SpaceX Starship Flight 15 Ship Catch Attempt Puts Stock in Focus

A rally built on a rocket that hasn't flown yet

SpaceX stock is trading on expectations for Starship Flight 15 as much as on anything the company has already done. The shares jumped almost 8% on Monday, October 5, and closed at $171.09, their highest level since mid-June. The move came after Morgan Stanley analysts called the stock "cheap" and told clients to buy before the next Starship test flight1. With that gain, Elon Musk was once again worth more than a trillion dollars by the measures that include his SpaceX stake16.

The argument is about timing. Morgan Stanley set a $300 price target, roughly 75% above Monday's close. The firm said an attempt to catch Starship's upper stage on the next flight could be "the biggest positive catalyst since the IPO"1. Analyst Adam Jonas framed it as a window that is closing: investors have a few weeks to act before the flight, and the market is giving the company's compute and chipmaking businesses close to zero value5. In a later note he called Flight 15 "SpaceX's biggest test towards Starship reusability since the IPO." He also said Flight 16, targeted before year-end, could matter even more14.

This isn't a one-off move. The stock rose about 5% in mid-September when a firm date was set for Flight 1423. It rose again, by about 2%, after that flight reached orbit4. Each step in the Starship schedule has become a trading event, and the company's valuation now depends on hardware milestones in South Texas.

What Flight 14 proved, and what it didn't

The current optimism rests on Flight 14, which launched September 28 from Starbase. It was the first Starship to reach orbit and the first to deploy working Starlink satellites13. The mission carried 26 Starlink V3 satellites, which SpaceX said would add 26 terabits per second of network capacity10. SpaceX CFO Bret Johnsen called it Starship's first "revenue-generating flight"9. Before it, all 13 earlier Starship flights had stayed on suborbital paths, a choice SpaceX made for public safety20.

The flight had problems. An engine shut down early, and Morgan Stanley called the propulsion problems on the new vehicle recurring, even as it praised the mission as a major achievement4. NASASpaceFlight reported that the ship was brought back before the planned 10-hour mission was over. It also reported that SpaceX pulled all six engines from Ship 42, the Flight 15 vehicle, and sent it back for more testing. That work may involve internal changes to fix Raptor Vacuum engine failures seen on Flights 12 and 1416. Musk has said the engine problem was "pretty easy to remedy" and that the heat shield is "extremely robust"14.

The gap between those two views matters. One payload flight to orbit doesn't show the reliability needed for a regular Starlink deployment schedule. Even bullish analysts have noted that the reliability question stays open until Starship flies again4.

The ship catch is the real milestone

Catching the upper stage would be new. SpaceX has caught Super Heavy boosters with the launch tower's mechanical arms since October 2024, but it has never caught a Starship upper stage13. Every upper stage so far has ended in the ocean, so reuse of that stage is still unproven6. Musk told an audience at Giga Texas that Flight 15 will try to catch the ship15. Earlier, at the All-In Summit, he put the odds of success on the first try at "at least 50 or 60 percent"13. Citi also expects the attempt and calls it a critical step toward full reuse and fast turnaround17.

SpaceX hasn't confirmed the plan itself. Both the launch tracker KeepTrack and NASASpaceFlight say the company hadn't officially committed to a ship catch as of early-to-mid October1316. NASASpaceFlight left open the possibility of trying to catch both the ship and the booster on Flight 1516. There are hints in the hardware: in mid-September, tower arms at Pad 2 lifted Ship 42 into catch position during ground tests13.

Reporting on the catch isn't fully consistent. Most outlets describe an upper-stage catch. One market recap summarized Morgan Stanley's key catalyst as a "booster catch," which conflicts with the firm's own wording about the upper stage41. The upper stage is the correct target. Booster catches are already routine; a ship catch is not.

The schedule keeps slipping

The biggest risk to the trade is the date. Morgan Stanley's argument assumes Flight 15 happens soon, and one recap noted that a delay could take the urgency out of it5. The schedule is already moving.

An earlier report pointed to a launch as early as October 1915. A provisional FAA document later showed November 81617. Then Musk, speaking October 10, said the flight was four to six weeks away and "probably launches a little bit before Thanksgiving." He explained that some of the remaining changes require work inside the propellant tanks15. KeepTrack expects the flight to slip into November or later. It points out that Flights 13 and 14 each came about two months after the flight before, and that SpaceX hadn't posted a mission page by mid-October13.

There are also regulatory steps. According to NASASpaceFlight, the current Starship license covers Flight 14's mission profile, and its reentry approval applies only to that flight16. Separately, the FAA has started reviewing SpaceX's request to raise Starbase's cap from 25 launches a year to 456. Flight 15 and every other Starbase launch will stay under the current limit while that review continues15.

The timeline appears to be moving from early November toward late November. That's normal for Starship but awkward for a trade built on a "few weeks" window. Those who bought in early October should probably expect to wait longer than they planned.

Why Wall Street cares so much

The interest has a business basis. Jonas argues that one Starship launch could carry as much as one to two months of Falcon 9 flights14. Morgan Stanley estimates a Starship can carry up to 60 Starlink V3 satellites, each with about ten times the downlink capacity of the older V2 Mini17. Mach33 founder Aaron Burnett estimated Flight 14 at about $9.8 million per terabit per second launched, close to Falcon 9. He expects fuller payloads, reuse, and manufacturing gains to cut that cost 16-fold by 20289.

The most aggressive forecasts go further. ARK Invest's Cathie Wood has said Starship could produce $10 trillion in annual revenue by the end of the decade2. That figure depends on almost every flight carrying Starlink capacity and on a flight rate far above anything Starship has reached2. Musk has said Starship is "2 to 3 years away from hourly flights" and that fast, full reuse is achievable in 20279.

The current financials are more modest. One analysis of second-quarter results found the launch unit had $962 million in revenue and a $542 million operating loss. The AI business brought in $2.56 billion with a $1.26 billion operating loss8. Capital spending rose more than 550% to $18.37 billion in the quarter as SpaceX invested in AI infrastructure10. Starlink, with reported EBITDA margins above 60%, is what holds up the valuation for now8.

A volatile stock, a long road

The stock has moved sharply since going public. SpaceX listed on June 12 at $135 a share and hit a record close of $201.80 on June 16. It then lost more than 30% before the first post-IPO share unlock, bottomed in early August, and has since recovered about 58%6. The gains haven't been steady: the shares fell about 4% around the October 13 CRS-35 Falcon 9 launch, as focus shifted to Flight 1517. On October 6, a Morgan Stanley note lifted smaller space stocks such as AST SpaceMobile and Rocket Lab more than SpaceX itself, which may suggest the easy gains in SpaceX had already been made5.

In the near term, Starship decides how the stock trades. Third-quarter earnings, expected in late October, will probably come before Flight 151, and UBS has said the results could beat estimates4. Earnings will show how Starlink and the AI business are doing, but they won't answer the reuse question. Whether SpaceX can catch and refly an upper stage, which Musk describes as the step toward reflying an entire orbital rocket on Flight 16, is what will justify a $300 target or not15.

Predicting the date of a Starship flight has usually been a losing bet. Flight 15 will probably launch later than the bullish notes assumed. A successful ship catch would give the company the biggest real proof of reuse since the IPO, even if it comes after the date investors were hoping for.