3 Space Stocks That Could Double When SpaceX Starts Trading

The article argues that a potential SpaceX IPO could lift smaller public space stocks, especially Rocket Lab, Redwire, and AST SpaceMobile. Rocket Lab posted 2025 revenue of about $602 million, up 38% year over year, with backlog rising to over $2 billion in Q1 2026; Redwire generated about $335 million of 2025 revenue and $97 million in Q1 2026 with a $498.1 million backlog. AST SpaceMobile remains speculative but has agreements covering more than 3 billion subscribers, and the piece suggests SpaceX's public valuation could improve investor interest across the sector.

Analysis

The first-order trade is not “buy space”; it is a rotation into public-market proxies that let investors express the SpaceX halo without paying a private-market mark-up. That favors names with visible backlog and multi-segment exposure, because the IPO will likely re-rate the entire sector around scarcity of investable public comps rather than near-term fundamentals. In that setup, RDW and RKLB benefit differently: RDW is the cleaner supplier-chain lever, while RKLB is the higher-beta “closest thing to a public SpaceX alternative,” which typically attracts incremental flows faster than the underlying operating improvement alone would justify.

ASTS is the most interesting second-order beneficiary because its valuation is less about current execution and more about how the market begins underwriting satellite connectivity as an addressable category. A SpaceX/Starlink reference point can compress the discount rate investors apply to direct-to-device economics, but it also raises the bar on proof of constellation reliability and unit economics. That makes ASTS a months-long catalyst, not a days-long trade: the stock can rerate sharply on sector enthusiasm, but it remains highly vulnerable to any launch, deployment, or partnership slippage.

The contrarian miss is that a marquee IPO can crowd capital out of the “obvious” public names after an initial pop. If SpaceX absorbs the incremental speculative dollar, RKLB could actually underperform on a relative basis despite being the cleanest public analog, while suppliers with diversified defense/customer mixes may prove more durable. The best risk/reward is likely in a pair or options structure that captures sentiment expansion while limiting binary execution risk, especially because the market will likely overpay for long-duration narratives before revenue inflection becomes visible.

Key Decisions for Investors

• Go long RDW on a 3-6 month horizon as the higher-quality second-order beneficiary; target a 15-25% rerating if SpaceX IPO flows broaden the space supplier basket, with downside moderated by defense/satellite infrastructure backlog.
• Buy ASTS upside via call spreads or small-delta stock position into the IPO window; structure for 6-12 months because the thesis is valuation expansion, not immediate cash flow, and treat any deployment delay as a major drawdown risk.
• Consider a relative-value pair: long RDW / short RKLB after the initial IPO euphoria, expecting the market to favor diversified supplier exposure over the more crowded “SpaceX alternative” trade once enthusiasm cools.
• If using RKLB, wait for post-IPO pullback rather than chasing the first leg higher; use it as a tactical momentum trade only, with a tight risk budget because sentiment can reverse quickly once the novelty premium fades.