Elon Musk's Martian fever dream is growing by leaps and bounds.
October marked arguably the best performance by Musk's still-under-development Starship, when Flight Test 5 of the SpaceX Starship featured a successful mid-air capture of the returning Super Heavy booster by mechanical "chopsticks" on the rocket's launch-and-landing tower. One month later, Flight Test 6 saw a tower capture abort -- a disappointment -- but picture-perfect water landings by both Super Heavy and the rocket's Starship second stage, as well as a successful reignition of at least one Starship engine while in orbit (which was another technical objective of the flight test).
Impressed by SpaceX's rapid advancements, no sooner were the results in than the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration cleared SpaceX to quintuple its Starship launch rate, from five launches per year to 25. But even 25 launches a year isn't good enough for SpaceX Chief Operating Officer Gwynne Shotwell.
She wants 100.
Image source: Getty Images.
25 launches in '25
Now SpaceX will of course happily accept the 25 launches that FAA is giving it in 2025. And Kathy Lueders, general manager of SpaceX's Texan "Starbase" spaceport, expects to max out that limit in 2025. But at a recent investment conference, Shotwell expressed the desire to go far beyond that limit in future years, predicting that SpaceX will launch 400 Starships over the next four years.
And that's not all. Digesting all the public statements made by multiple SpaceX execs over the last few weeks, Payload Space recently assembled a report laying out a few of SpaceX's more shocking predictions for the next 10 years of spaceflight, and they hold some clear implications for investors in the space industry.
So long, Falcon 9. We hardly knew ye.
Perhaps the most shocking implication of Starship's progress is that SpaceX's popular Falcon 9 rocket might soon get priced out of the market.
Falcon 9 launched 91 times in 2023, and has already beaten that record in 2024. With a full month to go this year, the world's most used rocket has already conducted 116 space launches. Granted, most of these launches were performed for SpaceX itself, deploying batches upon batches of Starlink satellites to orbit. But SpaceX also launched 36 Falcon missions for paying customers, making it easily the world's most popular commercial rocket.
Key to the rocket's popularity is its bargain basement price -- less than $70 million per launch at advertised prices, which is cheaper than anything Arianespace or United Launch Alliance can offer. But as cheap as Falcon 9 may be, Starship will be even cheaper. Payload recently estimated the Starship's construction cost at $90 million (i.e., 28.5% more expensive than Falcon 9, but for 400% more payload capacity). And Musk has predicted that over time Starship's cost will fall to as little as $10 million per flight.
Once SpaceX hits that target, there will be simply no reason to keep flying a Falcon 9 that costs more, but carries less. Shotwell predicts that within six to eight years, SpaceX will retire the Falcon 9 and Starship will replace it completely, both for cargo and crewed missions.
Beware a price war in spaceflight
That might be a logical decision for SpaceX, but it holds some dramatic, and perhaps devastating implications for companies that compete with SpaceX. First and foremost: Falcon 9 is already the cheapest way to put a pound of payload in orbit. Nothing Arianespace or ULA has can currently compete with it. If Starship ends up being so cheap that Falcon 9 can't compete with it, it stands to reason no one else will be able to compete with Starship, which will undercut all prices and dominate the global space launch industry.
And here's a second implication: As noted above, Shotwell anticipates Starship launching 400 times over the next four years -- 100 times per year on average. With each Starship launch putting five times the payload of a Falcon 9 in orbit, that means that Starship alone will roughly 5x SpaceX's lift capacity (on top of any payloads Falcon 9 launches over the next six to eight years).
The question naturally arises: Will there be enough companies wanting to put enough satellites in orbit to utilize all the capacity SpaceX is bringing to market? Because if global demand for space launch isn't enough to equal all the supply SpaceX is offering, then Economics 101 demands that the price of space launch should fall.
In a market where Starship's launch price is already pushing prices lower, it may be awfully difficult for any other space company to earn a profit at the prices they'll be forced to offer.
What does this mean for SpaceX?
All of the above sounds like lousy news for companies forced to compete with SpaceX. For SpaceX itself, however, the news is only good.
Observing that SpaceX is currently selling shares to raise cash at a $255 billion valuation, Shotwell quipped that with all the irons SpaceX has in the fire now (Starlink and Starship among them), she thinks the company's value will "add another zero, probably," valuing SpaceX stock at $2.5 trillion.
It may take a few years to get there, but I agree this seems the general direction in which SpaceX is headed.
Don’t miss this second chance at a potentially lucrative opportunity
Ever feel like you missed the boat in buying the most successful stocks? Then you’ll want to hear this.
On rare occasions, our expert team of analysts issues a “Double Down” stock recommendation for companies that they think are about to pop. If you’re worried you’ve already missed your chance to invest, now is the best time to buy before it’s too late. And the numbers speak for themselves:
- Nvidia: if you invested $1,000 when we doubled down in 2009, you’d have $358,460!*
- Apple: if you invested $1,000 when we doubled down in 2008, you’d have $44,946!*
- Netflix: if you invested $1,000 when we doubled down in 2004, you’d have $478,249!*
Right now, we’re issuing “Double Down” alerts for three incredible companies, and there may not be another chance like this anytime soon.
*Stock Advisor returns as of November 25, 2024
The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
The views and opinions expressed herein are the views and opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Nasdaq, Inc.
