In fact, while data from S&P Global Market Intelligence confirms the company is generating in excess of $1 billion in annual sales, bankers reviewing a recent SpaceX debt offering say the company is currently generating no GAAP profits from its launch business.
While best known for its business launching satellites into orbit, you see, SpaceX doesn't actually earn a lot of profit from launching satellites. For investors in SpaceX, though (and you may be one and not even know it), Starship has bigger - even existential - implications. Hofeller recently confirmed that SpaceX is in talks with three separate telecom companies to see who might want to become Starship's inaugural customer on an orbital launch in 2021.ĭesigned with the capacity to carry 100 colonists to Mars, the Starship space vehicle that Starhopper represents offers arguably the best hope humankind has for colonizing the Red Planet - or even simply visiting it. Next will come testing of a "full stack" - a full-size prototype of Starship - in 2020, followed by commercial operations as early as 2021. It's even possible that Starhopper will "get orbital.this year."
But hinting at an ambitious launch schedule, Musk now says he hopes to have Starhopper going as much as 20 kilometers into the sky as early as "a few months" from now.Īssuming this week's test goes well, multiple hops are likely "later this year," says SpaceX VP of commercial sales Jonathan Hofeller. That was the date of Starhopper's first "static" testing of its $2 million Raptor engines, conducted with Starhopper firmly tethered to the ground and unable to fly away. Standing 80 feet tall and bearing a polished stainless steel shell measuring 30 feet in diameter, Starhopper looks like nothing so much as an enormous, shining silver bullet on its launch pad - aimed at the stars.įlight tests for Starhopper, under construction in the form of two separate prototypes at two separate sites, arguably began back in April.
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