SpaceX
SpaceX’s Starship prototype moved to launch pad on new rocket transporter
Over the last two or so weeks, SpaceX engineers and technicians have continued to make progress on the company’s first full-scale Starship prototype, intended to support experimental suborbital hop tests as early as March or April.
That work reached a peak on March 8th when the massive Starhopper was transported from build site to launch pad on a brand new transporter that was delivered and assembled barely 48 hours prior. Ahead of the suborbital prototype’s move, work has been ongoing to construct a replacement fairing for the partial-fidelity vehicle, although there is a chance that the new BFR-related stainless steel sections being assembled could be the start of the first orbital Starship prototype.
Required after improper planning destroyed Starship’s original nosecone (or fairing) when it broke free from its insufficient moorings during high coastal winds, the replacement has sprouted from sheets of metal into a far more substantial structure in barely two weeks. Designed as two integral parts of a suborbital Starship prototype, the upper section (i.e. fairing, nosecone, etc.) is predominately a passive aerodynamic structure with no major active functions, thankfully meaning that the first article’s accidental destruction was a relatively minor loss.
In fact, it’s entirely possible that the fairing’s demise has had a minimal impact on the commencement of hop tests, and may have even been a net-good for the program given some visible differences between Starship fairings #1 and #2. Despite the fact that the first fairing was destroyed in late January and a comment from CEO Elon Musk indicating that it would trigger a delay of a few weeks, SpaceX did not begin to assemble its replacement until February 21st, a full month later. Over the course of those 30 or so days, the company’s propulsion team simultaneously began hot-fire tests of the first full-scale Raptor engine, ramped thrust and chamber pressure from roughly 40 to 100 percent, and ultimately pushed the engine to the point of damage around the second week of February.
Work on the primary structure of the Starship prototype also proceeded apace, fleshing out the brute-force steel vehicle with the beginnings of serious avionics and plumbing and more or less completing the structure of its liquid oxygen and methane propellant tanks. SpaceX workers also rapidly expanded and built-out Starship’s prospective hop test launch pad just a few thousand feet distant, installing tank farms, piping, water deluge hardware, and building an actual concrete ‘pad’ with umbilical connection ports and attachment points for the ship’s three fin-legs.
Welding and assembly of the replacement nosecone began around February 21st, rapidly growing from a few sheets of steel to a nearly-complete barrel section measuring about 9m tall and 9m in diameter (30ft x 30ft). Intriguingly, the new fairing appears to be a significant departure from the structural composition of its predecessor, utilizing far thicker sheets of stainless steel joined by uninterrupted width and lengthwise welds. Compared to the first fairing’s dependence on extremely thin (nearly foil-like) steel sheets and a separate internal framework of metal bars, Starship fairing V2 appears to be easily capable of standing under its own weight and then some. While largely passive, it’s likely that once the structure is complete, some level of additional avionics (and perhaps cold or hot-gas maneuvering thrusters) will be installed inside.
Heres a close up of the launch site. pic.twitter.com/Q32SHjUH8F— RGVAerialPhotography (@RGVaerialphotos) March 4, 2019
U-Crawl
Keeping in the practice of dramatically lowering costs by prioritizing consumer off-the-shelf (COTS) hardware solutions wherever possible, SpaceX has purchased or leased a quartet of (likely used) crawlers for the purpose of transporting Starship between the company’s South Texas build, launch, and landing sites. Built by a European conglomerate known TII Group and owned by US-based Roll Group, SpaceX’s four crawlers – coupled to form a duo of larger crawlers – should be more than capable of transporting anywhere from 500t to 1000t or more, easily supporting Starhopper and/or Starships and Super Heavy boosters.
Rather than spending huge amounts of money to develop or contract out a custom-designed crawler or transporter solution for BFR, SpaceX appears to have simply purchased off-the-shelf hardware and affixed them with heavy steel structures capable of securing and supporting Starhopper during transport. Within 24 hours of the crawler arrivals, those beams were installed and the transporter had been moved underneath Starhopper and attached to it before quite literally jacking the massive ship off the ground, allowing technicians to weld additional structures to the tips of its three legs.
Last but not least…
Perhaps most curious of all, Starhopper’s replacement fairing was recently joined by the start of work on a separate barrel section that appears to be nearly identical. Assuming the presumed fairing is, in fact, a fairing-to-be, the combined height of the two barrel sections would already make it significantly taller than the original nosecone, and the beginning of the conical taper has yet to appear on either assembly. This could generally mean one of two things. First, the new fairing could make Starhopper much taller than its short-lived predecessor. Second, SpaceX could be planning to begin (or even complete) hop tests without a fairing, in which case the presumed fairing and its slightly younger twin could actually be the beginning of a higher-fidelity Starhopper or even the orbital Starship prototype hinted at by Musk earlier this year.
While far less likely than the first option, the latter alternative is further supported by the fact that visible work has begun on some sort of tapered or curved steel complements to the new sections in work. While they certainly could be the beginning of the fairing’s tapered cone, the latest segments only loosely resemble the start of a gradual curve. Instead, they look similar to the steel segments of several giant tank domes that were assembled, welded, and installed inside Starhopper last month.
On March 8th, SpaceX began the transport of its first full-scale Starship prototype at the same time as CEO Elon Musk indicated that the first flightworthy Raptor(s) would be delivered to South Texas and installed on the hop test article as early as next week (March 11-17). It’s now looking increasingly likely that any replacement fairing that may or may not be under construction might not be ready for installation on Starhopper before SpaceX begins integrated static-fire tests and maybe even low-altitude tethered hop tests.
“SpaceX will conduct checkouts of the newly installed ground systems and perform a short static fire test in the days ahead,” he said. “Although the prototype is designed to perform sub-orbital flights, or hops, powered by the SpaceX Raptor engine, the vehicle will be tethered during initial testing and hops will not be visible from offsite. SpaceX will establish a safety zone perimeter in coordination with local enforcement and signage will be in place to alert the community prior to the testing.” – James Gleeson, March 8th, SpaceX
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SpaceX confirmed the date of Starship’s 15th launch window with some massive ambitions for the mission, as it will attempt to catch Ship for the first time.
CEO Elon Musk confirmed during SpaceX’s Earnings Call last night on October 20 that it would launch Starship for its 15th test flight in November, and there are some incredible things the company wants to try, making it perhaps the most groundbreaking launch in the program’s history.
SpaceX delivers blockbuster Q3 results as Super Intelligence segment booms
The most major development of the call was SpaceX’s intention to catch Ship alongside catching the Super Heavy Booster, something that has happened in the past. SpaceX showed an animation of the Ship catch, which will be done on the launch tower’s chopsticks:
SpaceX has released a new Starship tower catch animation for the upcoming Flight 15! https://t.co/kStn01Da8u
— Truthful🛰️ (@Truthful_ast) October 20, 2026
This monumental goal is to catch both the Ship and Booster in a dual-catch scenario, an incredible feat since SpaceX has never been able to reuse a Ship after launch. Musk said it would be “the first time that an orbital launch vehicle has been fully recovered,” and said it would be a “profound technology milestone.”
Musk said the odds of success on this first Ship catch attempt are “more likely than not,” but SpaceX is ultimately prepared for more tries moving forward. The SpaceX frontman said that, starting next year, Starship would have a “steady stream” of flights through the end of the year.
The cadence will accelerate in 2027, with Musk stating the company plans to target weekly flights in the first half of 2027 and twice-weekly by year-end.
The Flight 15 attempt follows that of Flight 14, which took off in late September and was Starship’s first orbital mission. It deployed 26 Starlink V3 satellites, accomplished a controlled ocean splashdown of both stages, and shed more light on potential challenges for the program moving forward.
As of now, the Starship program is firing on all cylinders.
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Wall Street analysts rapidly raised price targets on SpaceX (NASDAQ: SPCX) after the company reported a bullish third quarter for 2026 following the market close on October 20. Shares were sent sharply higher in after-hours and premarket trading.
SpaceX posted revenue of $14.6 billion, a 161 percent year-over-year increase that comfortably topped consensus estimates, which fell near $12.7 billion. The company also posted a net profit of $4.4 billion from a prior-year loss, with adjusted EBITDA reaching $8.8 billion.
More price target movement:
🚀 Cantor Fitzgerald lifted its target to $345 from $246 (Overweight).
🚀 Barclays raised its target to $300 from $254 (Overweight).
🚀 Citi increased its target to $240 from $200 (Buy),
🚀 UBS moved to $230 from $210 (Buy)
🚀TD Cowen raised its target to $224 from $200 (Buy).
🚀Morgan Stanley held an Overweight rating with a $300 target.
🚀Other firms also adjusted higher, including Wells Fargo (to $274 from $214) and Clear Street (to $248 from $217). Analysts broadly cited the strong quarterly print, accelerating AI compute expansion, Starlink progress, and Starship milestones as drivers of higher long-term growth and earnings power.— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) October 21, 2026
Its Super Intelligence (AI) division generated roughly $7.6 billion and became the largest revenue contributor, growing nearly 830 percent year-over-year, while the Connectivity segment delivered $5.2 billion on strong subscriber additions that lifted the consumer base to 13.6 million for Starlink.
The Earnings Call proved especially catalytic, as CEO Elon Musk and CFO Bret Johnsen outlined Q1 2027 revenue guidance of $33 billion to $37 billion, which was far above the roughly $22 billion analysts had modeled, alongside fourth-quarter capital-expenditure plans of $35 billion to $40 billion focused on AI compute infrastructure at sites including Memphis and Southaven.
SpaceX delivers blockbuster Q3 results as Super Intelligence segment booms
Management targets 2.5 to 3 gigawatts of nameplate compute capacity by year-end and discussed pathways to 13 gigawatts or more by the end of 2027. Musk described relentless demand from hyperscalers and other customers, with compute pricing supporting payback periods of less than a year and potentially as short as six months.
Additional highlights included Starship’s recent orbital success and V3 satellite deployment, Starlink pricing and enterprise momentum, rapid Grok Bot adoption, spectrum expansion plans, and the formation of special committees to explore a possible combination with Tesla.
These elements prompted a wave of price-target increases:
- JPMorgan more than doubled its target to $500 from $240 while maintaining an Overweight rating.
- Cantor Fitzgerald lifted its target to $345 from $246 (Overweight).
- Barclays raised its target to $300 from $254 (Overweight).
- Citi increased its target to $240 from $200 (Buy),
- UBS moved to $230 from $210 (Buy), and
- TD Cowen raised its target to $224 from $200 (Buy).
- Morgan Stanley held an Overweight rating with a $300 target.
- Other firms also adjusted higher, including Wells Fargo (to $274 from $214) and Clear Street (to $248 from $217). Analysts broadly cited the strong quarterly print, accelerating AI compute expansion, Starlink progress, and Starship milestones as drivers of higher long-term growth and earnings power.
Shares, which closed at $147.79 on October 20, jumped roughly 8 percent in early premarket trading on October 21 as investors digested the results and the newly elevated Street targets.
The average analyst price target has moved higher, which reflects greater conviction in SpaceX’s trajectory across launch, connectivity, and the Super Intelligence business, even as elevated spending remains a point of focus.
Elon Musk
SpaceX showcases exactly how it plans to catch Starship next month
SpaceX played a new Starship Flight 15 simulation showing the ship caught by tower chopsticks.
SpaceX gave its clearest look yet at how it plans to catch a Starship upper stage, playing a roughly 80 second animation of the maneuver during its third quarter earnings webcast on Tuesday. The clip ran under an “Up Next: Ship Catch” banner moments after Elon Musk confirmed that Flight 15, expected next month, will try to catch both the Super Heavy booster and the ship with the launch tower.
The animation opens at ground level, looking up through the launch mount at a tower with its chopstick arms spread wide. It then cuts to the ship gliding back through the atmosphere in its horizontal belly flop position, with its forward and aft flaps steering the descent. A wide shot from the Starbase shoreline follows, where the ship is a small dot in the sky before it swings vertical and drops toward the launch towers. The final shots show the ship sliding down past the top of the tower, a close view of the hardware along its side meeting the arms, and the vehicle hanging in the chopsticks.
SpaceX has released a new Starship tower catch animation for the upcoming Flight 15! https://t.co/kStn01Da8u — Truthful🛰️ (@Truthful_ast) October 20, 2026
Musk called the catch the step that closes Starship’s reuse loop. “If we succeed, it will be the first time that an orbital launch vehicle has been fully recovered,” he said. He put the odds of success on the first attempt at “more likely than not,” and said SpaceX has “a steady stream of Starship flight attempts through the end of this year” if Flight 15 falls short.
The sequence mirrors work SpaceX has already done with real hardware. In September, Ship 42, the vehicle assigned to Flight 15, was lifted by the Pad 2 chopsticks into a simulated catch position, where crews cycled the arms and connected the ship quick disconnect arm while it hung from the tower. NASASpaceflight has since reported that SpaceX removed Ship 42’s engines before its static fire and sent it back for another cryogenic test.
Gwynne Shotwell covered the regulatory side on the same call. After what she called “significant constructive engagement with the FAA,” SpaceX expects the Flight 15 license “to include return to launch site and tower catch for both stages.” Bringing the ship home means reentering toward land instead of the open ocean, which Musk said in February would only happen once the chance of the ship breaking up over land was very low, after two perfect soft landings at sea.
SpaceX has caught Super Heavy with the tower three times, on Flights 5, 7 and 8, but the ship returns from orbit at far higher speed and has never been caught. Flight 14 on September 28 was the first Starship to reach orbit, and it deployed 26 Starlink V3 satellites before splashing down, a mission SpaceX counted as its first revenue flight in the Q3 results it reported Tuesday.
The timing lines up with what Musk told the crowd at Giga Texas earlier this month, when he said Flight 15 would probably launch a little before Thanksgiving and that Flight 16 could refly both stages. On Tuesday’s call he went further, saying Starship should fly weekly at some point in the first half of 2027 and twice weekly or more by the end of next year as SpaceX works toward landing a rocket and launching it again with no refurbishment.
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