为什么SpaceX的星舰在上市前需要一次大新闻？

Why SpaceX’s StarshipNeeds a Big Splash BeforeIts $75 Billion IPO Institutional Research Group Franco GrandaSenior Research Analyst,Late-Stage Researchfranco.granda@pitchbook.com pbinstitutionalresearch@pitchbook.com Starship Flight 12, scheduled to launch no earlier thanMay 19, is a critical milestone ahead of the IPO roadshow Published on May 13, 2026 PitchBook is a Morningstar company providing the most comprehensive, mostaccurate, and hard-to-find data for professionals doing business in the private markets. Contents Flight 12 implications for the upcoming$75 billion IPO1What is Starship Flight 12?2Recap of every Starship test flight to date3Why Starship matters4Next catalyst: Orbital refueling test5References6 Flight 12 implications for the upcoming $75 billion IPO After facing significant delays, Starship Flight 12 is scheduled to launch on May 19 atthe earliest. This is the company’s most ambitious launch test so far, debuting the newV3 architecture and bringing increases in power, size, and overall complexity. For anIPO that is leaning so heavily into narrative and symbolism, we believe this flight is thesingle most important pre-IPO catalyst remaining on SpaceX’s calendar. The stakes have escalated since we published our initiation report in March. At thattime, SpaceX was targeting a $1.5 trillion valuation at roughly 94x 2025 revenue.The valuation target has increased to $1.75 to $2 trillion since then, elevating themultiple to 110x to 125x without an incremental operational milestone to justify themove. We believe this valuation is pricing in 2040+ economics and only increases theexecution risk. We want to be precise about what is at stake. SpaceX has deliberately scaled backFlight 12’s ambition to a splashdown-only profile with no booster catch attempt, givingitself ample room for “success” while still uncovering valuable insights from it. ForIPO purposes, we believe the market will be evaluating the outcomes on a spectrum. Aclean flight through Max-Q (point of highest dynamic pressure in a flight), successfulstage separation, and controlled splashdown of both stages would undoubtedly bepositive and would reinforce the narrative that Starship is on track for commercialoperations in 2027. A partial success, where the booster performs, but the ship is loston reentry (a pattern seen in earlier flights), would likely be absorbed by the marketas acceptable, given the new architecture, although it would invite tougher questionsabout the V3 timeline. A catastrophic early-flight failure, particularly one that damagespad infrastructure, would create a meaningful narrative setback roughly four weeksbefore the expected offering. To be clear, we do not believe a Flight 12 failure would scrap the IPO. SpaceX’sfinancial profile, with $7.5 billion in 2025 EBITDA and double-digit FCF margins, isstrong enough to withstand public market scrutiny on its own merits, and the xAImerger has broadened the corporate narrative beyond pure aerospace. But at a $2trillion valuation, investors are buying the platform premium, and Starship is theprimary engine of that premium (we outline Starship’s importance to SpaceX below).Our own sum-of-the-parts (SOTP) analysis places SpaceX’s fair value range at $1.5trillion. The gap between that ceiling and the reported $2 trillion target is almostentirely narrative, and a high-profile setback on the eve of the roadshow wouldcompress that gap. We expect a failure scenario would lead to heavier investorscrutiny of the valuation, underlying growth timelines, and the execution risks thatcould disrupt the link between Starship development and Starlink’s next leg of growth. As a reminder, Starship is SpaceX’supcoming fully reusable superheavy-lift launch vehicle, designed to carrymore than 100 metric tons to low Earthorbit (LEO), a nearly 9x increase overthe Falcon 9’s 17-metric-ton reusablecapacity. SpaceX has reportedly spent$15 billion on the development ofStarship so far, ramping up research& development to $3 billion in2025 (up from $1.8 billion in 2024),significantly above the $400 milliondevelopment cost for the Falcon 9.1This is set to be the successor to thehighly successful Falcon 9 and willrepresent a massive improvementin launch economics (we estimate anearly 90% cost reduction). This shipis an integral part of NASA’s plans toreturn to the moon under the Artemisprogram, as it is one of two candidates,alongside Blue Origin’s vehicle, to takeastronauts from lunar orbit to the lunarsurface and vice versa. We expectStarship’s first commercial payload tolaunch in 2027. We believe Starshipmarks the start of the third era forSpaceX: the industrialization of orbitaloperations and the beginning of viablecislunar logistics. The timing of the V3 test flight is what makes this flight uniquely consequential. Flight12’s launch window of May 19 to 28 places the outcome roughly four to five weeksahead of a likely mid-to-late June pricing. That is close enough to be top-of-mind fo