SpaceX CEO Elon Musk sent a caution to employees Friday that warned of the possibility of bankruptcy due to the sluggish development of rocket engines. Musk wants a starship flight rate of at least once every two weeks next year. Musk said that lagging engine production was holding up Starship and Starlink progress in a company-wide memo obtained by CNBC. He said that the engine shortage creates a real risk of bankruptcy since Raptor engines power the company's Starship rockets.
The memo says that we need all hands on deck to recover from what is, quite frankly, a disaster.
According to the CNBC report, Musk is pushing for increased engine output, since each rocket flight could require as many as 39 Raptor engines.
The SpaceX warnings echo earlier problems that Musk faced with the other company that he founded and nurtured, Tesla, Inc., where he used the same b word.
Past media interviews revealed Tesla was only a month away from bankruptcy when Musk pushed for ramped up production of the Model 3 vehicle between 2017 and 2019. Musk warned of the dangers of a financial catastrophe if Tesla didn't step it up.
SpaceX was founded by Musk in 2002 to revolutionize space technology by designing, manufacturing and launching advanced rockets and spacecraft.