Orbit Alpha Issue 17 · 9 Aug 2026

$7.8 billion in revenue. The only space stock that fell.

MARKET OVERVIEW
🌎 $7.8 billion in revenue. The only space stock that fell.

Track every space stock live at Orbit Alpha

SpaceX posted $7.81 billion in Q2 revenue, beat every estimate on the board, and finished the week down 4%. Rocket Lab won $663 million in defence contracts in nine days and gained 28%. Redwire beat, raised guidance, surged 38%. ASTS launched three satellites and rallied 29%. MDA grew 34%. Viasat hit a record backlog. Every single publicly traded space company finished the week in the green. Except the one that earned the most money.

That is not a normal week. For two months this sector moved as one trade, and that trade was SpaceX. When SPCX fell from $225 to $105, it dragged everything with it: RKLB lost 58%, ASTS lost 50%, LUNR lost 75%. The correlation was almost perfect. This week, it broke. The companies that spent July building backlog, launching satellites, and winning contracts while their share prices were cut in half all rallied together, and they did it while SPCX was dealing with its own lockup mechanics. The sector is no longer one trade. Understanding why, and whether that lasts, is the subject of this week's deep dive.

SPACEX (SPCX)

The numbers deserved a rally. Revenue of $7.81 billion crushed the $6.93 billion consensus. The loss per share of $0.09 was a fraction of the $0.26 the street expected. Net loss narrowed 87% in a single quarter, from $4.28 billion to $541 million. Starlink subscribers nearly doubled. Johnsen told analysts that SpaceX has contracted an additional $6.7 billion in cloud services revenue in the first weeks of Q3, ramping from October. Musk said Nvidia will be the exclusive AI chip supplier and announced SpaceX will build its own power plants to support a $16.8 billion chip fabrication facility. He also said Flight 14 will attempt the first tower catch of Starship's upper stage.

Wednesday's 13.6% plunge was about one number: capex. AI infrastructure spending soared, and the market read the print as confirmation that SpaceX intends to consume capital at a pace Starlink's margins cannot yet fund. Epistrophy Capital's Cory Johnson called the lockup "roughly triple the current tradable float," and selling intensified into Wednesday's close.

The lockup day told a different story. The 911.5 million shares unlocked on Thursday. The stock touched $105, found buyers, and closed up 6%. The feared insider dump did not materialise at the volume the market had priced in. By Friday, SPCX had recovered to $133.11. Argus upgraded from Hold to Buy, calling the rapid AI payback "encouraging." More tranches are coming: approximately 319 million additional shares could release as early as 12 August, with further waves through October. The first test is passed. The calendar is not finished.

ROCKET LAB (RKLB)

Forget sector sympathy. Rocket Lab earned this rally.

On 4 August, the Space Force awarded Rocket Lab a $397 million contract under the Space-Based Airborne Moving Target Indicator (SB-AMTI) programme to develop, launch, and operate a fleet of next-generation "Flatellite" spacecraft for real-time airborne threat tracking. The contract explicitly names Neutron as the launch vehicle, giving the still-unflown rocket its first confirmed defence mission with a hard 2028 operational deadline. Rocket Lab will design and manufacture the Flatellites, launch them on Neutron, and operate them from secure facilities, delivering tracking data to the Space Force. An option for additional spacecraft is included in the total contract value.

Combined with the $266 million suborbital launch contract announced the prior week and the iQPS multi-launch deal on 30 July, Rocket Lab's contract intake over a nine-day window now exceeds $663 million. The SB-AMTI programme's full fiscal year 2027 budget request stands at $7.06 billion, so the $397 million award may be just the beginning. The stock surged 28% on the week to approximately $74, still 50% below its May high but now trading on a fundamentally different backlog than it had two weeks ago. Q2 earnings are Monday 10 August. The street expects approximately $232 million in revenue (up 60% year-over-year) and a loss of $0.06 per share. Options traders are pricing a 17% move in either direction.

AST SPACEMOBILE (ASTS)

BlueBirds 11, 12 and 13 lifted off at 3:42 a.m. EDT on Wednesday 5 August from Cape Canaveral aboard a Falcon 9. All three deployed successfully. The constellation now stands at 13 BlueBirds launched, with 9 operational Block 2 satellites plus the legacy Block 1 fleet. These are the largest commercial communications arrays ever placed in low-Earth orbit, more than three times the size of Block 1, with peak data rates expected to approach 200 Mbps to standard smartphones, nearly double the Block 1 record.

The launch was only part of the story. ASTS also confirmed accelerated network integration testing across eight European countries: the UK, Ireland, Romania, France, the Czech Republic, Germany, Spain, and Ukraine. Carrier partners confirmed for the testing include Vodafone, Orange, Telefonica, Deutsche Telekom, and Vodafone Ukraine. President Scott Wisniewski said the launch positions ASTS for "beta services later this year." BlueBirds 14, 15 and 16 are already preparing. Production has advanced through satellite 42. The workforce has passed 2,250 across more than 500,000 square feet of manufacturing. The stock surged 29% on the week. A quarterly business update call is scheduled for 10 August.

MDA SPACE (MDA)

MDA reported Q2 earnings on 7 August. Revenue of C$498.6 million was up 33.6% year-over-year, with adjusted EBITDA of C$96.3 million (19.3% margin) and a 1.6x book-to-bill ratio driving backlog up $310 million sequentially to C$4.0 billion. The company raised and narrowed its 2026 guidance to C$1.8 to $1.9 billion in revenue with EBITDA of C$330 to $370 million. Nine early contracts were signed for MDA CHORUS, the company's next-generation small satellite platform, with 32 letters of interest across five regions. A new high-volume satellite manufacturing facility in Montreal was inaugurated, doubling floor space.

CEO Mike Greenley said 2027 growth of approximately 50% off the 2026 midpoint is the target, inclusive of the Blue Canyon Technologies (C$900 million) and CLS (C$900 million) acquisitions. New contracts came from Telesat (Lightspeed expansion, $150 million-plus incremental revenue in 2027 and 2028), the Canadian Space Agency, Mitsubishi Electric, BAE Systems, and OHB. Net cash of C$153 million. This is a company building a globally diversified, profitable space infrastructure business through funded M&A while the rest of the sector argues about float mechanics. The market is starting to notice.

REDWIRE (RDW)

Record Q2 revenue of $117.1 million, beating the $107.7 million consensus. 2026 guidance raised to $275 to $305 million, above the $240.8 million street estimate. Golden Dome defence programmes contributed $84 million in quarterly bookings alone. The stock surged 38% on the week. Two months ago nobody was talking about Redwire. The dual footprint in combat-proven drones and space infrastructure has been building real revenue for quarters. This print was the announcement.

VIASAT (VSAT)

Viasat reported Q1 FY2027 on the same day as SpaceX. Revenue of $1.16 billion was down 1% year-over-year, slightly below the $1.20 billion estimate, but EPS of $0.17 beat the $0.10 consensus by 79%. Free cash flow rose 19% to $72 million. The defence book was the standout: record DAT backlog of $1.4 billion (up 32%, 1.6x book-to-bill), government SATCOM service revenue up 10%, tactical networking revenue up 36% on TrellisWare sales. Fixed broadband services declined 27%, the ongoing weak spot. Company-wide backlog hit a record $4.2 billion. Management reiterated FY2027 guidance for mid-single-digit revenue growth and free cash flow of approximately $180 million. VS-3 F2 and F3 satellites are both approaching service entry by late summer. The stock rose 6% in regular trading before reversing 8.5% after hours as investors weighed the broadband weakness against the defence strength.

Takeaway: For two months this sector traded as a SpaceX proxy. This week it stopped. SpaceX beat earnings by every measure and finished down 4%, weighed by capex fears and lockup mechanics that belong to SPCX alone. Rocket Lab won $663 million in defence contracts in nine days. ASTS launched three satellites and began European network testing across eight countries. MDA grew 34% and raised guidance. Redwire beat and raised on Golden Dome. Viasat hit a record backlog. The decoupling matters because it tells you the market is beginning to price these companies individually rather than as leveraged bets on one stock's lockup calendar. Whether it holds depends on the next wave of earnings. RKLB reports Monday. The test continues.

BROKER PULSE
🚀 Consensus prices

Live prices for all names below at Orbit Alpha Markets

SPACEX (SPCX) · Avg target $233.00

ROCKET LAB (RKLB) · Avg target $114.33

AST SPACEMOBILE (ASTS) · Avg target $83.32

PLANET LABS (PL) · Avg target $40.10

INTUITIVE MACHINES (LUNR) · Avg target $40.78

GLOBALSTAR (GSAT) · Avg target $90.00

FIREFLY AEROSPACE (FLY) · Avg target $48.11

MDA SPACE (MDA) · Avg target $44.20

REDWIRE (RDW) · Avg target $14.88

VIASAT (VSAT) · Avg target $94.56

BLACKSKY TECHNOLOGY (BKSY) · Avg target $40.50

VIRGIN GALACTIC (SPCE) · Avg target $3.52

SPIRE GLOBAL (SPIR) · Avg target $20.88

LAUNCH WATCH
🔭 Launches that could move your portfolio

Full launch calendar with live status at Orbit Alpha Launches

Aug 10 · SpaceX — Starlink (10-19) · Falcon 9 · SLC-40, Cape Canaveral SFS, Florida.

Aug 10 · JAXA — Michibiki No. 7 (QZS-7) · H-3 · LA-Y1, Tanegashima Space Center, Japan. Quasi-Zenith Satellite System navigation satellite augmenting GPS coverage in the Asia-Pacific region. H-3 flight no. 9.

Aug 11 · LandSpace — ZhuQue-3 Flight 2 · Zhuque-3 · LS-43/96, Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center, China. Second flight of the methane-fueled Zhuque-3, with a first-stage propulsive landing attempt back to the pad.

Aug 12 · SpaceX — Starlink (17-49) · Falcon 9 · SLC-4E, Vandenberg SFB, California.

Aug 15 · SpaceX — R-1 · Falcon 9 · SLC-4E, Vandenberg SFB, California.

Aug 16 · SpaceX — Globalstar 2-R Mission 1 · Falcon 9 · SLC-40, Cape Canaveral SFS, Florida. First of two Falcon 9 launches replenishing Globalstar's HIBLEO-4 low-Earth-orbit constellation. MDA builds these satellites.

Aug 17 · CASC — Unconfirmed vehicle (possibly Long March 12) · LC-2, Wenchang Satellite Launch Center, China. Unconfirmed payload.

Aug 24 · CASC — Chang'e 7 · Long March 5 · LP-101, Wenchang Satellite Launch Center, China. Lunar rover, orbiter, and lander mission.

Aug 27 · Arianespace — MTG-I2 · Ariane 6 · ELA-4, Guiana Space Centre, French Guiana. Third launch of EUMETSAT's third-generation weather satellite.

Aug 30 · SpaceX — Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope · Falcon Heavy · LC-39A, Kennedy Space Center, Florida. NASA's next flagship infrared space telescope, launching to a Sun-Earth L2 orbit.

SENTIMENT SIGNAL
🎯 THE DECOUPLING: WHY THE SECTOR LEFT SPACEX BEHIND, AND WHETHER IT LASTS

For two months, every space stock moved together. When SpaceX fell from $225 to $105, RKLB fell 58%, ASTS fell 50%, LUNR fell 75%, RDW fell 55%. The correlation was almost perfect. If you owned any space name, you owned one trade, and that trade was SPCX.

This week, the trade broke. SpaceX fell 4%. Everything else gained 28 to 54%. Not a single other publicly traded space company finished the week in the red. That has never happened before. And it is worth understanding why it happened, whether it lasts, and what it means for how you think about the sector going forward.

WHAT ACTUALLY CHANGED

The obvious answer is "earnings were good and the lockup didn't crash." That's true but incomplete. Four things happened simultaneously, and the combination is what cracked the correlation.

First, SpaceX's lockup overhang was revealed to be company-specific rather than sector-wide. The 911.5 million shares that unlocked on Thursday belong to SpaceX insiders. They have no reason to sell RKLB, ASTS, or RDW. The market spent two months pricing the entire sector as though the lockup would drag everything down, because in a correlated group, selling pressure on the largest name tends to bleed into the smaller ones through ETF rebalancing, margin calls, and sentiment contagion. When the lockup day arrived and the feared dump didn't materialise, the contagion thesis collapsed. The overhang is real, but it belongs to one stock.

Second, four companies reported earnings in the same week, and all four delivered. SpaceX beat revenue by 13%. Viasat beat EPS by 79% and posted a record $4.2 billion backlog. MDA grew revenue 34% and raised guidance. Redwire reported record quarterly revenue and lifted its 2026 outlook above consensus. When every company in a sector beats at the same time, it becomes harder to argue that the selloff was about fundamentals. It was about flow. And flow can reverse.

Third, ASTS launched BlueBirds 11, 12 and 13 successfully on Wednesday morning, sandwiched between SpaceX's post-earnings plunge and the lockup release. The timing gave the sector a non-SPCX catalyst at the exact moment it needed one. The stock surged 29% on the week, pulling the D2D and satellite comms names with it. A launch failure would have compounded the SPCX selloff. A launch success broke the cycle.

Fourth, and this is the structural point: the sector's fundamental profiles have diverged far enough that a single narrative can no longer hold them together. SpaceX is a $1.4 trillion company burning $50 billion a year in capex with a lockup calendar that runs through December. Rocket Lab is an $8 billion acquirer of Iridium with $500 million of EBITDA incoming. MDA is a Canadian space industrials company growing 34% with government contracts and positive net cash. Redwire is a defence drone and space infrastructure business that just raised guidance on Golden Dome bookings. These are not the same trade. The market priced them as one for two months because the SPCX selloff overwhelmed everything. This week, with earnings on the table, the differentiation finally had room to express itself.

THE LOCKUP CALENDAR IS SPCX'S PROBLEM, NOT THE SECTOR'S

This is the single most important point for anyone holding non-SPCX space names.

The remaining lockup tranches (Day 70 employee release around 20 August, Day 90 around 9 September, Day 105 around 24 September, Day 120 around 9 October, Day 135 around 24 October, Q3 earnings unlock, and the full 180-day expiration on 8 December) are all SpaceX-specific events. They free SpaceX insider shares. They do not free RKLB shares, ASTS shares, or MDA shares. There is no mechanical reason for a SpaceX employee selling stock on 20 August to cause Redwire's price to decline.

The only transmission mechanism is sentiment. If SPCX falls on a lockup tranche and the sector trades sympathetically, the correlation returns. That is a real risk. But this week showed that the correlation is weakening, not strengthening, because the market now has quarterly earnings to differentiate the names. Before this week, the sector was trading on narrative ("space is falling"). After this week, it is trading on numbers ("SpaceX is burning cash, but MDA is growing 34% with positive net cash"). Numbers are harder to override with sentiment than narratives are.

WHO BENEFITS FROM THE DECOUPLING

If the sector stays decoupled from SPCX through the remaining lockup window, the investment case changes most dramatically for the names with the strongest standalone fundamentals.

MDA is the clearest beneficiary. Revenue growing 34%. Adjusted EBITDA margin at 19.3%. Pro forma backlog of $4.4 billion including the Telesat expansion. Net cash position of C$153 million. Two funded acquisitions (Blue Canyon, CLS) that the CEO expects to drive 50% growth in 2027. This is a business that does not depend on SpaceX sentiment. In a decoupled sector, MDA trades on its own print, and its print is strong.

Redwire is the surprise. Record Q2 revenue of $117.1 million. 2026 guidance raised to $275 to $305 million. Golden Dome defence bookings of $84 million in a single quarter. A 38% weekly gain. This is a company that was invisible to most space investors three months ago and is now outperforming the group because its revenue base is defence, not launch or broadband. Defence revenue doesn't care about the SPCX lockup.

RKLB has a more complex relationship. Rocket Lab is still a growth-stage company with negative EBITDA, which means it trades with higher beta to sector sentiment than MDA or Viasat. But the Iridium acquisition changes the profile post-close: $500 million of EBITDA, $300 million of free cash flow, 2.5 million subscribers. If the market begins pricing RKLB on Iridium's recurring revenue rather than on SPCX correlation, the rerating potential is significant. Q2 earnings on 10 August will test whether that process has started.

ASTS benefits from the decoupling in the near term (the BlueBird launch was its own catalyst, independent of SPCX) but remains vulnerable in the medium term. ASTS is still pre-revenue at scale, still burning cash, and still dependent on deployment cadence. If the sector recouples during a bad SPCX lockup tranche, ASTS falls with it because the fundamental profile doesn't yet provide the floor that MDA or Viasat's earnings do.

Viasat is already decoupled. It was one of two space names in the green for all of July. EPS beat by 79% this week. Record backlog. The Oppenheimer "last major spectrum play" thesis is independent of SpaceX entirely. VSAT trades on its own fundamentals and has for months.

WHAT COULD RE-COUPLE THE SECTOR

Three scenarios bring the correlation back.

A macro shock that hits all growth and long-duration assets simultaneously. If rates spike further (the 30-year just hit 5.21%), the entire sector sells together regardless of individual fundamentals, because higher discount rates compress the value of every future cash flow stream. This is the scenario where "space" becomes one trade again, not because of SpaceX, but because of the Fed.

A SPCX crash severe enough to trigger forced selling across the sector. If a lockup tranche produces genuine panic selling that takes SPCX below $100, the ETFs that hold both SPCX and the smaller names (UFO, $NASA, ARKX) face redemptions that force them to sell everything. Margin calls on leveraged holders who own multiple space names create the same cascade. The correlation returns through plumbing, not fundamentals.

A broad earnings miss across the sector. This week, four companies beat. If the next wave (RKLB on 10 August, FLY on 11 August, LUNR on 13 August) disappoints, the market may conclude that the beats were anomalies and the sector's growth trajectory is weaker than advertised. One week of decoupling does not survive a month of earnings misses.

HOW TO THINK ABOUT THIS IF YOU HOLD SPACE NAMES

The practical implication is straightforward. For two months, owning any space stock meant owning SPCX risk whether you wanted to or not. If the decoupling holds, that changes. The names with the strongest standalone fundamentals (MDA, VSAT, RDW post-guidance-raise, RKLB post-Iridium-close) become investable on their own merit rather than as leveraged bets on one company's lockup calendar. The names that remain pre-revenue or pre-profit (ASTS at scale, LUNR, SPCE) stay more vulnerable to sentiment contagion because they lack the earnings floor that insulates the others.

The test comes quickly. RKLB reports Monday. If Rocket Lab beats and the stock rallies while SPCX treads water on its next lockup tranche, the decoupling strengthens. If RKLB misses and the entire sector sells off together, the correlation is alive and this week was a head fake.

Takeaway: The space sector spent two months moving as one trade. This week it stopped. SpaceX fell 4% on lockup mechanics that belong to SPCX alone, while every other name in the group rallied 28 to 54% on earnings beats, a flawless satellite launch, and defence contract wins. The correlation broke because the fundamental profiles have diverged far enough that a single narrative can no longer hold them together. MDA growing 34% with net cash is not the same trade as SpaceX burning $50 billion in capex. Redwire raising guidance on Golden Dome bookings is not the same trade as a lockup releasing 911 million shares. Whether the decoupling holds depends on whether the next wave of earnings (RKLB, FLY, LUNR) confirms that the beats were real, or whether a SPCX lockup tranche or a macro shock pulls everything back together. For now, the sector is pricing individual companies on individual merit for the first time since June. That is progress. How long it lasts is the question the next four weeks will answer.

Previous: Issue 16: The bottom before the answer. · Next: Issue 18: Five earnings reports fell on the print this week. The stock that fell hardest last week was the only one that gained. VanEck JEDI Fund Dive.