By Al Root
SpaceX has a busy handful of days ahead.
For starters, Elon Musk's rocket company is expected to give an update on its hotly anticipated IPO. The company's S-1 Initial Public Offering registration statement could become public as soon as next week, according to a CNBC report on Thursday. SpaceX didn't respond to a request for comment.
The firm filed confidential paperwork with the Securities and Exchange Commission in preparation for the IPO. A couple weeks after the paperwork is made public, the company will start its IPO road where management will ask investors for money. Based on that timeline, the IPO would likely wrap up in late June.
SpaceX plans to raise record amounts of cash, valuing SpaceX at up to $2 trillion. The funds will kickstart SpaceX's artificial intelligence ambition, including putting AI data centers in orbit.
The S-1 will be carefully studied when it is released. You can check here to see if the SEC has posted it.
Beyond the IPO, SpaceX has a pivotal launch -- and the S-1 could arrive on the same day. The 12th test of Starship, the company's huge rocket, is slated for Tuesday, May 19.
Starship is key to SpaceX's AI plans because the rocket dramatically reduces costs. SpaceX's partially reusable Falcon 9 rocket has already cut the cost of reaching low Earth orbit by more than 90% compared to the Space Shuttle. The much larger, fully reusable Starship should again cut costs by 90%.
The coming test debuts new rocket designs and improved engines.
"The flight test's primary goal will be to demonstrate each of these new pieces in the flight environment for the first time," the company said. "With each element of the Starship architecture featuring significant redesigns to enable full and rapid reuse that incorporate learnings from years of development and test."
The rocket's upper stage will deploy 22 Starlink simulator satellites to test the ship's cargo and deployment capabilities. Starlink is the company's space-based broadband product with more than 10 million subscribers accessing more than 10,000 satellites in orbit.
The upper stage will intentionally have a heat shield tile removed to test re-entry conditions.
There's a lot going on at SpaceX.
Write to Al Root at allen.root@dowjones.com
This content was created by Barron's, which is operated by Dow Jones & Co. Barron's is published independently from Dow Jones Newswires and The Wall Street Journal.
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
May 15, 2026 08:15 ET (12:15 GMT)
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