SpaceX Hits 700 Falcon Launches as Starship Countdown and Analyst Upgrades Converge

SpaceX logged its 700th Falcon flight with SES's final O3b mPOWER satellites, as analysts split on price targets and a Starship test nears.

SpaceX notched its 700th Falcon rocket flight this week, a milestone that lands squarely in the middle of one of the busiest stretches the company has ever run — a fresh commercial satellite delivery, a classified national-security launch, an approaching Starship test window, and a pair of Wall Street calls that frame the stock's next chapter.

The landmark mission saw a Falcon 9 carry the final three O3b mPOWER satellites for operator SES into orbit, closing out that constellation's deployment. The fleet's lifetime tally now splits into 687 Falcon 9 missions and 13 flights of the heavier Falcon Heavy.

That cadence shows no sign of easing. On September 5, SpaceX flew its 80th Starlink mission of the year from Vandenberg Space Force Base, deploying 27 additional satellites. Days later, a Falcon 9 booster logged its 23rd flight — an internal record that speaks to the reusability the launch system has come to rely on. A separate Thursday mission, the classified USSF-153 for the U.S. Space Force, lifted off from Vandenberg with a successful booster landing.

Florida Handover Sets the Stage for Starship

To free up capacity on the East Coast, SpaceX has shifted all Falcon 9 flights for its own Starlink network to the western range. The move clears the way for Starship-Super Heavy's debut at the Florida launch complexes. An FCC filing points to September 15 as the target date for Starship's 14th test flight, with launch warnings issued for a window opening no earlier than that day. Ground testing on Ship 41 and Booster 21, including static firings, is reportedly complete.

A clean flight would add another building block to a program SpaceX intends to lean on for satellite launches and, further out, orbital compute applications. The company has already signaled that future Starlink missions will eventually fly from Florida aboard Starship, a hint that the vehicle is meant to take over the constellation's high-volume business down the road.

Analysts Split on Price Targets, United on the Thesis

Market watchers are tracking the launch tempo with an eye on how scalable the next generation of vehicles will be. On Wednesday, Wells Fargo's Ken Gawrelski trimmed his price target to $212 from $215 while keeping a buy rating. The same day, Pivotal Research's Jeffrey Wlodarczak initiated coverage with a buy and a $220 target, singling out Starship's planned full reusability as a central pillar of his valuation.

The stock's recent trading reflects the crosscurrents. Shares changed hands at EUR 128.14 on the day covered by the earlier report, a 1.7% decline, yet remained roughly 9.8% above their 50-day moving average. By Friday, the picture had brightened: the stock closed at EUR 130.32, up 2.1% on the session, putting it about 11% above its 50-day average and 7.7% higher over a 30-day stretch. Even so, it sits 33% below its 52-week high of EUR 194.46 reached in June — a gap that captures the wide swings of recent months.

Beyond Launch: AI Infrastructure and Government Demand

That volatility traces back to the many fronts SpaceX is expanding on at once. At Goldman Sachs' Communacopia + Technology conference, the company reaffirmed plans to push further into AI infrastructure, including orbital computing capacity targeted for next year. The military launch, the steady Starlink build-out, and the imminent Starship test all fit a business growing simultaneously in launch services, satellite internet, and data-center infrastructure.

International appetite for SpaceX-backed services remains strong as well. According to Reuters, the United Kingdom has now spent close to $40 million on the company's satellite services — a sign of how central SpaceX has become to government communications infrastructure.