SpaceX asks the FAA for 76 Starship launches a year, and SPCX trades at 133 times forward earnings
SPCX trades at 133 times forward earnings with a $300 Morgan Stanley target and Flight 15 weeks away. The cadence underneath sits in an FAA docket open for objection until October 14, and its fuel supply is a gas pipeline awaiting Florida's approval.
Vincent Jiang · 3 min read
Eight days after first orbit, two price targets and a trillionaire
Starship reached orbit for the first time on September 28, its 14th flight since April 2023, and an engine shutdown still cut the mission short 1. The market shrugged. The stock rose almost 8% Monday to $171.09, and Musk is a trillionaire again 2. At 133 times forward earnings, Morgan Stanley's Adam Jonas carries a $300 target and told clients they "still have a few weeks to 'catch' the opportunity before Flight 15" 3.
Seventy-six launches a year, still a request
Flight 15, provisionally no earlier than October 19, may attempt the first tower catch of a Starship upper stage, odds Musk puts "at least 50 or 60 percent"; SpaceX has not reconfirmed the try 1. The bigger number is a filing, not a schedule.
SpaceX has asked the FAA to modify its launch license for up to 76 Starship launches and 152 landings a year at Cape Canaveral's SLC-37, and the agency's scoping window on a supplemental environmental impact statement closes October 14 45. Still unanalyzed: temporary airspace closures, a contingency landing zone reaching 50 miles north of Kennedy and 50 miles south of the Cape, and return-to-launch-site trajectories 46.
The methane arrives by truck, for now
Each launch burns about 630,000 gallons of liquid methane, hauled in by hundreds of tanker trucks 7. SpaceX unit Coastal Connect Services has asked the Florida Public Service Commission for a tariff to build a 32.4-mile, 16-inch gas line into Brevard County, arguing trucks and local lines cannot meet the Cape's needs 8. Texas marks the direction: an 8-mile "Starpipe" to Starbase, due in service by January 26, against an FAA-approved Texas cadence of 25 flights a year 7. Florida's line would run four times that length 9.
Starship has flown 14 times in four years; Florida alone asks for 76 a year
Data
| Starship flights | |
|---|---|
| 2023 | 2 |
| 2024 | 4 |
| 2025 | 5 |
| 2026 | 3 |
The permit is further along than the rocket
The bull case has real footing. The Air Force's 2025 review found no significant impact from 76 launches a year except noise, issued a record of decision authorizing construction, and SLC-37 is being built now, with Florida Starlink launches set to shift from Falcon 9 to Starship 410.
Even so, Wells Fargo, overweight at $212, calls a ship catch "likely a late '27 / early '28 story" and is moving engineers onto AI satellites ahead of an orbital data-center demonstration set for the second quarter of 2027 3. SpaceX once hoped for 25 launches in 2025 and flew five 1.
Watch the 14th, then the 19th and 30th
Comments closing October 14 fix what the FAA must analyze before any license decision 11. Flight 15 follows from the 19th, and a first Florida Starship launch from LC-39A is provisionally set for October 30 1.
The exposure runs through shareholders: at 133 times forward earnings they are funding both the launch ramp and the pipeline meant to feed it 3. Thirty-six analysts run a $227.54 consensus 4, and the distance between 14 flights ever and 76 a year from one pad is the trade 14.
Deepdive
AI-generated from this story and its cited sources. Not investment advice.
