SpaceX launches new V3 Starlink satellites but suffers another booster failure
The company ticked off a few more boxes on the second Starship V3 flight, but appears to have had another issue relighting the booster’s rocket engines.
The company ticked off a few more boxes on the second Starship V3 flight, but appears to have had another issue relighting the booster’s rocket engines.
The company didn’t immediately say what went wrong. SpaceX’s stock plunged more than 4% in after-hours trading before paring losses.
The stock has steadily fallen from the euphoric post-IPO high, showing that markets may be sobering up to the promises CEO Elon Musk made before and after SpaceX went public.
This will be the first Starship test flight for SpaceX as a public company, testing the market’s appetite for the company’s “fly, fail, fix” approach to rocket development, which often ends in fireballs.
SpaceX’s recent IPO and Starship rocket test flight delivered two big data points that offer a realistic vision for the coming years — and one that may disappoint both the company’s boosters and its critics.
The company had a mostly successful first launch of its upgraded Starship V3, which it needs to power its many ambitious goals in the years to come.