The stock has declined another 3.5% in extended trading on Wall Street, further slipping away from its issue price. SpaceX is the largest IPO in history globally, raising close to $90 billion last month.
Why SpaceX Shares Fell?
The company canned the launch of its Starship mega rocket on Thursday. CEO Elon Musk has pledged to make another attempt “hopefully in a few days.”
After opening a 90-minute launch window at 6:45 PM Eastern Time, SpaceX announced within a few minutes on the livestream that it will be “standing down for the day.”
The company attributed the aborting of the launch to some of the engines not starting, which triggered an “automatic launch abort.” Musk confirmed this in a post on “X”.
The rocket was scheduled to takeoff from the Starbase Complex owned by SpaceX in South Texas before the engines shut down right before ignition, according to a company employee.
A successful launch would have been the first test flight of the Starship V3, an upgraded version of the rocket, which stands 400-feet tall, since SpaceX’s IPO in June.
This is also the second instance of a failed test launch as the last instance in May resulted in a successful lift-off, but several engines at the bottom of the rocket failed to reignite which could have guided the rocket to a soft landing. The accident resulted in the rocket plunging into the Gulf of Mexico.
The launch was scheduled for Thursday only after SpaceX got clearance from the previous investigation from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) on Monday.
After the completion of the investigation, SpaceX had identified four corrective actions, including vehicle hardware and software upgrades, to ensure such incidents do not occur again.
As many as 20 functioning next-gen Starlink satellites were supposed to be ferried by the rocket as part of the aborted mission.
SpaceX shares listed at a premium to their issue price, made a post-listing high of $225, and have cooled off sharply since then. The stock has ended lower in 14 out of the 23 trading sessions since its listing on June 12.
