SpaceX
SpaceX calls ULA NASA launch contract “vastly” overpriced in official protest
SpaceX has filed an official protest with the US Government Accountability Office (GAO) after NASA awarded competitor United Launch Alliance a launch contract for Lucy, an interplanetary probe meant to explore a belt of unique asteroids clustered around Jupiter’s orbital swath.
Announced on January 31st, SpaceX believes that NASA made a decision counter to the best interests of the agency and US taxpayers by rewarding ULA the Lucy launch contract at a cost of $148M, a price that the company deemed “vastly more [expensive]” than the bid it submitted for the competition.
Updated our story on SpaceX’s GAO protest of a NASA launch contract with comments from both NASA and ULA. https://t.co/qqCsnNatu0
— Jeff Foust (@jeff_foust) February 14, 2019
With performance roughly equivalent to SpaceX’s Falcon 9 Block 5 rocket in a reusable configuration when launching from low Earth orbit (LEO) up to geostationary transfer orbit (GTO), ULA’s Atlas V 401 variant is the simplest version of the rocket family with the lowest relative performance, featuring no solid rocket boosters. According to the company’s “RocketBuilder” tool, Atlas V 401 was listed with a base price of $109M in 2017. SpaceX’s Falcon 9 is listed with a base price of $62M for a mission with booster recovery, while the rocket’s highest-value expendable launch (for a USAF GPS III satellite worth ~$530 million) was awarded at a cost of $83M, with three subsequent GPS III launch contracts later awarded for ~$97M apiece.
Relative to almost any conceivable near-term launch contract on the horizon, SpaceX’s GPS III launch contracts act as a sort of worst-case price tag for Falcon 9, where the customer requires extraordinary mission assurance and the entire rocket has to be expended during the launch. Put in another way, NASA would likely be able to get the reliability, performance, and mission assurance it wants/needs from Falcon 9 for perhaps $50M less than the cost of ULA’s proposed launch, equivalent to cutting more than a third off the price tag. Part of NASA’s Discovery Program, the Lucy spacecraft will be capped at $450M excluding launch costs, meaning that choosing SpaceX over ULA could singlehandedly cut the mission’s total cost by a minimum of 8-10%.
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- A mockup of NASA’s proposed Lucy spacecraft. (NASA)
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- NASA’s InSight lifts off atop Atlas V 401, March 2018. (Pauline Acalin)
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- A panorama of Atlas V 401, March 2018. (Pauline Acalin)
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- SpaceX and NASA’s most recent science spacecraft launch, TESS. (SpaceX)
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- After launching in April 2018, B1045 landed on OCISLY and is being refurbished for a second launch in just 5 days, on June 29. (Tom Cross)
“Since SpaceX has started launching missions for NASA, this is the first time the company has challenged one of the agency’s award decisions. SpaceX offered a solution with extraordinarily high confidence of mission success at a price dramatically lower than the award amount, so we believe the decision to pay vastly more to Boeing and Lockheed for the same mission was therefore not in the best interest of the agency or the American taxpayers.” – SpaceX, February 13th, 2019
The fact remains that the Lucy mission does face a uniquely challenging launch trajectory, offering just a single launch window of roughly three weeks, after which the mission as designed effectively becomes impossible. Missing that window could thus end up costing NASA hundreds of millions of dollars in rework and delays, if not triggering the mission’s outright cancellation. NASA and ULA thus couched the launch contract award and ~50% premium in terms of what ULA argues is Atlas V’s “world-leading schedule certainty”. Excluding ULA’s other rocket, Delta IV, Atlas V does have a respectable track record of staying true to its contracted launch targets. However, SpaceX’s Falcon 9 “schedule certainty” continues to improve as the launch vehicle matures.
Admittedly, while Falcon 9 has gotten far better at reliably launching within 5-10 days of its on-pad static fire test, SpaceX has continued to struggle to launch payloads within a week or two of customer targets. Regardless, October 2021 is more than two and a half years away, giving SpaceX an inordinate amount of time and dozens upon dozens of manifested Falcon 9 launches to reach a level of operational maturity and design stability comparable to Atlas V, a rocket that has changed minimally over the course of 16+ years and 79 launches.
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- An Atlas V 401 rocket lifts off in 2017. (ULA)
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- Falcon 9 B1046 prepares for its third launch and recovery, December 2018. (SpaceX)
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- Falcon 9 B1046 is pictured here landing after its third successful launch in December 2018 – the first SpaceX rocket to cross that reusability milestone. (SpaceX)
In October 2010, NASA awarded ULA a contract valued at $187M to launch its MAVEN Mars orbiter on Atlas V 401. In December 2013, ULA won a $163M contract to launch NASA’s InSight Mars lander on Atlas V 401. In January 2019, ULA was awarded a contract for NASA’s Lucy spacecraft, priced at $148.3M for a 2021 Atlas V 401 launch. Put simply, barring ULA using a dartboard and blindfold to determine launch contract pricing or aggressive reverse-inflation, SpaceX’s very existence already stokes the flames of competition, particularly when launch contracts are directly competed by their parent agencies or companies.
Whether or not SpaceX’s protest is entirely warranted or ends up amounting to anything, it can be guaranteed that the fact that SpaceX was there to compete with ULA at all forced the company to slash anywhere from $20-40M from the price it would have otherwise gladly charged NASA. Another ~$50M saved would certainly not be the worst thing to happen to the US taxpayer, but it’s also not the end of the world.
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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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