SpaceX
SpaceX Starship ignites Raptor engine for the first time ahead of hop tests
SpaceX CEO Elon Musk says that the company’s first full-scale Starship prototype has completed an inaugural hop test in South Texas, igniting its lone Raptor engine and straining against a trio of tethers attached to its legs.
While relatively minor in the scope of SpaceX’s next-generation rocket program, Starhopper’s successful tethered hop now paves the way towards untethered testing in which the terminally suborbital testbed could spend several minutes aloft and reach altitudes as high as 5 km (3 mi). Aside from Starhopper itself, this perhaps marks an even more significant milestone for Raptor, completing the engine’s first successful test-fire as part of an integrated flight vehicle.
Starhopper’s first successful Raptor ignition comes after the better part of two weeks of concerted testing of the integrated prototype, beginning around March 18/19. That testing included 5+ wet dress rehearsals (WDRs) that involved loading the vehicle with a significant quantity of liquid methane and oxygen propellant, verifying the performance of avionics and plumbing, and ultimately attempting to ignite Raptor.
Ironically, less than 24 hours before Starhopper’s successful ignition, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk had noted that the rough prototype, its ground systems, or both were suffering from issues caused by ice formation in propellant valves. Reading between the lines, it’s likely that the issues involved valves on both Starhopper and its ground support equipment ‘sticking’ (i.e. failing to actuate) when commanded. While not usually a particularly large risk for the overall health of the vehicle and pad, uncooperative valves will almost invariably throw a wrench in the gears of attempted rocket operations, particularly when dealing with cryogenic propellants like those used by Starhopper.
As the supercool methane and oxygen inevitably begin to warm after leaving the propellant plant and entering Starhopper’s tanks, a fraction of the liquid will gradually transition into gas and expand, requiring constant venting of the tanks to prevent overpressure events that could damage or destroy the rocket. Falcon 9 and Heavy exhibit this same behavior, as do most other liquid-fueled rockets. This helps to explain the massive venting seen throughout Starhopper’s half-dozen or so WDR tests, as well as large but routine fireballs as excess methane gas was burned off as part of the process of vehicle and pad pressure regulation.
According to Musk, “all systems [were] green” during Starhopper’s most critical test yet. If Raptor and its prototype host are still in good health after their integrated three-second ignition test, SpaceX could attempt several more static fires and tethered hops over the next few days, mirroring the extremely rapid test series observed in February with the first completed Raptor engine.
If all proceeds nominally, it’s possible that SpaceX could begin untethered hop tests in the near future. Regardless, this marks an excellent step forward for the company’s next-generation Starship/Super Heavy spaceship and launch vehicle – all data gathered in this phase will help to optimize and improve the final design of the first orbital vehicles.
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Elon Musk’s space exploration company, SpaceX (NASDAQ: SPCX), is set to report its earnings for the second quarter today in what will be its first-ever earnings call since going public in July.
SpaceX is trading down roughly 25 percent from its IPO. These early stock signals are usually a bit tumultuous, and considering this is the first company actively launching rockets that is available on the stock exchange, investors might have a tendency to be a bit skittish.
However, there are going to be some details that investors will hear for the first time today on the earnings call. Here’s what to look for:
Wall Street Expectations
Revenue is expected to fall somewhere around $6.8 billion, and will be heavily driven by Starlink, which is SpaceX’s widely popular satellite internet platform that has been adopted by numerous airlines, cruise ships, and other maritime operations. It is also available for consumers at home or in their cars.
Earnings Per Share (EPS) expectations fall at a net loss of $0.23 per share. Wall Street sees this as a total net loss of roughly $1.9 billion.
EBITDA is expected to come in between $2 billion and $2.1 billion.
What Investors Want to Know
Tesla uses the Say platform to help work with both retail and institutional investors to answer relevant and quality questions that address concerns or questions that they might have.
However, SpaceX is doing things differently, as the company launched its own Investor Relations website where these questions are being fielded. Just like the Tesla questions, they seem to be less focused on the operational tasks and overall progress of the company, and more novelty.
Here are the top five:
- Has the team thought about what possibilities there are with your mascot Asteroid? Whether it’s starting additional foundations for kids in its name, helping kids learn about space, etc. Kids are our future, and Asteroid would be a fun and easy way to help.
- Baby Asteroid is already making a difference through charity around the world. Could SpaceX take it even further with programs that inspire kids to explore space?
- SpaceX has some legendary vehicle names. Would you ever allow the public to name a Starship, even knowing there is a 99% chance it becomes Shipy McShipface?
- When can we expect to see more footage of the Human Landing System?
- Will Asteroid (your mascot) go to Mars?
SpaceX will report its earnings today, August 4, at 4:30 P.M. EDT.
SpaceX will report second quarter results after the market closes on Tuesday, August 4, marking the first time the company has opened its books to the public since its record IPO in June. Management will host a live audio only webcast at 4:30 p.m. ET, streamed on X, with no dial in option.
The debut carries more weight than a typical first quarter as a public company. Two trading days after the release, on August 6, the first tranche of SpaceX’s lockup expires, freeing roughly 911.5 million insider and employee shares, worth well over $100 billion at current prices and the largest such release in Wall Street history. A second, larger tranche tied to the stock trading 30 percent above its $135 IPO price never triggered, since shares have spent most of July trading below that price.
Wall Street’s models point to revenue near $6.9 billion for the quarter, up sharply from the $4.69 billion SpaceX reported in the first quarter, with a narrower per share loss than the $1.27 posted three months earlier, according to estimates compiled by Motley Fool. Those numbers will be the first look at how SpaceX’s three segments, Starlink, launch and AI, are performing independently.
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Investors heading into the call have a specific list of questions. How many net new Starlink subscribers did SpaceX add after ending March with 10.3 million, and is average revenue per user holding up as the service expands into lower income markets. How much of the AI segment’s revenue reflects contract signings with Anthropic, Google and Reflection AI this year, deals that combined could annualize to nearly $28 billion if fully ramped. Whether capital expenditures, which nearly doubled in the AI segment alone between 2024 and 2025, are still accelerating or starting to plateau. And whether management offers any forward guidance at all, something SpaceX has never done publicly.
The report will also land days after Elon Musk publicly denied a Wall Street Journal report describing internal planning to separate Tesla’s China business ahead of a potential Tesla-SpaceX merger. Whether Musk or SpaceX executives address that speculation on the call, even indirectly, maybe something investors will be listening for on Tuesday.
As Teslarati reported after Musk’s own warning to short sellers last week, the CEO has made clear he expects skeptics to be proven wrong over time. Tuesday will be the first chance for the numbers themselves to make that case.
Elon Musk
SpaceX’s Starship just got filmed by its own cargo
SpaceX released new footage of Starship in space captured by the Starlink satellites it deployed.
SpaceX released a new video Friday evening showing Starship from an angle showcased by its own Starlink satellites, watching the rocket drift away in orbit.
The 65 second clip, posted on X, stitches together footage from four cameras mounted on a single Starlink V3 satellite. It opens with a close view of Starship’s 171 foot upper stage, still catching sunlight, then pulls back as the two spacecraft separate.
The footage comes from Starship’s 13th flight test, which launched July 24 from Starbase after a scrubbed attempt and an abort caused by an engine issue the week before. When Flight 13 finally flew, it carried the first batch of functional Starlink V3 satellites Starship has ever deployed, twenty of them, with six equipped with cameras meant to scan the ship’s heat shield during reentry.
View of Starship in space from a Starlink V3 satellite on Flight 13.
This composite is made of imagery from four separate cameras on a single satellite. Six of the satellites were equipped with cameras to scan Starship’s heat shield and transmit imagery down to operators to… pic.twitter.com/sNTHHz5vLr
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) July 31, 2026
Flight 13 checked most of its boxes. Starship deployed all 20 satellites, relit a Raptor engine in space, and splashed down softly in the Indian Ocean off Western Australia. Musk’s longer term plan calls for a Starlink V3 constellation of 100,000 satellites, according to a recent FCC filing, with Starship as the only vehicle capable of launching them at the volume that requires. Each Starship flight is designed to carry up to 60 V3 satellites once the vehicle reaches routine service, well beyond what Falcon 9 can carry in a single mission.
Starship is next expected to fly with an attempt at catching the ship itself with the launch tower’s mechanical arms, a maneuver SpaceX has so far reserved for the Super Heavy booster.
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