SpaceX has successfully caught Starship with its capture tower for the first time. What does this mean for the stock?

Elon Musk's company, SpaceX, successfully caught the upper stage of the returning Starship spacecraft for the first time using the launch tower's mechanical "arms" at the Starbase site in Texas. This marks a new engineering milestone on the path to creating a fully reusable rocket system, Bloomberg notes.

After returning from orbit—approximately 23 hours after launch—the Starship descended to the Starbase site in Texas. The spacecraft descended belly-first and, just before landing, rotated into a vertical position near the launch tower. Two folding mechanical arms on the tower caught the spacecraft and stopped its descent.

The test flight did not go as planned—after the launch, SpaceX was unable to recover the Super Heavy booster to the launch site. According to the company, it autonomously aborted the recovery attempt due to a low-fuel warning and, instead of returning to the spaceport, splashed down in the Gulf of Mexico, where it subsequently exploded.

During previous tests, SpaceX had successfully recovered the returning booster three times, but it had never managed to recover the top stage.

According to SpaceX, Starship remains the tallest and most powerful rocket in history. The company plans to use it to launch upgraded Starlink satellites, as well as a constellation of up to one million satellites designed to function as orbital data centers for artificial intelligence. In the future, the rocket is intended to transport people to the Moon and assist in establishing a settlement on Mars.

The technology for capturing the spacecraft using the launch tower’s mechanical manipulators is expected to accelerate the reuse of Starship. In the long term, SpaceX plans to launch Starship thousands of times a year. By comparison, the partially reusable Falcon 9 currently flies hundreds of times a year and carries most of the world’s cargo into orbit.

Following the failed recovery attempt, SpaceX shares fell 2% in after-hours trading on November 13. It is still difficult to say how the stock will perform in Monday's trading session following the successful recovery of the upper stage, according to Barron's.

"No matter what happens, reaching the top step is an amazing achievement," the publication emphasizes.

The article states that the progress of the Starship project is critically important for SpaceX’s stock. Starship is a technology that paves the way for launching data centers in space. After Democrats gained control of Congress in the midterm elections, Elon Musk wrote on social media platform X: “Data centers in space are looking pretty attractive right now.”

"SpaceX is a decade ahead of its competitors" in terms of space launches, analysts at William Blair wrote in a note ahead of the tests. They noted that even if the attempt to recover the spacecraft fails, a delay of several months would not have such significant consequences, according to CNBC.

According to MarketWatch data, nearly 80% of analysts covering SpaceX recommend buying its stock. SpaceX shares are currently trading just 3% above their June IPO price of $135 and 38% below their all-time high of $225.64, reached shortly after the offering. Several factors are weighing on investor sentiment, primarily related to artificial intelligence and the risk of a slowdown in the industry’s overall growth, Barron’s notes.

Analysts at Bernstein previously estimated that the increase in the number of Starship launches and the expansion of the Starlink satellite network would allow SpaceX to significantly boost its revenue from the communications business. Bernstein’s forecast suggests that Starlink will capture “virtually 100%” of the satellite broadband market in certain regions, while also increasing its share among broadband users who are not connected to fiber-optic networks.

This article was AI-translated and verified by a human editor