SpaceX: Starship Tower Catch Expected by End of Month
CEO Elon Musk made a series of ambitious statements about the company's future, from catching rockets to dominating global internet, while his executives tried to temper his claims.
CEO Elon Musk made a series of ambitious statements about the company's future, from catching rockets to dominating global internet, while his executives tried to temper his claims.
On the first quarterly earnings call since SpaceX went public on June 12, 2026, in the largest IPO in history, valued at $86 billion, Elon Musk took the lead. On Tuesday, August 4, the company's CEO outlined a series of highly ambitious plans and predictions, often surpassing the more cautious remarks of his colleagues, hinting at what communication will look like for the now publicly traded company.
Musk announced that SpaceX will attempt the 14th test flight of its mega-rocket Starship by the end of August, with plans including an unprecedented feat, catching the rocket's upper stage, the 52-meter-tall 'Ship,' using the launch tower. "I'd say things look very good, and so we will, assuming we get regulatory approval, attempt to catch the Ship with the tower on the next flight, which is tentatively scheduled for the end of this month," Musk said, as reported by Space.com.
This move is crucial for the full and rapid reusability of Starship, and the optimism follows the successful 13th flight on July 24, during which the Ship's heat shield survived reentry and enabled a soft landing in the Indian Ocean near the coast of Western Australia. "I think at this point I would consider the heat shield problem solved," Musk added, though he is aware of superstitions: "I don't want to jinx it." Flight 14 will also, for the first time, carry functional Starlink V3 satellites, which will be deployed into operational orbit.
Financial reports for the second quarter of 2026 showed total revenue growth of 92% year-over-year, from $4.1 billion to $7.8 billion, while the net loss was halved from $1 billion to $541 million. More than half of the revenue, around $4.3 billion, came from Starlink satellite internet. Musk predicted that Starlink will "at some point deliver the majority of the world's internet" within "less than 10 years," a much more specific claim than that of COO Gwynne Shotwell, who said Starlink will "represent a significant share of global internet traffic in the years to come."
The difference in tone continued with financial projections. CFO Bret Johnsen carefully announced that the company is on track to reach $100 billion in annual recurring revenue (ARR) by the end of 2026, backed by an additional $6.7 billion in already contracted cloud services revenue in the first weeks of the third quarter. Musk immediately followed up, stating that "$100 billion ARR in December is not in question" and that it will likely be even higher.
The biggest ambition lies in the Starmind project, a constellation of one million AI data centers in orbit, with operational vehicle launches beginning in 2027. Musk revealed that internal projections for reaching a trillion dollars in revenue have been moved up from 2031 to 2030, "and there is a non-zero chance it could be 2029."
Speaking about NASA's Artemis program, Musk suggested that Starship will be ready to carry humans by the end of next year, but Shotwell quickly clarified that the focus is on NASA's milestones and reiterated a more realistic, yet still ambitious goal: "We want to put boots on the ground, boots on the Moon, in 2028." To achieve all these plans, SpaceX intends to dramatically increase launch frequency. "We expect the flight rate to ramp up quickly, and in about a year, we'll likely be doing at least one flight a day, maybe more," Musk concluded.
