2 Space Stocks to Buy Before the SpaceX IPO on June 12

SpaceX’s IPO is framed as a major catalyst for the space economy, with PwC projecting the sector could reach $2 trillion by 2040. The article highlights AST SpaceMobile’s push toward 45 to 60 satellites in 2026, backed by carrier agreements with AT&T, Verizon, and Vodafone, though a recent Blue Origin launch setback created execution risk. Intuitive Machines is also positioned as a beneficiary of rising space spending after its historic U.S. lunar landing and large government contracts.

Analysis

The market is likely underappreciating the bottleneck created by launch capacity, not just satellite demand. For ASTS, the real variable is cadence: if it cannot sustain multi-launch execution through 2H26, the equity stays in a “story premium” regime rather than rerating on operating proof. That creates a binary setup where each successful launch should compress financing risk, while any delay or deployment failure can re-open the question of whether the model is capital-efficient enough to scale.

Second-order, the SpaceX IPO can act as both a sector validator and a competitive overhang. A large, liquid public SpaceX would likely become the default benchmark for space infrastructure spend, which may attract passive and retail capital into the category while simultaneously making smaller names look execution-heavy and expensive on a relative basis. For terrestrial carriers, ASTS is less a pure competitor than a wholesale capacity supplement; the strategic takeaway is that telecom equity holders may be willing to tolerate pilot spending if it reduces dead-zone churn, but they will not pay up until service reliability is repeatedly demonstrated.

LUNR is the cleaner asymmetric setup because government demand can compound from one-off mission wins into a procurement franchise, but that path is lumpy and headline-sensitive. The near-term catalyst stack is better than the fundamental visibility: any additional contract awards or successful mission milestones can force short covering, while a single technical miss could quickly reset expectations because the market is pricing optionality, not steady-state margins. Contrarianly, the consensus may be too focused on “space economy” TAM and not enough on how much of the value accrues to launch providers, payload integrators, and defense-adjacent contractors rather than pure-play satellite operators.

Key Decisions for Investors

• Long ASTS into the next launch window with a 4-8 week horizon; size modestly because the thesis is cadence-sensitive and any launch delay can retrace most of the move, but a successful multi-satellite deployment can re-rate the stock sharply on financing-risk compression.
• Prefer LUNR over ASTS on a relative basis: initiate a long LUNR / short ASTS pair for a 1-3 month horizon to express 'government visibility beats execution risk' if the market keeps rewarding contract-backed milestones over platform ambition.
• Buy ASTS call spreads expiring after the next two launch cycles; this captures upside from execution while defining downside in case launch timing slips, with better convexity than outright equity given the binary operational risk.
• Use any SpaceX IPO-related strength to trim or fade high-multiple space names that lack near-term launch proof; the first large public benchmark could compress valuation multiples across the ecosystem within days of pricing.
• If LUNR announces additional NASA/defense awards, add on strength rather than waiting for dips; the stock likely trades more on contract momentum than quarterly fundamentals, so the entry window is post-catalyst confirmation, not pre-catalyst anticipation.