SpaceX stock was rising as investors wait for its all-important Starship test flight, slated for later on Thursday.
Shares of Elon Musk's rocket and AI company were up 1% at $116.35 in premarket trading, while S&P 500 and Dow Jones Industrial Average futures were down 0.4% and 0.5%, respectively.
The move came after a painful 6.7% drop on Wednesday. There wasn't much news to pin the drop on. Shares have simply been weak in the days following the record-setting IPO. (They snapped a seven-day losing streak on Tuesday.)
A couple of things have weighed on investor sentiment, including valuation. SpaceX trades for roughly 40 times estimated 2026 sales, and there has simply never been a trillion-dollar company at that valuation.
Investors hope Starship can send the stock back into orbit.
The 13th test flight of the largest rocket humans have ever built is slated to take off at about 6:45 p.m. The Texas launch can be watched at spacex.com and on X.
The original test date was Thursday, July 17, but an engine problem led to a weeklong delay. Now, SpaceX is hoping the second time is the charm for lucky number test flight 13.
"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," says SpaceX. The upper stage of the rocket will try to deploy 20 Starlink V3 -- or version three -- satellites. It will also attempt an in-space relight (reignition) of a single Raptor rocket engine before a controlled re-entry and splashdown in the Indian Ocean.
The importance of Starship development can't be overstated. The system is designed to be fully reusable, dropping the costs to reach orbit by some 90%, relative to a SpaceX Falcon 9.
Lower costs are the "flywheel" that enables SpaceX's value creation, says RBC analyst Ken Herbert. No Starship means no orbital AI data centers.
The scale SpaceX has planned for its rocket is unprecedented. Eventually, the company plans to launch thousands of Starship missions each year, says Morgan Stanley analyst Adam Jonas. It's a mind-boggling thought. Humanity launched about 330 times in 2025. SpaceX was responsible for more than half of those.
Jonas is hopeful that Starship could be carrying commercial payloads in the fourth quarter, but adds that "Space is hard, and future Starship and in-space anomalies should be expected."
Rocket development is rarely smooth. SpaceX has blown up quite a few rockets over time. Historically, the company has gotten things right eventually.
Write to Al Root at allen.root@dowjones.com
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July 23, 2026 08:19 ET (12:19 GMT)
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