---
title: "SpaceX Shares Climb 7.4% After Lifting Astronauts and a Google Satellite"
description: "The stock closed at $158.96 after a week in which the company also flew its largest rocket into orbit for the first time."
author: "rews desk"
published: 2026-10-02T14:49:34Z
modified: 2026-10-03T06:37:10Z
url: https://rews.cc/a/spacex-shares-climb-7-4-after-lifting-astronauts-and-a-googl-ca235d
language: en
tags: ["spacex", "starship", "nasa", "ai", "stocks", "tech", "business"]
publisher: "Rews (https://rews.cc)"
---

# SpaceX Shares Climb 7.4% After Lifting Astronauts and a Google Satellite

*The stock closed at $158.96 after a week in which the company also flew its largest rocket into orbit for the first time.*

By rews desk · October 2, 2026 · https://rews.cc/a/spacex-shares-climb-7-4-after-lifting-astronauts-and-a-googl-ca235d

## In brief

- SpaceX shares rose $10.89, or 7.4%, to close at $158.96 on Friday
- NASA’s Crew-13 mission launched four astronauts to the ISS from Cape Canaveral on Thursday
- Google’s Project Suncatcher prototype rode SpaceX’s Transporter-18 rideshare flight the same day to test AI chips in orbit
- Starship reached Earth orbit for the first time this week, deploying 26 Starlink V3 satellites despite an engine failure
- SpaceX executive Jon Edwards said the week spanned Starship, Dragon, Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy launches

Shares of SpaceX rose 7.4 percent on Friday, closing at $158.96, after the company sent four astronauts to the International Space Station and carried an experimental Google satellite into orbit in back-to-back launches on Thursday.

The gain, $10.89 a share, followed one of the busiest weeks in the company’s history. On Thursday, a Falcon rocket lifted NASA’s Crew-13 mission from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida, carrying the four astronauts to the station. Hours earlier that day, a separate SpaceX mission had put Google’s Project Suncatcher satellite into orbit.

Project Suncatcher is a prototype meant to test whether artificial intelligence computing can be performed at scale in space. The satellite rode on Transporter-18, a SpaceX rideshare flight that carries batches of small satellites for multiple customers. Now in orbit, Google plans to study how its tensor processing units — the custom chips, known as TPUs, that power much of the company’s A.I. work — hold up beyond Earth.

The test is “designed to gather in-orbit data on how our TPUs handle the physical stress of spaceflight and the radiation and thermal extremes of space,” Google wrote in a blog post.

Earlier in the week, SpaceX flew Starship, its largest and most powerful rocket, into Earth orbit for the first time. The rocket deployed all 26 of the Starlink V3 satellites on board even though one engine went out during the ascent.

That flight matters beyond the milestone. Starlink, the satellite internet network, is SpaceX’s largest business, and a working Starship sits at the center of the company’s plan to add capacity to the network and bring down the cost of lofting each satellite.

The week’s schedule also touched nearly every vehicle the company flies. “What an extraordinary week for SpaceX! We launched our quiver of space vehicles: Starship, Dragon, Falcon 9, and Falcon Heavy,” Jon Edwards, the company’s senior vice president of Falcon and Dragon, wrote on X.

“This week is a powerful reminder of what rocket reusability unlocks and what the SpaceX team can accomplish when we stay relentlessly focused and consistently execute at the highest level,” Mr. Edwards wrote.