SpaceX launched three rockets in less than 13 hours, and its stock rose about 6% in Friday’s trading.
Starlink’s segment generated $4.3 billion in revenue and $1.7 billion in operating profit last quarter.
The AI unit’s compute contracts could bring in substantial revenue, but delivering that capacity takes enormous spending.
Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (NASDAQ:SPCX) just launched three rockets in less than 13 hours, a pretty incredible feat that’s led to a 6% bump in the company’s stock so far in Friday’s trading.
The company sent four astronauts to the International Space Station, carried a batch of commercial payloads into orbit, and launched a classified satellite for U.S. intelligence.
Missed Nvidia in 2009? This Rare Signal Is Flashing Again. In 2009, a “Double Down” signal flashed for a little-known chipmaker called Nvidia. For the first time in years, that same “Total Conviction” signal is flashing for a company 1/100th the size of Nvidia. Continue »
So, what does all this mean for SpaceX’s business and its investors?
First up was NASA’s Crew-13 mission. A Falcon 9 rocket lifted off from Florida carrying four astronauts in SpaceX’s Dragon capsule on Thursday, Oct. 1. The crew made it to the International Space Station in under eight hours — the quickest trip there by an American spacecraft ever.
“Yeah, we we got lucky this time,” said SpaceX’s director of the NASA Science and Dragon programs, Julianna Scheiman, adding, “That’s not to say it couldn’t happen again, and if we were to put space station in exactly the right spot for the right launch it could be this or even shorter durations, but this is close to the fastest it could be though.”
The crew will spend roughly six months aboard the station. The rocket’s first-stage booster successfully returned to earth, landed, and will be able to be used once again.
The next flight, Transporter-18, carried 130 commercial payloads into orbit from California, including an AI prototype from Google’s Project Suncatcher, a program designed to test the feasibility of space-based data centers.
Of note, the reusable Falcon 9 booster was on its 25th flight.
The final launch used SpaceX’s larger Falcon Heavy rocket to carry a classified payload for the National Reconnaissance Office — the agency responsible for U.S. intelligence satellites.
Obviously, much of the mission was kept under wraps, but it marked Falcon Heavy’s first launch for the agency. SpaceX landed both side boosters back in Florida. Its recovered boosters across the day’s three launches totaled four.
While the focus of the last 24 hours has been on the company’s launch business, as of its most recent quarter, Connectivity, the segment that includes Starlink, remains the real cash cow. The unit brought in $4.3 billion in revenue and $1.7 billion in operating profit.
Space, on the other hand, reported a $542 million operating loss on $962 million in revenue. Of course, that’s a bit misleading. When the company sends up Starlink satellites on its own rockets, the Space unit doesn’t record revenue from the job. Connectivity marks the launch costs on its balance sheet and spreads the expense over time through depreciation.
The net effect is that Starlink looks much more profitable than it would be on its own, at the cost of making Launch look less so.
Finally, SpaceX’s AI unit recorded a $1.3 billion loss on $2.6 billion in sales. The picture here is rapidly shifting, however, with multiple major compute contracts coming online. Deals to rent out its considerable compute power with Anthropic, Alphabet, and other customers could bring in up to $3.4 billion per month once everything is running.
How profitable this compute push turns out to be depends on when the company can deliver on the promised compute and how much it spends doing so. The unit alone spent $15.8 billion in capital expenditures last quarter.
Before you buy stock in Space Exploration Technologies, consider this:
The Motley Fool Stock Advisor analyst team just identified what they believe are the 10 best stocks for investors to buy now… and Space Exploration Technologies wasn’t one of them. The 10 stocks that made the cut could produce monster returns in the coming years.
Consider when Netflix made this list on December 17, 2004… if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you’d have $365,910!* Or when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005… if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you’d have $1,418,530!*
Now, it’s worth noting Stock Advisor’s total average return is 930% — a market-crushing outperformance compared to 211% for the S&P 500. Don’t miss the latest top 10 list, available with Stock Advisor, and join an investing community built by individual investors for individual investors.
*Stock Advisor returns as of October 2, 2026.
Johnny Rice has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Alphabet. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
—
Blog powered by G6
Disclaimer! A guest author has made this post. G6 has not checked the post. its content and attachments and under no circumstances will G6 be held responsible or liable in any way for any claims, damages, losses, expenses, costs or liabilities whatsoever (including, without limitation, any direct or indirect damages for loss of profits, business interruption or loss of information) resulting or arising directly or indirectly from your use of or inability to use this website or any websites linked to it, or from your reliance on the information and material on this website, even if the G6 has been advised of the possibility of such damages in advance.
For any inquiries, please contact [email protected]
