SpaceX stock fell 6.4% to $130.66 in midday Thursday trading, slipping below its $135 IPO price after CEO Elon Musk said the company’s Starship upper stage catch would likely happen in “a few months,” rather than imminently.

Musk posted on X that SpaceX would “probably catch the ship with the tower in a few months,” tempering expectations that the milestone would arrive on the next test flight.

Looks like we will probably catch the ship with the tower in a few months. If there had been a tower out to sea where we practiced landing the ship, it would have been caught. First reflight of the ship will be either end of this year or early next. That will be a fork in the… — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 20, 2026

The 14th Starship test, expected later this month, had been expected to include the upper stage catch using the launch tower’s mechanical arms. SpaceX already accomplished a similar feat with the Super Heavy booster in October 2024 during Flight 5, when the giant “Mechazilla” arms at its Starbase, Texas facility caught the booster. The booster catch was repeated on later flights, including Flight 7, adding confidence to the recovery system.

Catching the upper stage is a more difficult task because it returns from much higher speeds and heat loads after near-orbital flight. Recovering and reflying it would be an industry first: no launch operator currently reuses the upper stage of an orbital rocket, including SpaceX’s own Falcon 9, which recovers its booster but expends its second stage on every flight. Musk also said the first reflight of a Starship vehicle is expected by the end of 2026 or early 2027.

The S&P 500 was down 0.5% on the day, meaning SpaceX’s decline substantially outpaced the broader market.

What analysts are saying

William Blair analyst Louie DiPalma said the delay was “not that consequential” because SpaceX is “likely a full decade ahead of peers” on rocket reusability.

Those peers are working toward booster reuse: Rocket Lab recovers its much smaller Electron boosters and is developing the larger reusable Neutron, while Blue Origin’s New Glenn booster landed successfully on its January 2025 debut flight — though none of those systems reuses an upper stage.

DiPalma rates the stock Outperform with no specific price target. At William Blair, that rating indicates the analyst expects the stock to outperform the market.

He acknowledged the timing shift but pointed to SpaceX’s broader progress toward full reusability, which would allow both rocket stages to return to the launch pad, be refueled, and fly again quickly. That rapid reusability is central to SpaceX’s cost-reduction argument, with Musk saying it could cut the price of reaching orbit by a factor of 100 or more.

What is at stake for SpaceX

SpaceX stock has been volatile since its record-setting June IPO, and Thursday’s drop was one of the sharper single-day moves since the listing.

Starship development matters beyond the test program. NASA has also contracted a Starship-derived lander to carry astronauts to the Moon under its Artemis program, adding a flagship government customer to the vehicle’s plans. SpaceX is targeting 2027 for the launch of its Starmind AI computing satellites, and Starship is likely required to place them into orbit. The company believes space-based data centers powered by those satellites could provide an AI advantage over rivals limited to ground-based infrastructure.

The 13th Starship test in July was described as a success. SpaceX said mission data would determine whether a catch attempt would follow on the next flight, but Musk’s latest post indicates that timeline has now shifted.