SpaceX lands in Los Angeles the week of its blockbuster IPO and Starship grounding

SpaceX flew from Brownsville to Los Angeles on June 17, a 2-hour-58-minute hop aboard N154TS, the company's grey-liveried Boeing 737-800 employee shuttle. The flight touched down at LAX just after 2 p.m. local time, returning from the company's Starbase facility in South Texas.

The same week, SpaceX went public in the largest-ever initial public offering, with shares surging 42% above their $135 IPO price in the first two days of trading, per the Straits Times. The timing is delicate: the Federal Aviation Administration grounded Starship on June 12 after a booster crash during the first Version 3 test flight, marking the seventh grounding in 12 flights for the mega-rocket. The regulatory delay is among the biggest risks to the company's business plan, as noted in its pre-IPO registration statement.

The flight pattern is familiar — N154TS runs the LAX-Brownsville corridor roughly three times a week, shuttling employees between the Hawthorne headquarters and the remote Starbase facility. But this week's trip lands SpaceX at its home base just as the company navigates the dual pressures of a $2.5 trillion market debut and a federal investigation into its latest Starship mishap.