Shares of SpaceX soared over 5% Wednesday on news Elon Musk’s company has a new launch date for Starship — a huge, fully-reusable rocket that’s central to the firm’s business plans.
The 14th test for the model was scheduled for next Tuesday morning. If all goes according to plan, the Starship will complete six orbits on a 10-hour mission and deploy Starlink V3 satellites. The voyage would mark the first time the upper stage of the rocket enters a stable Earth orbit.
Investors welcomed the launch date, sending the stock to $150.67 a share, above the firm’s $135 IPO price from its record-breaking market debut in June. The stock reached highs above $200 a share shortly after the debut, but tumbled over the following weeks.
The Starship is the world’s largest rocket, measuring over 400 feet tall and able to carry 100 metric tons.
It’s a critical part of SpaceX’s plans, since it was built to deploy more advanced Starlink satellites – the basis of Musk’s satellite business and the real money-maker across his endeavors. The broadband business has more than 12 million subscribers.
The Starship was also built to help grow the company’s AI business. SpaceX owns xAI, which has developed and released the Grok AI system of chatbots, but the company eventually plans to form a constellation of computers in orbit to power more advanced AI systems — though some critics call the idea far-fetched.
Musk’s company has argued that using the sun to power its computers will save on costs compared to other tech firms using data centers on Earth, and that Starship – being fully reusable – will also keep costs down.
The rocket’s 13th launch test in July was a success. The upper stage of the vehicle deployed 20 Starlink V3 satellites, re-lit a rocket engine in space and then splashed down in the Indian Ocean, while the booster stage landed offshore in the Gulf of Mexico.
SpaceX, like many other tech firms, has been on a mission to calm investors who are concerned about an “AI bubble” in the market, similar to the “dot-com bubble” of the early 2000s.
In early August, SpaceX’s stock fell after it revealed a massive jump in AI spending, spooking investors who feared the company might be overspending on new technology that could ultimately fail to pay off. Traders feared the company’s jaw-dropping $2 trillion valuation could be overvalued.