Orbit Alpha Issue 29 · 1 Nov 2026

SpaceX Stumbles on Merger Jitters While the Rest of the Sector Splits the Week

Market Overview

🌎 SpaceX Stumbles on Merger Jitters While the Rest of the Sector Splits the Week

The week opened with capital rotating out of SpaceX and into smaller space names, then closed with nearly the whole sector getting pulled down together. In between, the FCC cleared Amazon's bid for Globalstar, Virgin Galactic named and rolled out its first Delta class spaceship, and a cluster of third quarter earnings dates landed on the calendar that will dominate the next two weeks.
Friday's broad weakness coincided with soft Big Tech guidance from Amazon and Intel, which pulled Nasdaq 100 futures down roughly 2% and dragged nearly every tracked name lower into the close, making it hard to separate company specific news from macro drag on that one day. Where a stock's move is tied to a dated, named cause below, that cause is stated. Where it isn't, the move is reported as a fact without an invented explanation.

SpaceX (SPCX)
SpaceX shares fell in three straight sessions to close the week. On Wednesday, October 28, the stock dropped roughly 3.6% intraday to $143.30, pressured by a Louisiana Open Meetings Law lawsuit from Vermilion Parish residents over a payment in lieu of taxes deal tied to SpaceX's planned $100 billion Louisiana spaceport, even as Fitch affirmed the company's BBB+ credit rating following a roughly $40 billion master finance lease for Nvidia Vera Rubin GPUs structured through an Apollo managed vehicle backed by Goldman Sachs, BlackRock and KKR. On Thursday, Yahoo Finance's Jared Blikre noted the stock holding near $144, sitting on its roughly $140 support level, as money rotated into smaller space names instead: from the October 22 close through October 27, SPCX gained about 2.6% while Rocket Lab rose 13.8%, Firefly Aerospace rose 13.6%, Intuitive Machines rose 10.6% and AST SpaceMobile rose 8.2%.

That rotation reversed hard on Friday. Shares opened roughly 4.1% lower in premarket trading, to about $138, after T-Mobile CEO Srini Gopalan said there is "no room for a wholesale deal" that would let SpaceX resell mobile plans over T-Mobile's network. SpaceX's existing satellite to cellular partnership with T-Mobile stays intact, but the comment closed the door on a bigger revenue opportunity some investors had been pricing in. SpaceX then closed Friday, October 30 at $134.72, down $9.17 or 6.37% on the day, on volume of 122.7 million shares against a 102.5 million average, as Intel's Q3 beat but soft Q4 guidance undercut a bullish SpaceX Intel partnership thesis flagged by Northland analyst Gus Richard, and a Bank of America note separately warned that a SpaceX Tesla merger could be blocked by Chinese antimonopoly regulators given roughly half of Tesla's EV production runs through Shanghai.

The pullback comes after JPMorgan's Doug Anmuth more than doubled his price target to $500 on October 25, following SpaceX's October 20 third quarter report of $4.4 billion in profit on revenue up 161% year over year to $14.6 billion, and after Elon Musk projected 2027 annual recurring revenue of $500 billion to $1 trillion. Friday's merger antitrust warning cuts directly against that bullish setup. On the lockup calendar, no new tranche unlocked this week: the next scheduled release is the final tranche of roughly 797.6 million shares on December 8, 2026, after a 28% tranche (about 1.3 billion shares) unlocked on October 22 and sent the stock down about 9% that day. The next Starship test flight, which SpaceX is targeting for the first-ever double catch of both booster and ship stages, had no confirmed date as of this writing; Musk has said it is "hopefully four to six weeks away" from mid-October.

Rocket Lab (RKLB)
Rocket Lab shares were volatile all week as the market continued digesting the company's October 14 disclosure that Neutron's maiden launch is slipping from the fourth quarter of 2026 into 2027, after voids were found in the carbon-composite first-stage tank dome. Shares climbed as much as 7 to 8% on Tuesday, October 27 as part of the broader small-cap space rebound, then gave much of that back, falling roughly 7.4% on Friday, October 30 alongside the sector-wide selloff. In between, an analyst trimmed a fair-value estimate on the stock on October 29, citing the Neutron delay's added execution risk, in a note titled "Rocket Lab (RKLB) Stock Gets Fair Value Trim After Neutron Delay Raises Execution Risk." Rocket Lab also confirmed it will report third quarter results on Monday, November 9 after market close, with a call at 2pm Pacific.

AST SpaceMobile (ASTS)
AST SpaceMobile confirmed on Monday, October 26 that it will host its third quarter business update call on Monday, November 9 at 5pm Eastern, with investors able to submit questions in advance to the company's investor relations address. Shares slipped about 2% to roughly $41 on Wednesday, October 28, trading alongside the broader group pullback that also hit SpaceX and Rocket Lab that day. The announcement comes in a week when a regulatory rival's deal, Amazon's newly FCC-cleared acquisition of Globalstar, drew fresh attention to the competitive landscape AST SpaceMobile is building its own satellite-to-phone network into; more on that below.

Globalstar (GSAT)
Globalstar was the biggest structural story of the week outside SpaceX. The Federal Communications Commission approved Amazon's acquisition of Globalstar on Tuesday, October 27, clearing the way for a deal valued at $11.57 billion under which Globalstar shareholders can elect $90 in cash or 0.3210 Amazon shares for each Globalstar share they hold; the deal, first reported in April, is expected to close in 2027 and preserves Globalstar's existing satellite partnership with Apple for iPhone and Apple Watch features. The FCC separately granted nationwide authority for Globalstar's third generation satellite system, comprising 48 operational satellites, six in-orbit spares and roughly 90 ground antennas, enabling direct-to-device connectivity across multiple states and Puerto Rico; coverage of that grant appeared October 29 and 30. See this week's Sentiment Signal for what the deal means for the wider direct-to-device race.

Intuitive Machines (LUNR)
Intuitive Machines shares swung sharply this week after a steep October slide. The stock jumped roughly 10.8% on Tuesday, October 27, which Benzinga attributed to the broader small-cap space rebound "rather than any new company specific announcement," and 24/7 Wall St tied the move to the company's national security backlog and Golden Dome defense contract exposure; shares rose a further 10.3% on Wednesday, October 28. Short interest stood at 36.4 million shares, or 27.76% of float, as of Tuesday. The company confirmed on Thursday, October 29 that it will report third quarter results on Thursday, November 12 before market open. A Form 4 filed with the SEC on October 26 disclosed a routine 10,000 restricted stock unit grant to new independent director Christopher Scolese, the former NASA official who joined the board on October 22. By Friday, October 30 the rebound had faded and shares traded near $10.39, still down sharply from a $14.24 close at the end of September; the bull case resting on a record $1.76 billion backlog, fiscal 2026 revenue guidance of $900 million to $1 billion with positive adjusted EBITDA, and national security revenue that grew from 3% to 30% of quarterly sales on an 18-spacecraft Golden Dome award.

Virgin Galactic (SPCE)
Virgin Galactic had its most newsworthy week in some time. The company said on Monday, October 26 that its lead Delta class spaceship would arrive at Spaceport America on October 28 to begin flight test preparations, then on Wednesday, October 28 it unveiled the vehicle's name, Apeiron, and confirmed its physical arrival at the New Mexico spaceport, the first concrete milestone toward the company's long-stated goal of resuming commercial spaceflights in the fourth quarter of 2026. Virgin Galactic also announced on Thursday, October 29 that it will report third quarter results, though the specific report date was not available at the time of this writing. Shares traded up about 11% over the week, closing Thursday near $2.58, as retail attention around the Apeiron reveal picked up alongside the hard news.

Redwire (RDW)
Redwire drew fresh institutional attention this week. BlackRock disclosed an amended 8.2% stake, or roughly 20.5 million shares, in a Schedule 13G/A filed Tuesday, October 27, while Vanguard Capital Management disclosed a new stake of about 12.5 million shares, roughly 5% of the company, in a Schedule 13G filed Friday, October 30. Redwire also confirmed on Thursday, October 29 that it will report third quarter results on Wednesday, November 4 after market close, with a call the following morning.

MDA Space (MDA)
MDA Space landed a meaningful new contract this week. The company's own newsroom confirmed on Friday, October 30 that it will supply Thales Alenia Space with digital antenna subsystems and a digital antenna controller for 66 early-delivery satellites in the European Union's IRIS² secure connectivity constellation, in a deal MDA valued at more than $100 million. MarketWatch also reported on Tuesday, October 27 that MDA is partnering with a Ukrainian counter-drone manufacturer on joint production, though deal terms were not independently detailed and the item could not be corroborated against MDA's own newsroom at the time of writing. MDA shares fell 6.79% on Friday, October 30, closing at C$38.00 on volume above average; no specific negative catalyst for that move was identified, and the stock remains up more than 40% for the year to date.

Planet Labs (PL)
Planet Labs shares continued to slide, closing at $13.77 on Monday, October 26, down roughly 30% year to date, and opening at $14.32 on Thursday, October 29. A 13F filing reported this week showed Oppenheimer & Co. cut its Planet Labs stake by 69.9% during the third quarter, selling about 1.05 million shares and retaining roughly 451,829 shares worth about $7.4 million; the underlying trading happened during the third quarter, with only the disclosure landing this week.

Takeaway
Results are coming… Redwire opens the window on November 4, followed by Viasat and MDA Space on November 5, Rocket Lab and AST SpaceMobile on November 9, Spire Global and Firefly Aerospace on November 10, and Intuitive Machines closing it out on November 12. That cluster, more than any single stock move this week, is what should set the tone for the sector into mid-November. Layered on top of it is a direct-to-device satellite connectivity market that just got a lot more crowded and a lot more capitalized, with Amazon's balance sheet now standing behind Globalstar's licensed spectrum and existing Apple relationship, AST SpaceMobile building its own constellation with AT&T and Verizon, and SpaceX narrowing rather than expanding its ambitions with T-Mobile. Expect next week's Market Overview to lean heavily on earnings commentary rather than speculation.

Consensus Prices

Launch Watch

• Nov 2 · Rocket Lab · Electron · "The Sea God Surveys" (iQPS SAR satellite) · Mahia Peninsula, New Zealand
• Nov 2 · SpaceX · Falcon 9 · USSF-432 · Vandenberg SFB, California
• Nov 2 · CAS Space · unconfirmed vehicle · unconfirmed payload (NET) · Jiuquan, China
• Nov 4 · Galactic Energy · unconfirmed vehicle · unconfirmed payload (NET) · Jiuquan, China
• Nov 5 · CASC · unconfirmed vehicle · unconfirmed payload (NET) · Xichang, China
• Nov 5 · CASC · Long March 12 · unconfirmed payload (NET) · Wenchang, China
• Nov 5 · SpaceX · Falcon 9 · Starlink 15-21 · Vandenberg SFB, California
• Nov 9 · SpaceX · Falcon 9 · USSF national security mission · Vandenberg SFB, California
• Nov 10 · Rocket Lab · Electron · "The Mountain God Rises" (iQPS SAR satellite) · Mahia Peninsula, New Zealand
• Nov 13 · ULA · Vulcan Centaur · Amazon Leo first Vulcan batch, 45 satellites · Cape Canaveral SFS, Florida
• Nov 20 · CASC · Long March 8A · unconfirmed payload (NET) · Wenchang, China
• NET Nov (date TBD) · SpaceX · Starship · next integrated test flight, targeting first dual booster-and-ship catch · Starbase, Texas
• NET Nov (date TBD) · ISRO · LVM-3 · Gaganyaan Demo Flight 1, uncrewed crew capsule test · Satish Dhawan Space Centre, India

Orbit Focus

🎯THE DIRECT-TO-DEVICE LAND GRAB: AMAZON'S GLOBALSTAR DEAL CLEARS THE FCC

The idea of a satellite talking directly to an ordinary smartphone, no special hardware required, has been the space sector's most contested piece of real estate for three years. This week, the fight for that real estate got its clearest signal yet about who is going to win it, and it did not come from SpaceX or from AST SpaceMobile. It came from Amazon.

What actually happened. The Federal Communications Commission approved Amazon's acquisition of Globalstar on Tuesday, October 27, 2026. The deal, first reported by the Financial Times back on April 1, 2026, had spent nearly seven months in regulatory review before clearing. Under the terms, Globalstar shareholders can elect to receive $90 in cash or 0.3210 shares of Amazon stock for each Globalstar share they hold, putting the total deal value at $11.57 billion. FCC Chairman Brendan Carr framed the approval around "supercharging next-generation connectivity." The transaction is expected to close sometime in 2027. Two days later, on October 29 and 30, the FCC separately granted nationwide operating authority for Globalstar's third-generation satellite system, a network of 48 operational satellites plus six in-orbit spares and roughly 90 ground antennas, clearing it to offer direct-to-device connectivity across multiple states and Puerto Rico.

Why Amazon wanted Globalstar specifically. Amazon did not need to buy a satellite operator to get into low earth orbit broadband; it already has one, in the form of its own Leo constellation (formerly branded Kuiper), which is in the middle of a launch ramp that includes a first batch riding ULA's Vulcan Centaur on November 13 and a second batch on an Arianespace Ariane 6 shortly after. What Amazon did not have was licensed mobile satellite spectrum and an existing, working relationship with a major device maker. Globalstar brings both. The company holds its own MSS spectrum allocation, built out specifically for direct-to-device use, and it already has a live commercial relationship with Apple, supplying the satellite connectivity behind iPhone and Apple Watch emergency and messaging features. The acquisition agreement explicitly preserves that Apple relationship rather than disrupting it, which is notable given how much of Globalstar's near-term revenue visibility depends on it.

The competitive map this creates. There are now three distinct models racing to put a satellite signal directly into an ordinary phone, and this week put all three in the news at once. The first is AST SpaceMobile's approach: build a constellation of large, purpose-built satellites and partner with existing mobile carriers, in its case AT&T and Verizon, to extend their networks into dead zones using the carriers' own licensed spectrum. The second is SpaceX's approach, built around Starlink's direct-to-cell satellites working inside T-Mobile's network under existing spectrum sharing arrangements. The third, newly reinforced this week, is Amazon's approach: acquire an incumbent operator that already holds its own dedicated satellite spectrum and already has a signed device-maker partnership, then layer Amazon's balance sheet, logistics and cloud infrastructure on top of it.

Those three models are not equally exposed to the same constraints. AST SpaceMobile and SpaceX both depend on cooperation from terrestrial carriers whose spectrum they are borrowing, which is exactly the constraint that showed up this same week when T-Mobile CEO Srini Gopalan told reporters there is "no room for a wholesale deal" that would have let SpaceX resell mobile plans over T-Mobile's network. SpaceX's existing satellite-to-cell arrangement with T-Mobile stays in place, but Gopalan's comment draws a hard line against SpaceX turning that arrangement into a bigger standalone business, at least for now. AST SpaceMobile shares slipped in the immediate aftermath of the Globalstar news, in trading commentary that framed Amazon's move as one more well-capitalized entrant competing for the same long-term direct-to-device revenue pool AST SpaceMobile is trying to own outright, rather than renting spectrum access from a carrier the way SpaceX does.

What to watch next. The Globalstar deal does not close until sometime in 2027, which leaves roughly a year during which Globalstar continues operating independently, under FCC conditions, while Amazon integrates it on paper. Two things are worth tracking in that window. The first is whether the preserved Apple partnership gets expanded rather than merely maintained once Amazon's balance sheet is behind it; Apple has leverage here, since its iPhone distribution is the single largest source of real-world usage data for any direct-to-device network today. The second is whether AST SpaceMobile responds by deepening its own carrier relationships, raising additional capital to accelerate its satellite build-out, or both; the company's next catalyst is its November 9 business update call, where management is likely to face direct questions about how the newly cleared Amazon-Globalstar combination changes its competitive position.

Takeaway. This week's FCC approval did not create the direct-to-device race, but it did clarify who is best positioned to win the part of it that depends on owning spectrum rather than borrowing it. Amazon now controls a satellite operator with its own licensed mobile spectrum and a working Apple relationship, backed by a balance sheet neither AST SpaceMobile nor Globalstar could match on its own. SpaceX, by contrast, just had a door closed on expanding its carrier arrangement with T-Mobile beyond its current scope. For investors in the smaller, purpose-built operators, the message is that scale and spectrum ownership are starting to matter more than being first to market, and the next several quarters of carrier negotiations and capital raises will likely decide which of the three models actually captures the revenue.

This newsletter is for informational purposes only and is not investment, legal, or financial advice. We believe our sources are reliable but can't guarantee accuracy or completeness, and all figures should be independently verified before you rely on them.

Previous: Issue 28: SpaceX Turns Its First Profit, Then Meets Its Biggest Lockup Test Yet