Elon Musk expects SpaceX to spend $2 billion on Starship rocket missions this year

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk is anticipating that his company will spend about $2 billion on Starship this year, after it carried out the rocket's first launch earlier this month. Addressing a discussion on Twitter Spaces on Saturday, Musk said that his "expectation for the next flight would be to reach orbit."

Furthermore, he revealed that SpaceX does “not anticipate needing to raise funding” for its operations concerning Starship. “To my knowledge, we do not need to raise incremental funding for SpaceX,” he said, according to CNBC. Touching upon the launch that took place earlier this month, the billionaire said: “The outcome was roughly in what I expected, and maybe slightly exceeding my expectations.”

He also shed light on the motives behind the missions, explaining that “the goal of these missions is just information. Like, we don’t have any payload or anything — it’s just to learn as much as possible." According to Musk, there's “probably” an 80% likelihood of a Starship flight reaching orbit this year, and a “100% chance of reaching orbit within 12 months.”

First fully integrated Starship lifting off for the first time! pic.twitter.com/FlK3Rbgvmi

— SpaceX (@SpaceX) April 20, 2023

SpaceX rocket aborts launch

Musk expressed his hopes for SpaceX after a Falcon Heavy rocket carrying three satellites on board cancelled its launch at the eleventh hour on Friday. Just 59 seconds away from liftoff, the rocket called an abort from Pad 39A of NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

Severe weather conditions are forecast again during Saturday’s launch opportunity; team is now working towards Sunday, April 30 for Falcon Heavy’s launch of @ViasatInc's ViaSat-3 Americas mission https://t.co/ulZth3yuU5

— SpaceX (@SpaceX) April 29, 2023

"We did call an abort at T-59 seconds. The vehicle and payload remain healthy," SpaceX propulsion engineer Atticus Vadera said following the incident. "Keep in mind, the purpose of the countdown is to help us catch potential issues prior to flight. There are thousands of ways to launch a rocket and there's only one way that it can go right," Vadera added.