SpaceX Catches Starship From Orbit for the First Time. Here’s What It Means for Starlink’s Costs

Resumen detallado

Key TakeawaysSpaceX caught a Starship upper stage returning from orbit for the first time on Nov. 14, though it lost the Super Heavy booster on the same flight.

SpaceX (SPCX:NASDAQ) caught a Starship upper stage with its launch tower for the first time on Saturday, Nov. 14, about 22.5 hours after Flight 15 lifted off from Starbase. Ship 42 flew 14 orbits and deployed 26 Starlink V3 satellites before the tower's arms closed around it, CNBC reported. "Mechazilla has caught the Starship," SpaceX's Dan Huot said on the company's livestream, Universe Today reported.

The flight wasn't clean. The Super Heavy booster's catch was called off minutes after liftoff on Friday, Nov. 13, when its onboard systems flagged a fuel-system problem, and it exploded before reaching the Gulf of Mexico. The catch also raises the bar for Rocket Lab (RKLB:NASDAQ), whose reusable Neutron rocket hasn't flown: Rocket Lab signed eight Neutron missions worth more than $515 million last quarter, but its first launch has slipped into 2027.

The case for the catch is cost. Starship carries far more than Falcon 9: Flight 14's 26 V3 satellites added about 10 times the downlink capacity of a Falcon 9 Starlink launch, according to SpaceX's third-quarter results. SpaceX is also its own biggest customer. Of the 476 metric tons it put in orbit in the third quarter, 358 tons, or 75%, were its own payloads, mostly Starlink satellites. A ship that comes back to the tower instead of burning up is what turns that capacity into cheaper launches.

Right now, Starship is a cost. SpaceX's revenue reached $14.58 billion in the third quarter, almost double the second quarter's $7.81 billion, but the Space segment contributed little of that growth.

The Space segment brought in $1.77 billion and lost $7 million, against a $259 million profit a year earlier. SpaceX said faster Starship R&D drove a $367 million rise in the segment's costs, and it spent $1.61 billion on Space capex, about 91% of the segment's revenue.

See the full breakdown of Buy, Hold, and Sell ratings on SpaceX, along with Wall Street's revenue and earnings estimates, all in one place.

SpaceX stock closed Friday at…

The…

Inicio del artículo, extracto de Yahoo Finance. Para leer el resto, abra el artículo en el sitio del medio.