Starship during the launch of its 14th test flight in Texas. For the first time, the giant rocket reached a true Earth orbit, deployed operational Starlink satellites and subsequently completed a controlled re-entry followed by a splashdown in the Pacific.
Technically, it was the most important Starship flight to date. On Monday, SpaceX’s giant rocket reached a stable Earth orbit for the first time and deployed 26 new-generation Starlink V3 satellites. In doing so, the program crossed an important threshold from an experimental system to an orbital transport platform carrying operational payloads.
Yet the achievement did not trigger a rally on the Nasdaq. SpaceX shares fell by just over two percent on Monday, closing at around $145.50. The contrast between the technical success and the market reaction shows just how high expectations have become for the company, which has only been publicly traded since June.
The stock falls despite Starship’s most important flight yet
SpaceX went public only in June 2026. With an offering volume of $75 billion and a valuation of just under $2 trillion, it was the largest IPO in U.S. history.
Since then, investors have been watching more than revenue, earnings and Starlink subscriber numbers. Progress in the Starship program also has direct implications for the company’s valuation.
On Monday, SpaceX appeared to deliver exactly the kind of milestone that could have driven the stock higher.
Starship completed its 14th integrated test flight — and reached Earth orbit for the first time. It then deployed 26 operational Starlink V3 satellites. Both stages returned in a controlled manner and landed in the ocean as planned.
The stock reacted negatively nonetheless, falling by just over two percent to around $145.50.
The broader market was also under pressure, however. The S&P 500 fell 0.77 percent on Monday, while the Nasdaq Composite declined 0.92 percent. Rising oil prices and significantly higher U.S. bond yields weighed particularly heavily on growth stocks.
A single trading day therefore does not prove that investors viewed the Starship flight negatively. SpaceX did, however, underperform the broader technology index despite a technically significant success.
Why Flight 14 mattered so much
The first 13 full Starship test flights had deliberately been designed as suborbital missions.
The rocket had already reached space and nearly achieved orbital velocity, but its trajectory automatically brought it back into the atmosphere. This also served a safety purpose: had control of the vehicle been lost, Starship would not have remained in orbit around Earth.
Flight 14 was intended to go beyond that for the first time.
After liftoff from Starbase in Texas, the roughly 70-meter-tall Super Heavy booster propelled the Starship upper stage toward space. During ascent, one of the upper stage’s Raptor engines shut down prematurely.
After reviewing the flight data, mission control nevertheless decided to proceed with the crucial second engine burn.
It worked. Starship reached a true Earth orbit for the first time.
Shortly afterwards, the payload bay opened and released 26 new-generation Starlink V3 satellites. This marked the first time Starship had carried satellites that were intended to remain in orbit and become part of the commercial Starlink network.
The original plan called for roughly six orbits over nearly ten hours. Following the engine problem, SpaceX shortened the mission as a precaution. After just over three hours, Starship left orbit, re-entered the atmosphere in a controlled manner and splashed down in the Pacific north of Hawaii.
By then, the mission’s most important objective had already been achieved.
Starship is becoming economically important for Starlink
Above all, the 26 satellites explain why this test mattered to investors as more than a spectacular spaceflight event.
The new Starlink V3 generation is significantly more powerful than its predecessors. According to SpaceX, each satellite is expected to provide around one terabit per second of additional network capacity. With 26 satellites on this mission, that amounts to a theoretical 26 terabits per second of additional capacity.
SpaceX says Flight 14 alone therefore carried around ten times as much additional Starlink capacity as a typical Falcon 9 launch carrying the previous V2 Mini satellites. That is precisely why SpaceX needs Starship.
The larger V3 satellites are designed around the enormous payload capacity of the new rocket. In the long term, a single Starship is expected to carry significantly more satellites per launch than Falcon 9.
Two of the company’s most important businesses are therefore becoming increasingly intertwined: Starship is expected to transform transport costs and payload mass per launch, while Starlink’s expanding satellite network could in turn provide consistently high demand for the new rocket.
An experimental development program is gradually becoming infrastructure for SpaceX’s operating business.
The market is already expecting a great deal
The fact that the stock still failed to rise significantly can therefore be interpreted in another way: at a company valuation of around $2 trillion, a successful Starship flight is no longer merely an encouraging glimpse of the future.
It is increasingly a prerequisite for the growth assumptions already embedded in the share price to become achievable at all.
Barron’s notes that a large share of Wall Street analysts continue to view SpaceX positively and that the average price target remains well above the current level. Even a new buy recommendation from CLSA with a $250 price target failed to lift the stock on Monday.
Gene Munster of Deepwater Asset Management has even argued that the market is underestimating the significance of the orbital flight.
In his view, Starship could eventually transform far more than the traditional launch business. Its enormous transport capacity could accelerate the deployment of much larger satellite networks, supporting both Starlink and new applications such as computing infrastructure in space.
Whether that ultimately translates into corresponding revenue and profits is another question.
The harder part is still ahead
Flight 14 demonstrated that Starship can carry a large operational payload into orbit and then return in a controlled manner.
The system’s full economic promise has not yet been realized.
In the long term, SpaceX wants to reuse both the Super Heavy booster and the Starship upper stage. The key will not merely be bringing the vehicles back to Earth, but refurbishing and flying the same hardware again quickly.
That is the economic core of the entire concept.
Falcon 9 has already reduced launch costs by allowing its first stage to be flown multiple times. Starship is intended to push that principle much further: both stages are supposed to become fully and rapidly reusable.
Only when that works routinely could Starship dramatically increase launch frequency and significantly reduce the cost per kilogram carried into space.
NASA is also waiting for further progress. A version of Starship is planned for the Artemis lunar program, and before a crewed landing can take place, key technologies such as docking and orbital propellant transfer still have to be demonstrated.
Flight 14 was a necessary step — but not the final one.
A success the market may already have expected
The market reaction therefore looks less contradictory than it first appears.
On Monday, Starship achieved something the program had failed to accomplish for years: orbit, operational payload deployment and controlled return in a single mission.
For a young space company, that might have been enough to trigger a sharp rise in the share price.
But SpaceX is no longer valued by the market like an experimental space start-up. Since its record-breaking IPO, it has carried a market capitalization of around $2 trillion — and correspondingly enormous growth expectations.
That changes the benchmark.
A successful orbital flight proves that Starship is making technical progress. For investors, the more important question going forward will be how quickly SpaceX can turn it into a reliable, reusable and profitable transport system.
The first orbit was a milestone.
On the stock market, however, it appears to have been something else above all: expected.
