Countdown to Starship's 13th test flight! A key flight affects SpaceX (SPCX.US) space ambitions and trillion valuation

The Zhitong Finance App learned that after abandoning the launch attempt last week, SpaceX (SPCX.US) will try again to conduct an important test of its giant Starship (Starship) rocket on Thursday. This incident will allow investors to face the risks posed by the company's turbulent R&D cycle, and further raise the level of attention to this critical milestone.

The launch is scheduled to take place at 5:45 p.m. local time from SpaceX's Starship base in southern Texas, USA. This will be the second flight test of the latest version of the rocket — known as the third version (V3 for short). This time, the rocket will carry an upgraded version of the Starlink (Starlink) satellites into space. These satellites will later re-enter the atmosphere and burn down during this test mission.

Starships are at the core of SpaceX CEO Elon Musk's many ambitious goals, including deploying data centers to space, expanding the Starlink communications network, and sending humans to the Moon and Mars. However, the development path of the project has been unstable, and it has experienced explosive accidents, equipment failure, and many delays during this period.

This Starship flight test is the rocket's 13th flight, and the first flight test since SpaceX completed its largest initial public offering (IPO) in history in June. The 13th test flight of the Starship, originally scheduled for Thursday, was automatically aborted at the last second before lift-off due to engine ignition failure — the 33 raptor engines at the bottom of the overweight booster had already started the ignition process, but some of the engines did not start properly. The arrow system immediately triggered an automatic interruption, shutting down all engines before the rocket left the launch pad.

Although this was originally only an unusual launch suspension during the development of a large-scale rocket, it occurred during the sensitive phase of just one month after SpaceX's listing and a continuous correction in stock prices. SpaceX's stock price fell about 3% after the US stock market last Thursday, and continued to fall last Friday. This drop in stock prices shows that some investors are more sensitive to the risks already existing in SpaceX's rocket development strategy — a strategy that includes frequent testing, frequent failure, and learning to improve through failure.

Ivan Fiancester, Chief Investment Officer at Tigress Financial Partners, said, “This suspension of the launch highlights ongoing implementation risks as Starship achieves high-frequency launches and reusable operations, and further shows that repeated delays may delay the company's revenue growth and profit margin improvement trajectory.”

However, there are also market participants who are very calm about the cancellation of the Starship launch last week. SpaceX previously adopted a similar approach in its main Falcon 9 rocket project—Falcon 9 also experienced some setbacks in the early days, but now it has become the most frequently launched launch vehicle in the world. Caleb Henry, head of research at consulting firm Quilty Space, said, “SpaceX's stock price fluctuation shows me that there are still some investors in the market who don't actually understand the space industry.”

The key is to fly

The 13th Starship test flight that took place on Thursday was by no means a simple “try again.” The 12th Starship flight test carried out on May 22 this year was the first flight of the Starship V3 configuration. During the ascent, one of the engines of the overweight booster stopped working prematurely; after completing the separation between stages, the Starship also lost an engine, but relied on the remaining engines to continue to complete the main tasks. Subsequently, when the overweight booster was fired on the return trip, the 5 raptor engines failed to restart as planned, and the return combustion ended prematurely, and the booster eventually fell into the sea at a high speed.

The US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) then initiated an investigation into the accident. According to the final report, the booster's failure to return was most likely due to two reasons: the thermal environment during the ascent phase affected the propulsion system components, and there was also a problem with the engine alarm system parameter settings. The FAA accepted the four corrective measures proposed by SpaceX and closed the investigation on July 13 to allow the 13th test flight to proceed.

The first thing to verify in the 13th test flight is whether the problems revealed by the 12th test flight have actually been solved, including whether the effects on propulsion system components can be controlled, whether engine alarm parameters can accurately identify abnormalities, and whether return ignition can be completed according to plan.

However, the suspension of the launch on July 16 made this test more difficult. After SpaceX completed the last round of rectification, the new overweight booster once again revealed engine problems during the ground start-up phase. Musk later said that SpaceX will replace two Raptor engines and postpone the next attempt until July 23, local time.

For a rocket that is still in the testing phase, the revealed problems are not surprising. The key is whether similar problems are repeated and whether each flight can make verifiable progress based on the previous round of data. The real significance of the 13th Starship test flight is whether SpaceX can turn the data obtained in the previous round of test flights into the next round of real and effective engineering improvements.

It is worth mentioning that in addition to verifying the power system, the 13th Starship test flight to be carried out on Thursday is also a deployment test of 20 Starlink V3 satellites. Unlike previous test flights, which mainly carried simulated payloads, these satellites will test solar panels, antenna deployment, and laser communication with existing Starlink networks when released. Although they will not enter long-term orbit and are expected to re-enter the atmosphere about 20 minutes after release, the Starship has begun to verify actual payload transportation and satellite deployment capabilities.

Starlink is SpaceX's most important cash engine at present, and the V3 satellite is related to the next stage of network capacity. Due to capacity and rectification space limitations, it is difficult for Falcon 9 to undertake large-scale deployment of the V3 satellite. Starship cannot be put into use for a day, and the large-scale networking of Starlink V3 will have to wait. Once put into use, SpaceX can transport more satellites in a single mission, significantly improving the efficiency of constellation expansion and opening up space for the next round of Starlink growth.

Generally speaking, with regard to the 13th test flight of the Starship, the capital market is really concerned not only about whether the mission will eventually be called “successful” or “partially successful,” but also to confirm whether the problems that have already been revealed have been solved and whether the Starship is gradually getting closer to actual use after a round of test flights.

If the rocket successfully completes the release of the V3 satellite, restart the spacecraft engine, re-entry, and controlled splash, SpaceX will obtain a nearly complete v3 configuration verification. If the ascent flight and satellite release are successfully completed, there will still be twists and turns in the return phase. This mission also has clear value, which at least indicates that the Starship is beginning to have the ability to deploy actual payloads.

Relatively unfavorable results were that the engine starting problem was repeated on the launch pad, or that the propulsion system abnormalities of the 12th test flight were repeated during the flight. This may mean that the problem is not limited to individual engines; SpaceX also needs to re-check the propellant system, thermal environment, alarm logic, or hardware consistency, and the pace of subsequent test flights may slow down as a result.

SpaceX has relied on Falcon 9 to establish the world's highest-frequency commercial launch system, and has also developed Starlink into a satellite internet network with tens of millions of users. Whether new growth space can be opened up in the future depends largely on when the Starship matures and when it can undertake the deployment of V3 satellites, lunar landing transportation, and orbital computing power infrastructure construction.