TLDR
- SpaceX stock rose 1% to $116.35 in premarket trading on Thursday after dropping 6.7% the day before
- Starship’s 13th test flight is scheduled for 6:45 p.m. ET, launching from Starbase, Texas
- The July 17 attempt was aborted due to engine failures; SpaceX has since replaced at least two Raptor engines
- Tropical Storm Bertha is now a weather risk, with SpaceX monitoring conditions closely
- Flight 13 will attempt to deploy 20 Starlink V3 satellites and test a Raptor engine re-ignition in space
SpaceX stock edged up 1% to $116.35 in premarket trading Thursday, clawing back some ground after a rough 6.7% fall the session before.
Space Exploration Technologies Corp., SPCX
The bounce comes with investors watching closely for the company’s 13th Starship test flight, set for a 6:45 p.m. ET launch window from Starbase, Texas.
The stock has been under pressure since its IPO, despite setting records at launch. It snapped a seven-day losing streak Tuesday, only to slide again Wednesday. Valuation is part of the concern — SpaceX trades at around 40 times estimated 2026 sales, a level no trillion-dollar company has ever held.
SpaceX $SPCX will again today attempt a major test of its massive Starship rocket
The launch is targeted for 5:45PM ET from SpaceX’s Starbase facility in South Texas, marks the second flight of the latest iteration of the rocket, dubbed Version 3 or V3 – Bloom erg pic.twitter.com/bdrFtljLRg
— Evan (@StockMKTNewz) July 23, 2026
The original Flight 13 attempt on July 17 was scrubbed at the last moment when several engines on the Super Heavy booster failed to ignite automatically. In the week since, SpaceX replaced at least two of the booster’s 33 Raptor engines, according to Elon Musk.
Now there’s another hurdle: Tropical Storm Bertha. SpaceX flagged on X that weather is “currently a significant watch item,” with the storm bringing rain, wind, and rough surf to the Texas coast. Flash flooding and tropical storm-force winds remain possible in the area, per the National Hurricane Center.
What Flight 13 Needs to Do
The mission has a packed checklist. The Super Heavy booster needs to complete launch, ascent, stage separation, a boostback burn, and a controlled landing burn at an offshore point in the Gulf of America.
The upper stage — Starship itself — will try to deploy 20 Starlink V3 satellites, attempt a single Raptor engine re-ignition in space, then execute a controlled re-entry and splashdown in the Indian Ocean.
A successful flight would mark another step toward making Starship fully reusable. SpaceX says that reusability could cut the cost to reach orbit by roughly 90% compared to its Falcon 9 rocket.
RBC analyst Ken Herbert describes lower costs as the “flywheel” behind SpaceX’s value creation. Without Starship, he says, there’s no path to orbital AI data centers.
Scale and Timeline
Morgan Stanley analyst Adam Jonas has noted that SpaceX eventually plans to launch thousands of Starship missions per year. For context, all of humanity combined launched about 330 missions in 2025 — SpaceX accounted for more than half.
Jonas said Starship could be carrying commercial payloads as early as Q4, but was careful to note that “space is hard, and future Starship and in-space anomalies should be expected.”
NASA is also counting on Starship for its upcoming moon landing missions, adding pressure to the development timeline.
The launch can be watched live on SpaceX’s website starting roughly 30 minutes before liftoff, and updates will be posted on X.
SpaceX has replaced at least two booster engines since the July 17 abort.
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