Shares of SpaceX fell below their initial public offering price on Friday, declining 4.8 percent after Raptor engine failures forced the cancellation of the Starship Flight 13 test launch. The stock, which trades under the ticker SPCX, slipped to levels not seen since the company’s market debut.
The failed launch attempt was the latest setback for SpaceX’s Starship programme, which has encountered multiple delays and technical challenges. The Raptor engine issue emerged during pre-launch checks, prompting a postponement of what would have been the 13th integrated test flight of the Starship system.
SpaceX’s stock has been under pressure in recent weeks amid broader market turbulence and specific concerns about the company’s valuation. Since its peak, the company has lost approximately $1 trillion in market value as investor enthusiasm for high-growth space stocks has cooled amid rising interest rates and competition from other space ventures.
The Starship programme is central to SpaceX’s long-term business strategy, with the fully reusable rocket system intended to support satellite deployment, lunar missions under NASA’s Artemis programme, and eventually crewed missions to Mars. Each delay in the testing schedule pushes back the timeline for these revenue-generating activities.
SpaceX joined the Nasdaq-100 index earlier this month, though its float-adjusted weight is far below what its total valuation would suggest. The stock’s decline below the IPO price represents a psychological threshold for retail and institutional investors who participated in the highly anticipated public offering.
This article was adapted from Blockonomi. Read the original here.
