launch team immediately began draining the fuel from the rocket. "Next launch attempt hopefully in a few days," Musk announced via X. Everything was going SpaceX's way, even the weather, until the partial engine ignition. In the end, the rocket's automatic launch system worked as planned by halting everything. Too few operating engines could have doomed the launch. Some earlier Starship flights ended in explosive fireballs. Elon Musk's company had newest, most advanced Starlinks aboard Twenty of SpaceX's newest and most advanced Starlinks were on board Starship for release during the planned hour-long flight. The internet satellites were going to try communicating with Starlinks already in orbit while taking photos of Starship's heat shield. Neither the first-stage booster nor spacecraft were meant to be recovered, with both ending up in the sea. The rocket's automatic launch system worked as planned by halting everything. Too few operating engines could have resulted in a failed launch. Some earlier Starship flights, for example, ended in explosive fireballs.
SpaceX vs. Rocket Lab: Which Is the Better Space Stock to Buy Right Now?
Space stocks are on many investors' minds these days, but going all-in on this sector right now comes with considerable risk, as most rocket stocks are volatile. Still, two stocks that are no doubt near the top of many investors' watch lists are Space Exploration Technologies (NASDAQ: SPCX) and Rocket Lab (NASDAQ: RKLB). Here's which one looks like the better buy right now. Missed Nvidia in 2009? This Rare Signal Is Flashing Again. In 2009, a "Double Down" signal flashed for a little-known chipmaker called Nvidia. For the first time in years, that same "Total Conviction" signal is flashing for a company 1/100th the size of Nvidia. Continue " Image source: Getty Images. The case for SpaceX What was once just a rocket company has morphed into an expanding technology behemoth with its sights set on both the space and artificial intelligence (AI) markets. SpaceX has highly ambitious goals for both, including colonizing Mars, launching orbital data centers, expanding its Starlink satellite internet business, and building what some analysts are calling a "sovereign AI" platform in which the company controls the AI model, chip designs, processor manufacturing, and everything in between. That's part of the appeal of SpaceX for some investors -- the company is trying big things, like developing its Starship rocket, which it says will reduce the costs of putting payloads into orbit by at least 90%, or deploying a constellation of data center satellites. Morningstar research puts the total addressable market for its Starlink connectivity business at $129 billion. And the company is making headway on some of its goals. It has 12 million Starlink internet subscribers and generated $1.9 billion in operating profit from that business in the most recent quarter. SpaceX is also making progress with its neocloud business, which leases data center capacity (Earth-bound, for now) to tech companies including Alphabet and Anthropic. That business has already signed more than $81 billion in contracts. And then there's the potential for SpaceX to merge with Elon Musk's other large company, Tesla. That could expand SpaceX's opportunities into the autonomous vehicle and humanoid robot markets, the latter of which could be worth $3 trillion by 2050, according to a Morgan Stanley forecast. The case for Rocket Lab There's some overlap between Rocket Lab and SpaceX, though Rocket Lab isn't building AI data centers or planning to merge with a humanoid robotics company (as of now). The company is instead mostly focused on launching rockets for its customers and on expanding its satellite communications network through its recently announced purchase of Iridium Communications. Rocket Lab has agreed to pay $8 billion for Iridium, and is expected to close on the deal next year, giving it 2.5 million satellite-based mobile subscribers. The service is mainly geared toward the private and government sectors, in contrast to Starlink, which caters more to customers who want at-home internet service. Iridium is profitable, with $114 million in net earnings last year, and the deal will help Rocket Lab expand its satellite communications network to better compete with SpaceX. But Rocket Lab's primary business is sending payloads into space, and in the first quarter, the company signed 31 new deals, selling more launches than it did in all of 2025. The company also has some major launch contracts already signed, including with the U.S. government to establish the satellite system for the proposed Golden Dome missile defense system. It also has contracts for missile tracking and military communications. Verdict: Rocket Lab is the better stock to buy right now While Rocket Lab isn't profitable, its loss of $0.07 per share in Q1 was an improvement from its loss of $0.12 per share in the prior-year quarter. Revenue is also growing at a healthy clip, rising 64% to $200 million. In contrast, SpaceX's sales rose just 15% in Q1 to $4.7 billion, and the company's loss of $3.29 per share was dramatically worse than its $0.41 per share loss in the year-ago quarter. SpaceX's massive losses have been fueled by sharp increases in its capital expenditures, which reached $10 billion in Q1 2026 alone, compared to $27 billion for all of 2025. That heavy spending should give investors pause, and so should the lofty valuation of its stock. SpaceX trades at a price-to-sales (P/S) ratio of about 94 compared to Rocket Lab's P/S ratio of 66. While neither stock is cheap, SpaceX's shares trade at a much higher premium even as the company ramps up spending and its losses widen. All of which means that Rocket Lab looks like the better space stock to buy right now. Don't miss this second chance at a potentially lucrative opportunity Ever feel like you missed the boat in buying the most successful stocks? Then you'll want to hear this. On rare occasions, our expert team of analysts issues a "Double Down" stock recommendation for companies that they think are about to pop. If you're worried you've already missed your chance to invest, now is the best time to buy before it's too late. And the numbers speak for themselves: * Nvidia: if you invested $1,000 when we doubled down in 2009, you'd have $550,021!* * Apple: if you invested $1,000 when we doubled down in 2008, you'd have $60,010!* * Netflix: if you invested $1,000 when we doubled down in 2004, you'd have $396,542!* Right now, we're issuing "Double Down" alerts for three incredible companies, available when you join Stock Advisor, and there may not be another chance like this anytime soon. See the 3 stocks " *Stock Advisor returns as of July 16, 2026. Chris Neiger has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Alphabet, Rocket Lab, and Tesla. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. The views and opinions expressed herein are the views and opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Nasdaq, Inc.
SpaceX shares slide below IPO price for first time - Peoples Gazette Nigeria
Elon Musk-owned SpaceX's shares stumbled below their initial public offering (IPO) price for the first time on Wednesday, just over a month after the company went public. The process made the South African-born businessman the world's first trillionaire. According to Reuters, the share price stumbled as low as $132.28 -- below the $135 IPO price on Wednesday -- before crawling back to close the day's trading at $135.27. According to experts, the fall was a reminder that enthusiasm on Wall Street can wane rapidly after the rockets-to-AI firm raised $85.7 billion and briefly propelled the company to a market value of more than $2.6 trillion, surpassing technology giants such as Microsoft and Amazon. However, SpaceX's market value dropped sharply to $1.78 trillion on Wednesday afternoon before slowly recovering. Despite the share price closing 28 cents above its IPO price, it marked a 40 per cent decline from a high of $225.64 reached shortly after the stock started trading. Meanwhile, Justus Parmar, chief executive officer of SpaceX investor Fortuna Investments, attributed the shares' decline to investors liquidating their holdings in large numbers. Interactive Brokers' chief market analyst, Steve Sosnick, stated, "There hasn't been anything lately to remind people of some of the catalysts for why they bought SpaceX. The fact that a stock has fallen a couple of dollars below its IPO price in itself is not a tragedy, but SpaceX is heavily watched and has an important role in investor psyche."
SpaceX vs. Rocket Lab: Which Is the Better Space Stock to Buy Right Now?
Space stocks are on many investors' minds these days, but going all-in on this sector right now comes with considerable risk, as most rocket stocks are volatile. Still, two stocks that are no doubt near the top of many investors' watch lists are Space Exploration Technologies (NASDAQ: SPCX) and Rocket Lab (NASDAQ: RKLB). Here's which one looks like the better buy right now. Missed Nvidia in 2009? This Rare Signal Is Flashing Again. In 2009, a "Double Down" signal flashed for a little-known chipmaker called Nvidia. For the first time in years, that same "Total Conviction" signal is flashing for a company 1/100th the size of Nvidia. Continue " The case for SpaceX What was once just a rocket company has morphed into an expanding technology behemoth with its sights set on both the space and artificial intelligence (AI) markets. SpaceX has highly ambitious goals for both, including colonizing Mars, launching orbital data centers, expanding its Starlink satellite internet business, and building what some analysts are calling a "sovereign AI" platform in which the company controls the AI model, chip designs, processor manufacturing, and everything in between. That's part of the appeal of SpaceX for some investors -- the company is trying big things, like developing its Starship rocket, which it says will reduce the costs of putting payloads into orbit by at least 90%, or deploying a constellation of data center satellites. Morningstar research puts the total addressable market for its Starlink connectivity business at $129 billion. And the company is making headway on some of its goals. It has 12 million Starlink internet subscribers and generated $1.9 billion in operating profit from that business in the most recent quarter. SpaceX is also making progress with its neocloud business, which leases data center capacity (Earth-bound, for now) to tech companies including Alphabet and Anthropic. That business has already signed more than $81 billion in contracts. And then there's the potential for SpaceX to merge with Elon Musk's other large company, Tesla. That could expand SpaceX's opportunities into the autonomous vehicle and humanoid robot markets, the latter of which could be worth $3 trillion by 2050, according to a Morgan Stanley forecast. The case for Rocket Lab There's some overlap between Rocket Lab and SpaceX, though Rocket Lab isn't building AI data centers or planning to merge with a humanoid robotics company (as of now). The company is instead mostly focused on launching rockets for its customers and on expanding its satellite communications network through its recently announced purchase of Iridium Communications.
SpaceX to launch giant starship rocket in first flight since IPO
Success could lead to the first orbital mission and supports NASA contracts worth US$4 billion for moon landings by 2028. SpaceX will attempt a major test flight of its massive Starship rocket on July 16, a milestone for a vehicle that's a critical part of Elon Musk's plans for the space, satellite and artificial intelligence conglomerate. The launch, targeted for 5.45pm local time (6.45am on July 17 Singapore time) from SpaceX's Starbase facility in South Texas, marks the second flight of the latest iteration of the rocket, dubbed Version 3 or V3. The rocket will be carrying to space upgraded Starlink satellites that are intended to burn up later in the atmosphere as part of the test mission. The rocket is central to Musk's ambitions to put data centres in space, expand the Starlink communications network and send humans to the moon and Mars. But it has faced a rocky development path marred by explosive setbacks, malfunctions and delays. The Starship test is the rocket's 13th flight and first since SpaceX's blockbuster initial public offering in June that raised some US$86 billion (S$111 billion). Shares of SpaceX soared shortly after their debut but more recently slumped, closing on July 15 near its IPO price of US$135. Despite the decline, Wall Street analysts still remain largely bullish on the stock. Musk's company has designed Starship to be fully reusable, something no other rocket maker has achieved, with both the Super Heavy booster and the Starship spacecraft intended to return to Earth intact after each launch so they can fly to space again. Musk has predicted that SpaceX could achieve full reusability with the upgraded V3 rocket before the end of the year. SpaceX has spent more than US$15 billion developing Starship. During the most recent test flight in May, Starship successfully deployed mock satellites, although the rocket's booster spun out of control and one of its engines shut down early. SpaceX has since made hardware and software modifications to correct these issues, according to a post on the company's website. "We believe that if SpaceX can keep all major engines healthy, execute the planned relight and landing sequence, and bring back stronger heat-shield and control-surface data, Flight 13 would represent a meaningful step beyond Flight 12," said Raymond James analyst Brian Gesuale in a note on July 13. Starship becoming operational "is the critical path to the SpaceX investment thesis," he added. A successful Starship test could also lead to the company attempting to reach orbit with the vehicle for the first time on the next flight, according to Stifel analyst Jonathan Siegmann. SpaceX holds US$4 billion worth of NASA contracts for Starship to land astronauts on the moon as soon as 2028. To do so, SpaceX will have to refuel the vehicle in space, launch it a dozen times or more in a row and ensure the vehicle is safe to hold humans - a demanding list of tasks for a vehicle which has yet to complete a full orbital mission. The July 16 flight plan will look similar to previous test missions. At lift-off, the Super Heavy booster will ignite 33 Raptor engines and send Starship on its way to space, where it will reach near orbital speeds. The booster will separate from Starship and then attempt to splash down in the Gulf of Mexico. While in space, Starship will attempt a number of tests, including relighting one of its engines and deploying 20 Starlink satellites. These satellites will extend their solar arrays and attempt to connect to the broader Starlink network using laser-based communications. About 20 minutes after deployment, the satellites should fall back to Earth, burning up in the atmosphere. About an hour after liftoff, Starship is scheduled to splash down in the Indian Ocean. BLOOMBERG
Elon Musk loses trillionaire status as SpaceX stock deflates -- and Wisconsin officials want him investigated for election 'bribery' | Fortune
📬 Would you prefer to receive this information in your email inbox every morning before the markets open in New York? Sign up here. SpaceX loses $1 trillion in market cap as tech stocks lead sharp declines in Asia and Europe Asian markets led a global selloff in the stock markets today as the central bank of South Korea raised its interest rates and warned there would be more rate hikes to come, to fight off persistent inflation. Asia is particularly exposed to increasing oil prices caused by the Iran war because it imports much of its fuel. The tech-heavy KOSPI was down 6.37% today, sinking deeper into correction territory -- it has shed 21.84% over the last month. Nasdaq 100 futures are down 0.19% this morning prior to the open in New York. SpaceX was down 0.6% at the close yesterday and although it gained 0.37% in overnight trading the stock has lost more than $1 trillion in value since its peak price of $225 per share. The stock dipped below its IPO launch price of $135, recovering to just $135.27. The downward drift of the stock means that Elon Musk is no longer technically a trillionaire. He's worth "only" $856 billion today, according to Bloomberg's billionaire index. * S&P 500 futures were flat this morning. The index rose 0.38% yesterday. * In Europe, the Stoxx 600 was down 0.26% in early trading and the U.K.'s FTSE 100 was down 0.37% before lunch. * Asia: South Korea's KOSPI was down 6.37%. Japan's Nikkei 225 was down 2.79%. India's Nifty 50 was up 0.15%. China's CSI 300 was down 1.85%. * Brent crude was $84 per barrel this morning, down from a high of $86 yesterday. * Bitcoin was $64K. MORE FROM FORTUNE The MacKenzie Scott paradox: How a bull market lets billionaires give away tens of billions without getting poorer - Sydney Lake As banks post blowout earnings, CEOs reckon with America's inequality gap - Diane Brady Klook cofounder Ethan Lin thinks the U.S. can help grow one of Asia's largest travel platforms - Angelica Ang 'We did not adapt and move quickly enough': IBM CEO's admission of weakness fails to prevent historic 25% stock crash - Tatiana Sataua Why IBM just suffered its worst stock crash of all time -- and what it says about the market's two bubbles - Nick Lichtenberg LAPD was one of Flock Safety's biggest government customers. Now it's renegotiating its partnership over 'serious concerns around civil liberties' - Sasha Rogelberg Chipotle is trying to take over Mexico through its softest border town - Mia Osmonbekov Pete Hegseth wants to test troops for 'testosterone deficiency' -- literally - AP ONE BIG THING Hiding in plain sight: Disney's $3 billion cruise ship business Disney has historically refused to describe in detail the revenues earned by its growing cruise ship business. Its CFO, Hugh Johnston, has declined to do so on previous earnings calls. "We don't break out cruise ships," explained Hugh Johnston on its Q3 call last year. But Fortune's Christian Sylt can reveal that a Disney filing in the U.K. -- where its ships are based for tax reasons -- reveals that cruise revenue passed the $3 billion mark last year for the first time, fuelled by the addition of a sixth ship to its fleet as part of a $12 billion expansion. * Read all the details here. CRUDE REALITY Why is oil so cheap? The price of oil is $84 per barrel this morning, which is bad enough (before the war with Iran started it was just over $60). Following the outbreak of the hostilities, it peaked at $114. So one question is, why is the price of oil so low? After all, the Strait of Hormuz is now in its sixth month of total or partial closure. The supply of oil is more constrained than ever, but its price is nowhere near peak pessimism. One reason for that is that, in fact, the world still has an unusually large amount of stored oil on hand, as this chart from Bridget Payne of Oxford Economics shows. "Despite record drawdowns, total global oil inventories remain above their recent historical average, continuing to reduce the risk of an acute crude shortage. However, much of this buffer is held as crude and offers limited protection against lower refinery output, weaker middle-distillate yields, and the loss of major diesel exporters" such as Russia. She warns that the Strait could be closed for much of the rest of the year. IRAN Trump considers boots-on-the-ground escalation of war against Iran President Trump is considering an escalation of the war against Iran, and has been briefed on options such an invasion of Kharg Island (long a Trump obsession) or bombing "Pickaxe Mountain," a nuclear site with an underground tunnel complex, according to the Wall Street Journal. The Kharg operation would put U.S. boots on the ground in Iranian territory. Over the last 24 hours, Iran attacked U.S. sites in Jordan, Kuwait and Bahrain. The U.S. continued a wave of attacks on Iranian coastal sites to "further degrade Iran's ability to threaten innocent mariners" in the Strait of Hormuz," Centcom said. The U.S. also disabled an oil tanker in the Gulf. What Iran says: "As long as the United States does not accept the Iranian legal system, this strait will remain closed," according to the semi-official Iranian Students' News Agency. TRUMPWORLD Dan Ives' new merchant bank has longstanding ties to Trump Media & Technology Group When tech bull analyst Dan Ives announced he was leaving Wedbush to start what he described as a "modern merchant bank for the age of AI," many were puzzled by the news. Ives is possibly the most famous tech stock analyst in the U.S. and he is a regular on CNN. It was also not entirely clear why the world of AI needs a merchant bank, given that AI companies have not had difficulty finding investment capital. The FT has shone some light on the situation. The bank will be named "Yorkville Ives." The Yorkville name refers to Yorkville Securities or Yorkville Advisors, the New Jersey-based group that has bankrolled Trump Media & Technology Group, the company that owns Truth Social and a host of video streaming services. TMTG's stock is down 27.72% year-to-date. Fortune's archive has a ton of stories on Yorkville and its dealings with the Trump empire. Here are three of them: CHART OF THE DAY Countries ranked by average inflation since COVID If you think inflation is bad in the U.S. or Europe, remember, it could be worse. Argentina and Turkey have both had the worst inflation since the pandemic. The best performers, however, are Switzerland and China, both of which have had inflation near 1% throughout. "Switzerland remains in a league of its own," says Deutsche Bank's Jim Reid in an email. "It's the only country globally to have seen CPI average below 2% since the end of Bretton Woods (>1971), and since Covid inflation has averaged just 1%." NUMBER OF THE DAY 1,000 The number of terawatt hours of electricity AI data centers will need by 2030 -- double the amount they consume today, according to Alpine Macro's Kelly Xu. The biggest source of that extra energy will be renewable, Xu estimates: "Renewables are expected to account for roughly 40% of additional electricity generation for data centers between 2025 and 2030 and more than one-third of the data center power mix by 2030." THE FRONT PAGES TODAY Dimon Warns of Broad Mythos Access, Calling It a Real Issue - Bloomberg Goldman's Former Top Lawyer Calls Epstein a 'Masterful Liar' - NYT TSMC to invest additional $100 billion in Arizona after second-quarter profit soars 77% - CNBC Trump imposes 25% tariffs on Brazilian goods - Axios The AI Backlash Has Tech Executives Fearing for Their Lives - WSJ JD Vance tells Joe Rogan Israel wants to keep Iran war going 'indefinitely,' Trump admin 'screwed up' on Epstein files - NY Post ONE MORE THING Wisconsin election panel asks prosecutors to probe Elon Musk over "bribery" allegations Remember when Elon Musk handed out money to people in Wisconsin if they promised to vote for his favored state Supreme Court candidates? That was probably illegal, a bipartisan panel has found. Musk likely broke Wisconsin law when he promised to hand out $1 million checks to voters in the 2025 election, according to the Wisconsin Elections Commission. The panel last week referred two complaints to the Brown County district attorney's office, according to the AP. Musk potentially faces criminal charges for election bribery. Prosecutors have 40 days to report back to the commission.
SpaceX to launch giant starship rocket in first flight since IPO
SpaceX will attempt a major test flight of its massive Starship rocket on Thursday, a milestone for a vehicle that's a critical part of Elon Musk's plans for the space, satellite and artificial intelligence conglomerate. The launch, targeted for 5:45 p.m. local time from SpaceX's Starbase facility in South Texas, marks the second flight of the latest iteration of the rocket, dubbed Version 3 or V3. The rocket will be carrying to space upgraded Starlink satellites that are intended to burn up later in the atmosphere as part of the test mission. The rocket is central to Musk's ambitions to put data centres in space, expand the Starlink communications network and send humans to the moon and Mars. But it has faced a rocky development path marred by explosive setbacks, malfunctions and delays. The Starship test is the rocket's 13th flight and first since SpaceX's blockbuster initial public offering in June that raised some $86 billion. Shares of SpaceX soared shortly after their debut but more recently slumped, closing on July 15 near its IPO price of $135. Despite the decline, Wall Street analysts still remain largely bullish on the stock. Musk's company has designed Starship to be fully reusable, something no other rocket maker has achieved, with both the Super Heavy booster and the Starship spacecraft intended to return to Earth intact after each launch so they can fly to space again. Musk has predicted that SpaceX could achieve full reusability with the upgraded V3 rocket before the end of the year. SpaceX has spent more than $15 billion developing Starship. During the most recent test flight in May, Starship successfully deployed mock satellites, although the rocket's booster spun out of control and one of its engines shut down early. SpaceX has since made hardware and software modifications to correct these issues, according to a post on the company's website. "We believe that if SpaceX can keep all major engines healthy, execute the planned relight and landing sequence, and bring back stronger heat-shield and control-surface data, Flight 13 would represent a meaningful step beyond Flight 12," said Raymond James analyst Brian Gesuale in a note on July 13. Starship becoming operational "is the critical path to the SpaceX investment thesis," he added. A successful Starship test could also lead to the company attempting to reach orbit with the vehicle for the first time on the next flight, according to Stifel analyst Jonathan Siegmann. SpaceX holds $4 billion worth of NASA contracts for Starship to land astronauts on the moon as soon as 2028. To do so, SpaceX will have to refuel the vehicle in space, launch it a dozen times or more in a row and ensure the vehicle is safe to hold humans -- a demanding list of tasks for a vehicle which has yet to complete a full orbital mission. Thursday's flight plan will look similar to previous test missions. At liftoff, the Super Heavy booster will ignite 33 Raptor engines and send Starship on its way to space, where it will reach near orbital speeds. The booster will separate from Starship and then attempt to splash down in the Gulf of Mexico. While in space, Starship will attempt a number of tests, including relighting one of its engines and deploying 20 Starlink satellites. These satellites will extend their solar arrays and attempt to connect to the broader Starlink network using laser-based communications. About 20 minutes after deployment, the satellites should fall back to Earth, burning up in the atmosphere. About an hour after liftoff, Starship is scheduled to splash down in the Indian Ocean. More stories like this are available on bloomberg.com ©2026 Bloomberg L.P. Published on July 16, 2026
SpaceX stock erases all its gains and slides below IPO price in intraday trading
SpaceX stock dropped below its initial public offering price for the first time on Wednesday, signaling dwindling hype around the Elon Musk company. Shares dipped below their IPO price of $135 on Wednesday morning for the first time since listing, a humbling loss for the stock, which had skyrocketed more than 50% in its first days of trading last month. The shares regained some ground later in the day, closing at $135.27. The initial offering gave the company a market cap of $2.2 trillion, making it one of the world's most valuable public companies. For a short period, the IPO also made owner Elon Musk the world's first trillionaire, though his net worth now is about $800 billion. On July 7, the company was added to the Nasdaq-100 after a rule change allowed companies to join 15 days after their IPOs. SpaceX raised a total of $86 billion after underwriters exercised their right to sell additional shares, on top of the $75 billion initially raised. It was the largest IPO in history. SpaceX, based near Austin, Texas, is the leading launch services company in the world, with its Falcon 9 rocket accounting for the vast majority of satellites launched last year. It is also the leading satellite-based broadband provider with its Starlink service. The extraordinary interest in the IPO was driven by Musk's plans to make the company an AI leader -- including plans to launch orbiting satellite data centers powered by the sun that crunch AI data. The company's headquarters moved from Hawthorne to Texas in 2024, but it retains large operations in the South Bay city and blasts off regularly from Vandenberg Space Force Base in Santa Barbara County. Since the IPO, SpaceX has used its newfound wealth to expand in the AI space. It announced last month that it was acquiring the AI coding startup Cursor for $60 billion, with the deal expected to close in the third quarter. The San Francisco company, founded in 2022, enables engineers to instruct software in English to run coding tasks autonomously. Musk also merged his xAI artificial intelligence company into SpaceX earlier this year. The combined entity recently announced it was leasing computing power to rivals Anthropic and Google at two terrestrial data centers it has constructed. Since the IPO, investors have expressed concerns about the company's spending plans and debt load. Even with the volatility of the last month, there's still more uncertainty to come. The stock could fall further as locked-up shares held by current and former employees are released.
Watch SpaceX's Starship flight 13 launch tonight
I agree my information will be processed in accordance with the Scientific American and Springer Nature Limited Privacy Policy. We leverage third party services to both verify and deliver email. By providing your email address, you also consent to having the email address shared with third parties for those purposes. SpaceX is gearing up to launch its Starship megarocket. On Thursday, no earlier than 6:45 P.M. EDT, Elon Musk's space company will attempt a thirteenth flight test of Starship that will see the rocket put through its paces once again. But as with its last test flight, Starship will not enter Earth orbit; nor will SpaceX try to catch the vehicle's Super Heavy V3 first stage. Instead, after helping Starship get to space, the technically reusable booster will attempt a controlled descent and landing at splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico. Overall, this flight will look much like the last one, which was largely a success. Riding atop the Super Heavy V3 booster, Starship will lift off from SpaceX's Starbase complex in Boca Chica, Texas. Its payload includes a cache of Starlink V3 satellites -- next-generation spacecraft that are the largest and heaviest yet launched for SpaceX's relentless expansion of its broadband internet mega constellation. Ultimately, SpaceX wants this flight to iron out the kinks that arose in the last test, chief among them performance issues with the Raptor engines that provide thrust for Starship and its booster. On supporting science journalism If you're enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today. The flight will also test various upgrades to Starship's heat shield -- one of the most crucial components for the spacecraft, which is designed to be fully reusable. That reusability, SpaceX hopes, will eventually allow the company to phase out its partially reusable workhorse rocket, the Falcon 9, in favor of launching Starships multiple times per day with a mass-to-orbit price tag that competitors can't beat. The system, in short, is SpaceX's all-in bet for continuing its global dominance of space launch and satellite communications. If successful, it could catapult the now-publicly traded company and the world alike into a revolutionary new era of spaceflight. SpaceX will have a 90-minute window in which to launch Starship, with a livestream of the rocket beginning some 30 minutes before liftoff on X, and SpaceX's website. Once in space, Starship will attempt to deploy its batch of 20 Starlink satellites. These will seek to connect to the Starlink network via laser-based communications; six of the satellites carry cameras to relay images of Starship's heat shield to engineers on the ground. All 20 satellites are expected to burn up in Earth's atmosphere about 20 minutes post-deployment. The whole test from launch to splashdown in the Indian Ocean should last just over an hour. Even without its core goal of full reusability, Starship would be extremely ambitious. It's SpaceX's largest vehicle -- indeed, the spacecraft is the world's largest rocket. Fully stacked with its booster, the vehicle is about 407 feet tall and has enough thrust to launch 100 metric tons of cargo into space. Leaving aside SpaceX's lofty business goals, NASA hopes to use Starship to further U.S. moon base ambitions as part of its Artemis program. If SpaceX can get a NASA-sponsored lunar-lander variant of Starship ready on time, the space agency could use it to send humans to the surface of the moon for the first time in more than 50 years as soon as 2028. A watchdog report published in March made plain that SpaceX wasn't keeping to schedule, however, and the space agency is also funding development of a Blue Origin lunar lander for the task. The clock is ticking for both companies: NASA's Artemis III, a crewed mission to test key capabilities for both vehicles in low-Earth orbit, is targeted for launch before the end of next year. But regardless of what happens on Starship's 13th flight, the vehicle -- and the nation -- still has a long and perilous ahead, with many more test flights to come before bringing astronauts to the moon, or anywhere else.
SpaceX vs. Rocket Lab: Which Is the Better Space Stock to Buy Right Now?
Space stocks are on many investors' minds these days, but going all-in on this sector right now comes with considerable risk, as most rocket stocks are volatile. Still, two stocks that are no doubt near the top of many investors' watch lists are Space Exploration Technologies (SPCX 0.59%) and Rocket Lab (RKLB 3.36%). Here's which one looks like the better buy right now. The case for SpaceX What was once just a rocket company has morphed into an expanding technology behemoth with its sights set on both the space and artificial intelligence (AI) markets. SpaceX has highly ambitious goals for both, including colonizing Mars, launching orbital data centers, expanding its Starlink satellite internet business, and building what some analysts are calling a "sovereign AI" platform in which the company controls the AI model, chip designs, processor manufacturing, and everything in between. That's part of the appeal of SpaceX for some investors -- the company is trying big things, like developing its Starship rocket, which it says will reduce the costs of putting payloads into orbit by at least 90%, or deploying a constellation of data center satellites. Morningstar research puts the total addressable market for its Starlink connectivity business at $129 billion. And the company is making headway on some of its goals. It has 12 million Starlink internet subscribers and generated $1.9 billion in operating profit from that business in the most recent quarter. SpaceX is also making progress with its neocloud business, which leases data center capacity (Earth-bound, for now) to tech companies including Alphabet and Anthropic. That business has already signed more than $81 billion in contracts. And then there's the potential for SpaceX to merge with Elon Musk's other large company, Tesla. That could expand SpaceX's opportunities into the autonomous vehicle and humanoid robot markets, the latter of which could be worth $3 trillion by 2050, according to a Morgan Stanley forecast. The case for Rocket Lab There's some overlap between Rocket Lab and SpaceX, though Rocket Lab isn't building AI data centers or planning to merge with a humanoid robotics company (as of now). The company is instead mostly focused on launching rockets for its customers and on expanding its satellite communications network through its recently announced purchase of Iridium Communications. Rocket Lab has agreed to pay $8 billion for Iridium, and is expected to close on the deal next year, giving it 2.5 million satellite-based mobile subscribers. The service is mainly geared toward the private and government sectors, in contrast to Starlink, which caters more to customers who want at-home internet service. Iridium is profitable, with $114 million in net earnings last year, and the deal will help Rocket Lab expand its satellite communications network to better compete with SpaceX. But Rocket Lab's primary business is sending payloads into space, and in the first quarter, the company signed 31 new deals, selling more launches than it did in all of 2025. The company also has some major launch contracts already signed, including with the U.S. government to establish the satellite system for the proposed Golden Dome missile defense system. It also has contracts for missile tracking and military communications. Verdict: Rocket Lab is the better stock to buy right now While Rocket Lab isn't profitable, its loss of $0.07 per share in Q1 was an improvement from its loss of $0.12 per share in the prior-year quarter. Revenue is also growing at a healthy clip, rising 64% to $200 million. In contrast, SpaceX's sales rose just 15% in Q1 to $4.7 billion, and the company's loss of $3.29 per share was dramatically worse than its $0.41 per share loss in the year-ago quarter. SpaceX's massive losses have been fueled by sharp increases in its capital expenditures, which reached $10 billion in Q1 2026 alone, compared to $27 billion for all of 2025. That heavy spending should give investors pause, and so should the lofty valuation of its stock. SpaceX trades at a price-to-sales (P/S) ratio of about 94 compared to Rocket Lab's P/S ratio of 66. While neither stock is cheap, SpaceX's shares trade at a much higher premium even as the company ramps up spending and its losses widen. All of which means that Rocket Lab looks like the better space stock to buy right now.
SpaceX Drops to $132.75 All-Time Low as Lockup Overhang and AI Repricing Weigh on SpaceX Stock
All reviews, research, news and assessments of any kind on The Tokenist are compiled using a strict editorial review process by our editorial team. Neither our writers nor our editors receive direct compensation of any kind to publish information on tokenist.com. Our company, Tokenist Media LLC, is community supported and may receive a small commission when you purchase products or services through links on our website. Click here for a full list of our partners and an in-depth explanation on how we get paid. SpaceX (NASDAQ: SPCX) touched an all-time low of $132.75 on July 15, 2026, breaching its $135 IPO price just five weeks after the stock first traded on June 12, where it debuted at $150, before closing at $135.27. The stock went on to hit its prior all-time high of $225.64 on June 16 and then slid again in the weeks that followed. The price action sets up one of the starkest analyst-vs-market disconnects in recent IPO history. According to Yahoo Finance analyst insights, 27 of the 31 Wall Street analysts covering SPCX rate it Buy or Strong Buy, with a consensus price target of $242, implying upside from the July 15 close. Three compounding structural forces are driving the gap: AI-linked valuations repricing broadly across the IPO cohort; lockup-related supply overhang; and post-IPO euphoria unwinding as early support fades. SpaceX Price Timeline: How $135 Became a Ceiling Instead of a Floor The mechanics of the decline begin with a distinction the market initially ignored: the IPO price of $135 per share was the institutional clearing price set alongside the offering, not the $150 at which SPCX debuted on June 12. The difference between those two figures represented immediate first-day euphoria - a premium that late retail buyers paid on top of what institutions received. The stock went on to close its first full trading day near $161 and briefly pushed to $225.64 on June 16 as momentum and AI-infrastructure positioning drove inflows, and has deteriorated in a near-uninterrupted sequence since. The breach of $135 on July 15 matters beyond symmetry. That level marked the IPO reference price beneath which investors who bought in the offering are now sitting at a loss. With early post-IPO market support fading, the stock is increasingly trading as a true secondary-market bid. Analyst Consensus vs. Current Price: Why 27 of 31 Buy Ratings Haven't Moved the Stock The 27-of-31 Buy consensus is real, but its signal value requires adjustment for IPO-specific distortions. The majority of the analyst pool covering SPCX includes banks that participated in the underwriting process, institutions whose research departments are structurally incentivized toward constructive ratings in the immediate post-IPO window. Needham, the most recent firm to publish, maintained its Buy and raised its price target to $250 from $200 as of this week. Evercore ISI's Kutgun Maral, who is discussed as a bull, remains constructive but has noted that Starship has yet to prove it can scale, a material qualifier given that the rocket's first operational payload launch is expected in the second half of 2026. The mechanism behind the analyst-market divergence is supply-and-demand arithmetic at the float level. SPCX's freely tradeable float at IPO represented roughly 5% of total shares outstanding, a thin market in which sentiment and momentum dominate price formation, while the overwhelming majority of shares are locked up and not available to absorb or generate a signal. The $242 consensus target, which implies the full enterprise value of SpaceX's launch, Starlink, satellite-to-phone, and AI infrastructure businesses discounted at long-dated growth assumptions, is analytically coherent but is being priced against a float so narrow that it functionally cannot reflect fundamental value yet. Goldman Sachs's long-term AI revenue forecasts for SpaceX's infrastructure segment provide the underpinning for the highest targets in the distribution, as detailed in Goldman Sachs's SpaceX AI revenue forecast through 2030, but those projections are years from validation.
The AI burn book: Decoding the cat fights between Sam Altman, Elon Musk, and Anthropic - AOL
Business Insider decoded the shade and subtweets, from the punctuation to the emojis. As the summer temperatures rise, tech tempers flare. Sam Altman is back to his old ways: openly feuding with Elon Musk and taking jabs at Anthropic once again, to the shock of no one. With Altman and Musk's courtroom dispute wrapped up (Musk lost but vowed to appeal), the dueling AI leaders are now dragging each other online over data privacy and an Apple legal battle. The OpenAI CEO has also poked at Anthropic, his primary competitor, run by Dario Amodei. Altman and Amodei were once colleagues; now, they avoid holding hands. Altman hasn't called a rival CEO a "pusher" or a "grotsky little byotch" yet. Still, a Burn Book is forming under his fingertips -- and we decoded it for you. Round One: Sam Altman vs Elon Musk Elon Musk threw the first punch last Friday. Apple sued OpenAI that day, alleging that the AI lab stole trade secrets to build its upcoming hardware device. Musk replied to posts about the suit with exclamation points, the word "wow," and a quick reaction: "Sounds pretty bad." He ramped up on Saturday, calling the OpenAI CEO "Scam Altman," a favorite phrase of his. The digs kept coming throughout the day. Altman took scamming "to a whole new level," Musk wrote, and might love scamming "more than any human alive!" Altman responded in his typical, lower-case fashion: "homeboy you're the one sellling public market investors on short-term space datacenters." Note the term of endearment (or lack thereof): "homeboy." Note the typo: "sellling." Note the lack of punctuation. Three minutes later, Altman fired off another. This time, he used the feud as an opportunity to promote his product, writing that the most reliable benchmark for GPT-5.6 Sol's success "is that elon is obsessed with me again." (Again, no capitalization.) Musk responded to Altman's space data center skepticism a few hours later with a zinger. "We start flying them next year. Maybe you can come see them if your parole officer approves," Musk wrote. In the same post, Musk took another shot at Altman by referencing their messy breakup from almost a decade ago. "After stealing an open source AI charity, you then stole all of Apple's phone technology!" he wrote. "Wow." For the record, Altman doesn't have a parole officer. OpenAI disputes Apple's allegations stating it is "not aware of any evidence that this complaint has merit." OpenAI and SpaceX did not respond to Business Insider's requests for comment. After Saturday's brawl, Altman wasn't done. He took one last stab at Musk on Tuesday, reposting some data privacy concerns about SpaceXAI. "Concerning," he wrote. And yet, the enemies could find some common ground. Both Musk and Altman posted approving messages about an AI safety essay published Tuesday by Google DeepMind's CEO Demis Hassabis. Round Two: Sam Altman vs Anthropic Throughout the Musk mess, Altman continued to kick at his No. 1 opponent: Anthropic. Last Thursday, Anthropic released an eyebrow-raising ad saying there was "hope in hard questions." Those questions include: what will humans do when AI takes over all the jobs? And why do we even have to have AI? The leading image is of a house on fire; it's an AI doomer's dream. Altman clowned the ad on Monday, saying that he "thought this was satire" posted from a fake account. He also put words in Anthropic's mouth: "Hard questions are great but only if we deem you worthy enough to not silently downgrade you, or even get access at all." He appeared to reference how Anthropic quietly rejected or altered some Fable 5 prompts in its initial launch. The company has since made these safeguards more visible. Earlier that day, he laughed at an X user who called the use of Anthropic's Fable 5 an unhealthy situationship. Since its release, Anthropic has rolled back and re-deployed the model and lifted and lowered guardrails, to the frustration of some users. (In typical Altman fashion, he "lol'd.") Altman also got philosophical. He reposted a reply to a criticism of Amodei that quoted C.S. Lewis. "Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive," the post read. It's similar to criticisms other AI leaders have shared: that Anthropic warns of AI's safety concerns while claiming only its AI can fix it. And then, the vague-post of all vague-posts. "Come for the best model, stay because we don't treat you with contempt," Altman wrote on Monday, without specifying which AI rival he was taking a shot at. Amodei seems to be steering clear of the drama. As of Wednesday evening, he hadn't responded, nor has he updated his X account in over a month. Anthropic did not respond to a request for comment. If you enjoyed this story, be sure to follow Business Insider on Yahoo.
SpaceX bears are taking a victory lap as the stock struggles a month after the IPO - AOL
"I think it could be half over the course of the year," one bearish commentator said. SpaceX stock has struggled after a brief burst of post-IPO enthusiasm, and the bears are taking a moment to reiterate their downbeat views on the stock. A month after a historic IPO, SpaceX stock dropped below the initial offering price of $135 on Wednesday, marking a 40% decline from its peak of around $225. Wall Street analysts rushed to issue bullish price targets when the stock joined the Nasdaq 100 earlier this month, but the bears are feeling emboldened by the plunge that they say bolsters the view that the stock was overvalued from the get-go. "Expect the price to completely crash," former Fidelity Overseas Fund manager and hedge fund founder George Noble told Business Insider. "I think it could be half over the course of the year." Noble said $30 is a fair price target for SpaceX stock, a forecast that implies a drop of 78% from Wednesday's price. He's also previously criticized Tesla, describing Musk's EV company as the biggest bubble in stock market history. Jay Ritter, an economist and market commentator dubbed "Mr. IPO" for his expertise and research on companies and capital markets, told Business Insider that he was considering shorting SpaceX prior to its IPO. While Ritter didn't say whether he is betting against the stock yet, he added that he's not at all surprised by the post-IPO slide. CFRA analyst Keith Snyder labeled the stock with a "sell" rating directly following its IPO and hasn't wavered, even as many of his peers on Wall Street dole out bullish price targets and commentary in their initial coverage. "I am still negative on the valuation at these levels and haven't seen anything that would change the story for me," Snyder told Business Insider last week. The only thing he says would change his mind is actual growth. Ed Elson, a day trader who co-hosts Scott Galloway's Prof G Markets podcast, said in June that he saw the stock as highly overvalued, predicting that it would be cut in half within the coming year. On July 14, Elson shared an updated take on SpaceX, highlighting concerns about the bullish sentiment among Wall Street analysts. Elson laid out why this may be problematic for investors, especially as many bullish analysts are from banks that underwrote the SpaceX IPO. In his view, they still have financial incentive to describe the stock favorably, even after the end of the legal 'quiet period' for underwriters. "Anyone who bought post-IPO is now underwater," he said. "This is in line with the trend: Research shows IPOs recommended by analysts at underwriting banks underperform and, on average, lose value." If you enjoyed this story, be sure to follow Business Insider on Yahoo.
Elon Musk Reacts to Jamie Dimon's 'Einstein' Praise With Two-Word Reply as Viral Post Hails His SpaceX an
Musk Revisits Dimon's Famous Einstein Comparison Le Pogam argued that Musk, like Einstein, may need years to receive recognition. The post credited Musk with reshaping management and education while advancing space travel, energy and artificial intelligence. Those claims were Le Pogam's opinion. When the CNBC clip first circulated from the World Economic Forum in Davos, Musk responded, "Nice of him to say." JPMorgan Feud Becomes Wall Street Alliance Dimon used that interview to close a yearslong dispute between JPMorgan and Tesla. "Elon and I have hugged it out," he said. "You've got to look at Elon. SpaceX, Tesla, Neuralink. I mean, the guy is our Einstein." That reconciliation has since become a Wall Street partnership. At a JPMorgan event launching SpaceX's investor roadshow last month, Dimon again called Musk "the Edison of our time." "It's been an extraordinary 24 years watching Elon grow over time, and now making a massive leap into the future," Dimon said. Maye Musk appeared and recalled her son's early fascination with the future, while Musk joined remotely. Banks Rally Around SpaceX's Public Debut The enthusiasm extended to research. Morgan Stanley projected SpaceX revenue could reach $3.4 trillion by 2040. Such estimates remain speculative and depend on Starlink and space-based AI developing as expected. Image via Shutterstock Market News and Data brought to you by Benzinga APIs To add Benzinga News as your preferred source on Google, click here.
SpaceX bears are taking a victory lap as the stock struggles a month after the IPO
* After enjoying a brief post-IPO surge, shares of Elon Musk's rocket and AI company have struggled. * Bearish commentators say the slide reinforces their views that the stock was overvalued from the start. * "I think it could be half over the course of the year," one bearish commentator said. SpaceX stock has struggled after a brief burst of post-IPO enthusiasm, and the bears are taking a moment to reiterate their downbeat views on the stock. A month after a historic IPO, SpaceX stock dropped below the initial offering price of $135 on Wednesday, marking a 40% decline from its peak of around $225. Wall Street analysts rushed to issue bullish price targets when the stock joined the Nasdaq 100 earlier this month, but the bears are feeling emboldened by the plunge that they say bolsters the view that the stock was overvalued from the get-go. "Expect the price to completely crash," former Fidelity Overseas Fund manager and hedge fund founder George Noble told Business Insider. "I think it could be half over the course of the year." Noble said $30 is a fair price target for SpaceX stock, a forecast that implies a drop of 78% from Wednesday's price. He's also previously criticized Tesla, describing Musk's EV company as the biggest bubble in stock market history. Jay Ritter, an economist and market commentator dubbed "Mr. IPO" for his expertise and research on companies and capital markets, told Business Insider that he was considering shorting SpaceX prior to its IPO. While Ritter didn't say whether he is betting against the stock yet, he added that he's not at all surprised by the post-IPO slide. CFRA analyst Keith Snyder labeled the stock with a "sell" rating directly following its IPO and hasn't wavered, even as many of his peers on Wall Street dole out bullish price targets and commentary in their initial coverage. "I am still negative on the valuation at these levels and haven't seen anything that would change the story for me," Snyder told Business Insider last week. The only thing he says would change his mind is actual growth. Ed Elson, a day trader who co-hosts Scott Galloway's Prof G Markets podcast, said in June that he saw the stock as highly overvalued, predicting that it would be cut in half within the coming year. On July 14, Elson shared an updated take on SpaceX, highlighting concerns about the bullish sentiment among Wall Street analysts. Elson laid out why this may be problematic for investors, especially as many bullish analysts are from banks that underwrote the SpaceX IPO. In his view, they still have financial incentive to describe the stock favorably, even after the end of the legal 'quiet period' for underwriters. "Anyone who bought post-IPO is now underwater," he said. "This is in line with the trend: Research shows IPOs recommended by analysts at underwriting banks underperform and, on average, lose value." If you enjoyed this story, be sure to follow Business Insider on Yahoo.
SpaceX will launch Starship, the world's largest rocket, on critical Flight 13 test today. Here's what to expect.
SpaceX's Starship megarocket will take to the skies again today (July 16), and you can watch the thundering action live. Starship, the biggest and most powerful rocket ever built, is scheduled to lift off from SpaceX's Starbase site in South Texas today -- the 57th anniversary of the launch of NASA's Apollo 11 moon mission, by the way -- during a 90-minute widow that opens at 6:45 p.m. EDT (2245 GMT; 5:45 p.m. local Texas time). It will be Starship's 13th flight overall and its second mission of 2026. You can watch Starship Flight 13 live here at Space.com, courtesy of SpaceX; coverage will begin about 30 minutes before liftoff. Follow our Starship live blog for updates and other news about the test flight. A potentially revolutionary rocket Starship consists of a first-stage booster called Super Heavy and an upper-stage vehicle known (somewhat confusingly) as Starship, or simply Ship. Both elements are made of stainless steel and are designed to be fully and rapidly reusable. The stacked vehicle stands more than 400 feet (122 meters) tall and can carry more than 110 tons (100 metric tons) to Earth orbit. SpaceX thinks Starship's combination of power and reusability will revolutionize spaceflight, allowing humanity to settle the moon and Mars, among other bold exploration feats. Starship debuted in April 2023 and has flown 11 more suborbital flights since, most recently on May 22. That Flight 12 test was the first mission for Starship Version 3 (V3), an advanced iteration of the megarocket that was many months in the making. (Flight 11, the last launch of Starship V2, lifted off in October 2025.) Starship V3 will be the first operational variant of the vehicle. It will fly on NASA's Artemis III mission to Earth orbit in 2027, for example, and land the agency's Artemis IV astronauts on the moon a year later, if all goes to plan. Starship V3 performed quite well during its launch debut in May. During Flight 12, Ship successfully deployed 22 payloads via its "PEZ dispenser" slit -- 20 dummy versions of SpaceX's Starlink broadband satellites and two actual Starlinks equipped with imaging sensors -- and came back to Earth in one piece, splashing down as planned off the coast of Western Australia. There were a few hiccups, however. Super Heavy suffered engine issues during its return to Earth, for instance, and ended up crashing in the Gulf of Mexico rather than making a controlled splashdown there. SpaceX will run it back on Flight 13, shooting mostly for the same objectives that Flight 12 targeted -- with a few notable exceptions. The plan for Starship Flight 13 Eventually, SpaceX plans to return both Super Heavy and Ship directly to the launch pad after liftoff, catching each with the "chopstick" arms attached to Starbase's two launch towers. (Starship will also fly from Florida and perhaps other places as well in the coming years; these future pads will have chopstick arms, too.) This strategy will allow each vehicle to fly multiple times per day, according to the company. SpaceX has caught Super Heavy three times to date, but it's been a while; the last such snag came on Flight 8 in March 2025. And the company has never tried a chopsticks catch with Ship. Those trends will continue on Flight 13. If all goes to plan, Super Heavy will steer its way to a controlled splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico (which the Trump administration has renamed the Gulf of America) about seven minutes after launch. "The booster's primary test objective will be executing a successful launch, ascent, stage separation, boostback burn and landing burn at an offshore landing point in the Gulf of America," SpaceX wrote in a Flight 13 mission description. "There have been several modifications to hardware and software to address issues seen on the previous flight." Ship will again target a splashdown in the Indian Ocean off the coast of Western Australia, which will occur about 65 minutes after launch. And the vehicle will again deploy some objects into suborbital space -- but here's where Flight 13 will break new ground. Those objects will be 20 V3 Starlink satellites -- next-gen versions of the broadband spacecraft, which will "greatly expand the network's capacity and user speeds," SpaceX wrote in the mission description. Eventually, SpaceX wants to operate up to 100,000 V3 Starlinks in low Earth orbit -- a bold plan, considering that the current megaconstellation, the largest such network ever assembled, contains "only" about 10,800 spacecraft. The Starlink V3 plan will require thousands of launches -- a load that's beyond even the capabilities of SpaceX's workhorse Falcon 9 rocket, which flew 165 times in 2025. (Adding to the difficulty: Starship V3 satellites are considerably heavier than their predecessors. Each one will apparently weigh around 4,400 pounds, or 2,000 kilograms.) The 20 Starlink V3 satellites "will extend solar arrays and antennas and will attempt to connect with the larger Starlink constellation via high-capacity lasers," SpaceX wrote in the Flight 13 description. "The Starlink satellites will be on the same suborbital trajectory as Starship and are expected to demise upon reentry approximately 20 minutes after deployment." Six of the 20 spacecraft are equipped with cameras, which they will use to scan and study Ship's heat-shield tiles. SpaceX wants to gather more data about the heat-shield system before it attempts to bring Ship back to the launch pad for a chopsticks catch. And SpaceX won't just passively observe the heat shield during Flight 13; it will conduct some experiments as well. For example, the shield "will have load-sensing tiles to take measurements as the vehicle experiences higher dynamic pressure on ascent than previous flights, putting added stress on the tile attachments in exchange for increased payload-to-orbit capability," the mission description reads. So there will indeed be some new things to look out for during Flight 13. And watching the world's biggest and brawniest rocket lift off is a treat no matter what sort of mission it's flying, so be sure to tune in today!
SpaceX stock erases all its gains and slides below IPO price in intraday trading
See more from the L.A. Times in Google Search. Set us as preferred SpaceX stock dropped below its initial public offering price for the first time on Wednesday, signaling dwindling hype around the Elon Musk company. Shares dipped below their IPO price of $135 on Wednesday morning for the first time since listing, a humbling loss for the stock, which had skyrocketed more than 50% in its first days of trading last month. The shares regained some ground later in the day, closing at $135.27. The initial offering gave the company a market cap of $2.2 trillion, making it one of the world's most valuable public companies. For a short period, the IPO also made owner Elon Musk the world's first trillionaire, though his net worth now is about $800 billion. On July 7, the company was added to the Nasdaq-100 after a rule change allowed companies to join 15 days after their IPOs. SpaceX raised a total of $86 billion after underwriters exercised their right to sell additional shares, on top of the $75 billion initially raised. It was the largest IPO in history. SpaceX, based near Austin, Texas, is the leading launch services company in the world, with its Falcon 9 rocket accounting for the vast majority of satellites launched last year. It is also the leading satellite-based broadband provider with its Starlink service. The extraordinary interest in the IPO was driven by Musk's plans to make the company an AI leader -- including plans to launch orbiting satellite data centers powered by the sun that crunch AI data. The company's headquarters moved from Hawthorne to Texas in 2024, but it retains large operations in the South Bay city and blasts off regularly from Vandenberg Space Force Base in Santa Barbara County. Since the IPO, SpaceX has used its newfound wealth to expand in the AI space. It announced last month that it was acquiring the AI coding startup Cursor for $60 billion, with the deal expected to close in the third quarter. The San Francisco company, founded in 2022, enables engineers to instruct software in English to run coding tasks autonomously. Musk also merged his xAI artificial intelligence company into SpaceX earlier this year. The combined entity recently announced it was leasing computing power to rivals Anthropic and Google at two terrestrial data centers it has constructed. Since the IPO, investors have expressed concerns about the company's spending plans and debt load. Even with the volatility of the last month, there's still more uncertainty to come. The stock could fall further as locked-up shares held by current and former employees are released. At least 20% of the shares will be released after second-quarter results are disclosed sometime in the coming months, with all the lockups expiring in December. But Space X isn't the only megacap stock to experience ups and downs early on. Shares of Meta, then named Facebook, fell significantly below the IPO price of $38 before recovering. After its May 2012 launch, shares plummeted by nearly 50% and hit a record low of $19.69 in August 2012. The company took more than 14 months to rebound, finally surpassing its $38 IPO price in July 2013.
Traders cool on Tesla-SpaceX merger as Polymarket odds slide
Traders on Polymarket have sharply scaled back bets that a Tesla-SpaceX merger will be announced this year, even as Wall Street analysts insist a tie-up is only a matter of time. The prediction market now puts just an 11% chance on an official announcement by 30 September, down 28 percentage points, while the odds of a deal being unveiled by 31 December have fallen 19 points to 24%. More than $836,000 has been wagered across the market, which resolves yes if either company announces it is being acquired by or merged with the other, regardless of whether the deal completes. The retreat contrasts with bullish calls from analysts, with Wedbush's Dan Ives putting the odds of a Tesla-SpaceX tie-up at about 80% and arguing the connective tissue between the companies is already forming. Speculation intensified after SpaceX's $85.7 billion initial public offering, which created a company now valued at around $2.44 trillion with $100.8 billion in cash. SpaceX president Gwynne Shotwell declined to dismiss the idea when asked directly in June, suggesting a tie-up might make Elon Musk's life a little easier. Musk has exercised 304 million Tesla options, lifting his voting stake to 19.9% as he targets the 25% control he says is needed to advance the carmaker's AI ambitions. The two companies already share extensive commercial ties, including joint ownership of the Terafab chip facility, and SpaceX bought $697 million of Tesla's Megapack battery systems in 2024 and 2025. Musk has form for consolidation, having folded social media platform X into xAI in 2025 before SpaceX acquired xAI in an all-stock deal this year. Musk himself has acknowledged the complexity, telling analysts that any deal would have to make sure Tesla shareholders are served and SpaceX shareholders are served.
Traders cool on Tesla-SpaceX merger as Polymarket odds slide
Traders on Polymarket have sharply scaled back bets that a Tesla-SpaceX merger will be announced this year, even as Wall Street analysts insist a tie-up is only a matter of time. The prediction market now puts just an 11% chance on an official announcement by 30 September, down 28 percentage points, while the odds of a deal being unveiled by 31 December have fallen 19 points to 24%. More than $836,000 has been wagered across the market, which resolves yes if either company announces it is being acquired by or merged with the other, regardless of whether the deal completes. The retreat contrasts with bullish calls from analysts, with Wedbush's Dan Ives putting the odds of a Tesla-SpaceX tie-up at about 80% and arguing the connective tissue between the companies is already forming. Speculation intensified after SpaceX's $85.7 billion initial public offering, which created a company now valued at around $2.44 trillion with $100.8 billion in cash. SpaceX president Gwynne Shotwell declined to dismiss the idea when asked directly in June, suggesting a tie-up might make Elon Musk's life a little easier. Musk has exercised 304 million Tesla options, lifting his voting stake to 19.9% as he targets the 25% control he says is needed to advance the carmaker's AI ambitions. The two companies already share extensive commercial ties, including joint ownership of the Terafab chip facility, and SpaceX bought $697 million of Tesla's Megapack battery systems in 2024 and 2025. Musk has form for consolidation, having folded social media platform X into xAI in 2025 before SpaceX acquired xAI in an all-stock deal this year. Musk himself has acknowledged the complexity, telling analysts that any deal would have to make sure Tesla shareholders are served and SpaceX shareholders are served.