Key Takeaways
SpaceX’s next-generation Starship rocket reached space on its first test flight Friday, but the partial success was marred by the loss of its booster, highlighting the technical hurdles facing Elon Musk’s space company as it heads toward a multi-billion dollar IPO. The 408-foot rocket, the most powerful ever built, lifted off from Starbase, Texas, at 5:30 p.m. local time, successfully separating its two stages and sending the upper stage on a suborbital trajectory.
The mission’s success is crucial to the company’s financial future, according to its own IPO prospectus filed just days ago. The filing revealed that SpaceX has invested more than $15 billion in the Starship program, which it depends on to launch the next generation of its profitable Starlink satellites. The space division lost $657 million in 2025, while the Starlink connectivity unit generated $4.4 billion in operating income.
While the Starship upper stage successfully deployed 20 mock Starlink satellites, the mission suffered significant anomalies. The Super Heavy booster, which was intended to perform a simulated landing in the Gulf of Mexico, failed to properly relight its engines for the landing burn and was destroyed. The Starship spacecraft also lost one of its six Raptor engines during its ascent into space.
The flight provides critical data for a program that is foundational to SpaceX’s growth strategy and its valuation ahead of a planned Nasdaq listing in mid-June. The company has a contract to use Starship for NASA’s Artemis IV mission to land astronauts on the moon in 2028, and Musk has long stated his goal of using the vehicle to establish a human presence on Mars.
This launch was the first flight of the upgraded Starship Version 3, which features more powerful and simpler Raptor engines. The test flight, which was delayed a day after a hydraulic pin on the launch tower failed to retract, was a shakedown of both the new vehicle and a new launchpad at the Starbase facility.
The mixed results demonstrate progress after a V3 booster exploded during ground testing in November 2025. The planned mission profile included a battery of tests, from deploying satellite simulators to having modified satellites scan Starship's heat shield to test in-flight inspection capabilities. The booster was never intended to be recovered on this flight, but its failure to execute a controlled landing burn points to remaining challenges in SpaceX's rapid, iterative development style.
For investors, the flight's outcome is a tangible progress report on the $15 billion sunk into the program. The IPO prospectus states the company's "growth strategy depends on our ability to increase our launch cadence and payload capacity, which is dependent on the successful development of Starship at scale." With Starlink accounting for 61 percent of 2025 revenue, the pressure is on Starship to deliver the next-generation satellites needed to expand the service. A successful outcome from this test could pave the way for an orbital attempt on the next flight, accelerating the timeline for both Starlink deployment and NASA’s lunar mission.
This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice.
