SpaceX stock has lost altitude recently, creating an opportunity for Cathie Wood’s ARK Invest.

Four ARK funds, including the flagship ARK Innovation ETF, snapped up about 123,000 SpaceX shares, worth almost $17 million, on Wednesday.

SpaceX was the sixth-largest position in the Innovation ETF, through Wednesday, accounting for about 4.4% of assets, according to ARK’s website.

ARK is a big believer in Elon Musk. Tesla is the largest position in the Innovation ETF. And recent declines in SpaceX stock haven’t seemed to have shaken the firm’s confidence.

Coming into Thursday trading, SpaceX stock was down for three consecutive days and seven of the past nine days, leaving shares just 27 cents above the $135 IPO price. The stock fell below that level to $134.94 in premarket trading. It slipped to a low of $132.15 briefly in the previous session.

A few things have weighed on investor sentiment, including valuation and worries that more stock held by early investors becoming available to trade would lead to additional selling pressure.

SpaceX is valued at about 45 times estimated 2026 sales. And 20% of the shares outstanding will be unlocked and available to trade after the company’s second-quarter earnings report, due in a few weeks.

The stock was up 0.1% in early trading at $135.45. (Shares briefly dipped to $134.37, below the $135 IPO price.) The S&P 500 was down 0.04%.

The stock move, and ARK’s purchase, come just ahead of SpaceX’s thirteenth test of its huge fully-reusable Starship rocket, set for Thursday evening at about 6:45 p.m. Eastern time.

Starship promises to dramatically lower the cost of reaching space while dramatically increasing SpaceX’s capacity to put things into orbit. A partially reusable SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket puts roughly 25,000 kilograms into space for around $1,500 a kilogram. The fully reusable Starship is designed to put up to 150,000 kilograms into space at a tenth of the per-kilogram cost.

Lower costs will enable new applications, such as orbital AI data centers—a business idea that supports SpaceX’s trillion-dollar valuation. But Starship isn’t operational yet. In the thirteenth test, Starship’s upper stage will try to deploy 20 Starlink V3—or version three—satellites. The upper stage will also attempt an in-space relight of a single Raptor rocket engine before a controlled re-entry and splashdown in the Indian Ocean.

The test can be pushed back if needed. The 12th test in May was delayed one day. Whenever it happens, investors will be watching and hoping a positive outcome can give SpaceX shares a boost.