Starship Test: SpaceX's Quest for the Holy Grail of Rocketry

Starship: The Most Ambitious Spacecraft Ever Built

SpaceX’s (SPCX) Starship is by far the most ambitious spacecraft ever conceived. Starship is the tallest, heaviest, and most powerful rocket built in history. For context, Starship’s thrust is more than double the 7.6 million pounds of thrust produced by NASA’s now-retired Saturn V. The latest Starship iterations allow a payload capacity of 200 metric tons (Saturn V had a payload capacity of 240 metric tons). However, Starship is unique beyond its size and power. If successful, Starship will be the first full and rapid reusable rocket ship.

SpaceX’s current operational rockets, the Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy, are partially reusable, with some stages being expendable. However, unlike traditional rockets, Starship is designed to be caught, refurbished, and flown again rapidly. In fact, since SpaceX’s humble beginnings in 2002, full reusability has been its long-term goal, and Elon Musk considers it the “holy grail of rocketry.” Rapid reusability is the tipping point for space travel in terms of practicality. For context, the partially reusable Falcon 9 costs SpaceX ~$20 million per flight. Meanwhile, the fully reusable Starship is expected to cost between $2 and $5 million and carry a much larger payload to orbit.

How Close is Starship Success?

During his recent virtual appearance at the “All-In Summit,” SpaceX CEO Elon Musk updated listeners on Starship’s progress, saying:

“We’ve got flight 14 coming up, of Starship, and this will be the last flight before we attempt to catch the ship. So if this flight goes well, then on flight 15 we will try to catch the ship. Later this year, but more likely early next year, SpaceX will re-fly both the ship and the booster.”

SpaceX is aiming for September 22^nd for its Starship Flight 14, which will mark the vehicle’s first attempt to reach full orbit.

Cathie Wood’s Starship Prediction

Ark Invest’s Cathie Wood is tuned into the Elon Musk ecosystem more than most investors. In 2014, Wood began accumulating Tesla (TSLA) shares, making bold and seemingly unrealistic predictions. Since then, Tesla shares have soared 22-fold. Meanwhile, Wood also owned SpaceX pre-IPO through the ARK Venture Fund. Although the ARK Venture Fund got into SPCX shares pre-IPO, Wood remains extremely bullish. Recently, she tweeted her boldest prediction yet:

“Each Starship launch could generate $1 billion in revenue. Elon is aiming for 10,000 flights per year, or $10 trillion in Starship revenues, by 2030. If SpaceX achieves this goal, its $1.75 trillion IPO will be considered, in hindsight, a deep value opportunity.”

Musk replied to the thread saying, “It’s not impossible.”

While Wood’s projections seem crazy, even if an investor divided her projection by 10, the numbers would still be astounding and would warrant a massive revaluation. Not to mention, SpaceX is growing in multiple business verticals and has become as much of an AI company as it is a space company.

Bottom Line

While bold projections like Cathie Wood’s multi-trillion-dollar revenue targets may sound astronomical, even a fraction of that scale underscores the paradigm shift SpaceX is engineering. By cracking the code on rapid, full reusability, Starship is rewriting the economics of space exploration.

Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report

This article originally published on Zacks Investment Research (zacks.com).

Zacks Investment Research