{"id":515836,"date":"2026-03-03T11:03:12","date_gmt":"2026-03-03T11:03:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/515836\/"},"modified":"2026-03-03T11:03:12","modified_gmt":"2026-03-03T11:03:12","slug":"spacex-lines-up-starship-launch-next-year-as-elon-musk-targets-1-5tn-ipo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/515836\/","title":{"rendered":"SpaceX lines up Starship launch next year as Elon Musk targets $1.5tn IPO"},"content":{"rendered":"

Unlock the Editor\u2019s Digest for free<\/p>\n

Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.<\/p>\n

SpaceX expects to have its flagship Starship rocket ready to launch a new fleet of its Starlink satellites by the middle of next year, as the company prepares for a crucial test ahead of an initial public offering.<\/p>\n

Speaking at the Mobile World Congress event in Barcelona, executives at Elon Musk\u2019s rocket company gave the clearest timetable yet for the commercial debut of its next-generation rocket. <\/p>\n

Michael Nicolls, senior vice-president for Starlink at SpaceX<\/a>, said that Starship would be ready in time to launch a new, upgraded constellation of Starlink\u2019s mobile satellites in \u201cmid-2027\u201d. <\/p>\n

A Starship test flight is expected in the next \u201cfour to six weeks\u201d, SpaceX\u2019s president Gwynne Shotwell told the FT on the sidelines of the event. Musk had previously suggested in a social media post in January that Starship\u2019s 12th test flight would occur by early March.<\/p>\n

The launch will be closely watched by prospective investors ahead of an IPO<\/a> that could value SpaceX at as much as $1.5tn later this year, in what would be the biggest stock market debut ever.<\/p>\n

SpaceX successfully completed its 11th test of Starship from its Texas launch pad in October, with the rocket flying for more than an hour before landing in the Indian Ocean. It is expected to offer significant improvements in cost and capacity over SpaceX\u2019s current Falcon launch vehicles.<\/p>\n

\"Diagram<\/p>\n

Starship is pivotal to Musk\u2019s ambitions to win more contracts from the Nasa space agency and transport humans to the Moon and ultimately Mars. Designed to be fully reusable, Starship will be capable of carrying up to 250 metric tonnes.<\/p>\n

Starship\u2019s success is central to the company\u2019s pitch to Wall Street. Reusable vehicles promise to transform the economics of getting to space and could propel SpaceX to a new phase of growth. <\/p>\n

The rocket\u2019s expanded capacity will accelerate the pace at which SpaceX can grow its network of thousands of Starlink communications satellites, which are already used by millions of customers.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ll be able to launch more than 50 satellites on every launch [using Starship] and we\u2019ll begin launching in mid-2027,\u201d Nicolls said. \u201cWith this, Starship will be able to deploy the constellation very quickly.\u201d<\/p>\n

Recommended<\/p>\n

\"Elon<\/a><\/p>\n

Last month, Starlink Mobile surpassed 10mn monthly users and Nicolls said it was aiming to more than double that number to 25mn by the end of this year.<\/p>\n

Nicolls said SpaceX hoped to deploy 1,200 satellites within six months of the launch next year, forming a new constellation with improved networking capabilities. <\/p>\n

Starlink Mobile at present partners with operators such as T-Mobile US and the UK\u2019s Virgin Media O2 to provide a mobile signal where terrestrial networks do not.<\/p>\n

\u201cOverall, the system may even replace the need to deploy terrestrial networks in certain locations,\u201d said Nicolls.<\/p>\n

Asked whether SpaceX\u2019s priority was to reach the Moon or Mars first, Shotwell said both were important to the company\u2019s mission.<\/p>\n

\u201cElon has talked a lot about the Moon recently, but Mars is his passion,\u201d she said. \u201cLet\u2019s call them co-priorities.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Unlock the Editor\u2019s Digest for free Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":515837,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[64,63,128,285],"class_list":["post-515836","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-space","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-science","tag-space"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/515836","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=515836"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/515836\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/515837"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=515836"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=515836"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=515836"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}