SpaceX shares fell by more than 4% on September 23, one day before the end-of-day close that saw the company issue about 328 million shares for trading.
Selling pressure comes ahead of Starship 14, the first planned mission to Earth orbit and the first revenue-generating flight.
Starship 14 targets orbit with a payload loaded
On September 24, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk said the company is preparing to launch on Monday, which would be September 28. By then, the mechanical arms of the launch tower had already placed ship 41 atop the Super Heavy 21 booster.
So far, all Starship tests have followed a suborbital path as designed. This time, the fully assembled 124-meter rocket aims for an orbit about 275 kilometers above Earth, SpaceX says. The flight is expected to last about 10 hours and circle the planet around six times.
In addition, the ship will carry 26 Starlink V3 satellites instead of a mass simulator. CFO Brett Johnson described the mission as the first that generates revenue for the vehicle.
However, SpaceX won’t attempt to catch the tower. Both stages are expendable, so the booster will splash down in the Gulf of Mexico. At the same time, SpaceX plans to burn up on reentry, dropping the ship into the Pacific Ocean west of Chile.
Why is SpaceX stock facing selling pressure?
News of SpaceX’s attempt to move the stock above $150 for the first time surfaced in mid-September. Since then, new offerings have weighed on SpaceX shares. The company is issuing insider shares in stages rather than all at once, and the first tranche opened in August.
The previous tranche opened on September 9, and the stock fell 3.9% that day.
SpaceX share price performance (SPCX) ⬆️
However, expiration forces no one to sell. Instead, the real impact depends on how many insiders take up the money. Additional tranches are scheduled through June 2027.
On the fundamental side, Wall Street treated the Mission 14 as a major guiding cue. Morgan Stanley analyst Adam Jonas has a Buy rating and a $300 price target, implying upside of about 99%. In his view, the market is discounting SpaceX’s plans for artificial intelligence and orbital computing.
A clean orbit and deploying the satellites will give Starship its first commercial proof. Until then, it looks like SpaceX shares are stuck between launch progress and an increase in shares available for trading.
