Orbit Alpha Issue 8 · 7 Jun 2026
Caught between last week's explosion and next week's IPO.
MARKET OVERVIEW
🌎 Caught between last week's explosion and next week's IPO.
Track every space stock live at Orbit Alpha
The week opened with the Blue Origin explosion still echoing through the tape. The hotfire test failure on 28 May had sent shockwaves, literally registering 2.5 on the Richter scale across Cape Canaveral, and Monday's open made clear the market wasn't done pricing it in. Capital rotated hard out of launch-exposed names and into Virgin Galactic as the cleanest Blue Origin competition beneficiary. RKLB, LUNR, BKSY, SPIR and other names fell sharply. RDW was the session's hardest hit, when Jefferies downgraded the stock to Hold from Buy that same morning, citing limited near-term upside after its 223% year-to-date run. SPCE went the other way, surging to $7.52 on a short squeeze, a newly disclosed 5.26% institutional stake, and retail ticker confusion between SPCE and the incoming SPCX — with 286 million shares traded, twelve times its daily average.
Tuesday reversed SPCE entirely. Virgin Galactic crashed after filing plans to redeem $30.5 million of first lien notes by issuing common stock, the squeeze unwound in a single session.
Then on Wednesday, SpaceX's roadshow kicked off at JPMorgan as the company simultaneously filed its public prospectus: 555.6 million shares at a fixed price of $135, a $75 billion raise, more than double Saudi Aramco's 2019 record, and a $1.75 trillion valuation rising above $1.8 trillion fully diluted. Morningstar immediately pushed back, valuing SPCX at $780 billion, 55% below the ask, and noting that 78% of the record raise is pre-pledged to Musk insiders. The fixed price and the valuation gap concentrated investor minds on the rotation question: why hold listed proxies when you can buy the real thing on 12 June?
Thursday evening delivered two headlines simultaneously. First, S&P Dow Jones Indices confirmed it would not change its eligibility requirements for the S&P 500, closing the door on fast-track index entry for SpaceX. Under existing rules, SpaceX cannot join the index until mid-2027 at the earliest, and only then if it turns a profit. It posted a $4.94 billion net loss in 2025. The passive-fund buying catalyst the market had been pricing evaporated. The second blow came from the float. SpaceX is offering fewer than 5% of its total shares, well below the S&P's 10% minimum float requirement, two separate disqualifications, not one. Nasdaq, however, changed its own rules this week to allow SPCX into the Nasdaq 100 in as little as 15 trading days, meaning passive flows will arrive, just through a narrower channel than the market had assumed.
ROCKET LAB (RKLB)
A quiet week on the news front, with the macro doing most of the damage. Two analyst moves cut against the weak tape. Stifel's Erik Rasmussen raised his price target to a new Street-high of $132 from $110, maintaining Buy, citing strong revenue momentum and Neutron execution as the primary determinant of long-term valuation upside. Clear Street separately raised its target to $129 from $98, also maintaining Buy. On the insider front, Director Alexander R. Slusky sold 40,000 shares on 2 June at $123.60 per share, totalling $4.94 million, filed via SEC Form 4 on 5 June 2026.
AST SPACEMOBILE (ASTS)
As with Rocket Lab, little news this week. The story heading into next week remains the mid-June Falcon 9 launch of BlueBirds 8, 9 and 10, all confirmed at Cape Canaveral in final integration. The question hanging over the name is longer-term launch capacity: ASTS's target of 45 satellites in orbit by end-2026 relied on both SpaceX and Blue Origin vehicles. With New Glenn grounded indefinitely, analysts have flagged the year-end constellation target may slip into Q1 2027. Manufacturing cadence of up to six BlueBirds per month remains intact on the production side.
PLANET LABS (PL)
PL had the most eventful single day of any name in the sector this week. On 4 June, Planet reported fiscal Q1 2027 results after market close: revenue of $94.2 million, up 42% year-over-year, ahead of the analyst consensus of approximately $90 million, with an adjusted loss per share of $0.03, narrower than the $0.04 consensus. The company guided fiscal Q2 2027 revenue to $102–$107 million, above the Street estimate of $100.86 million. Craig-Hallum raised its price target to $49 from $36, maintaining Buy, on the back of the results. Despite the beat, Planet simultaneously filed a new at-the-market equity programme for up to $1.5 billion via a syndicate including Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Barclays, Citigroup and Deutsche Bank. The dilution overhang overwhelmed the fundamental news, the stock recorded its sharpest single-day fall in 21 months and dropped below its 200-day moving average for the first time since March 2026.
INTUITIVE MACHINES (LUNR)
A difficult week with only one company-specific development. Intuitive Machines announced plans to raise up to $500 million via an at-the-market equity programme, which weighed on the stock through the back half of the week. The broader context for the selling is a hangover from a strong run, LUNR is still up significantly year-to-date on the back of its record Q1 results, the Andromeda IDIQ selection, and the Goonhilly acquisition, all announced in mid-May. With no new positive catalysts this week to offset the dilution overhang and the sector-wide macro pressure, the stock gave back ground alongside peers.
VIRGIN GALACTIC (SPCE)
The week's most volatile name. SPCE surged to $7.52 on Monday, its highest close in nearly two years, driven by a short squeeze with S3 Partners estimating $64 million in mark-to-market losses absorbed by short sellers across the year, a newly disclosed 5.26% stake from investor Rich Huang of RichRich Capital, and the SPCX/SPCE ticker dynamic. Short interest stood at 23.2% of float with 286 million shares traded on Monday, twelve times the daily average. Tuesday erased most of it - the stock crashed after Virgin Galactic filed plans to redeem $30.5 million of first lien notes by issuing common stock, a dilution mechanism that ended the squeeze cleanly. A partial recovery came Thursday on broader sector optimism around the SpaceX roadshow. Operationally, the company remains on track for Q3 2026 glide-flight testing and Q4 2026 rocket-powered commercial spaceflights of its Delta-class spacecraft, with tickets priced at $750,000 per seat.
REDWIRE (RDW)
The week's defining company-specific event was the Jefferies downgrade to Hold from Buy on Monday 1 June, citing the stock's 223% year-to-date run and the need for demonstrated backlog conversion before the valuation is justified. The firm simultaneously raised its price target from $13 to $24, underlining that the downgrade was about timing and risk/reward rather than the underlying business. Losses extended through the week, with one session seeing volume well above the typical daily average. On the contract side, Redwire was awarded a contract by Luxembourg-based Astrobiome Space to grow strawberries aboard the ISS.
FIREFLY AEROSPACE (FLY)
Firefly subsidiary SciTec was awarded a $5.5 million US Air Force contract option this week to deliver the operational data fusion system for the Cloud-Based Command and Control programme. The option stems from a $24 million 2024 ABMS IDIQ award and follows a multi-year competition in which SciTec's cloud-based system was selected over multiple industry and government alternatives to support homeland defence for NORAD, USNORTHCOM, and PACAF.
BLACKSKY TECHNOLOGY (BKSY)
Jefferies downgraded BKSY to Hold from Buy on 1 June, the same morning it downgraded RDW, on valuation grounds following the stock's strong year-to-date run.
MDA SPACE (MDA)
MDA had the most significant contract announcement of any name in the sector this week. On 2 June, the company was selected by BAE Systems as part of the US Space Systems Command MEO Epoch 2 Constellation programme, a key component of the US multi-orbit missile defence architecture targeting advanced ballistic and hypersonic weapons. MDA will design and build antennas and antenna control electronics for the MEO Resilient Missile Warning and Tracking satellites produced by BAE Systems, continuing work already performed on Space Development Agency LEO Tranche 0, 1 and 2 layers and the SSC's Epoch 1 constellation. Work is expected to complete in 2027.
VIASAT (VSAT)
A week of strong analyst and contract news against a weak tape. On 1 June, Viasat was selected by Lockheed Martin to provide high-bandwidth Hybrid SATCOM Approach technology for two NOAA C-130J Hurricane Hunter aircraft, the first integration of Viasat's hybrid satellite communications system into that platform, with an operational target of 2030. On the same day, Needham's Ryan Koontz raised his price target to $90 from $58, maintaining Buy, emphasising Viasat's spectrum assets, defence business, and the pending Equatys global joint venture as key drivers. Deutsche Bank also raised its target to $97 from $48 and JPMorgan reiterated Buy. Despite the positive news flow, the stock dropped sharply on Monday, a disconnect between strong analyst conviction and investor concerns about valuation and execution that defined the week.
MOMENTUS (MNTS)
On 1 June, Momentus filed a registration statement registering 3,089,100 shares for resale under a $200 million shelf, drawn from May 2026 private placements. No proceeds flow to Momentus from the resale. The filing is the latest in a series of capital raises the company has used to fund operations as it works toward sustainable revenue. Morningstar currently has the stock trading at a 569% premium to its fair value estimate, a gap that reflects the SpaceX-era retail enthusiasm lifting all small-cap space names against the underlying fundamentals of a company generating approximately $4 million in trailing twelve-month revenue.
Takeaway: A week defined by dilution and rotation. PL and LUNR both hit by ATM raises despite strong underlying businesses. RDW and BKSY cut by Jefferies on valuation. MDA and Viasat won meaningful contracts and were largely ignored. The sector is repricing ahead of 12 June, the companies with real news are getting swept up in the same tide as the ones without it.
BROKER PULSE
🚀 Consensus prices
Live prices for all names below at Orbit Alpha Markets
ROCKET LAB (RKLB) · Buy · Avg target $105.28
AST SPACEMOBILE (ASTS) · Hold · Avg target $82.02
PLANET LABS (PL) · Buy · Avg target $39.80
INTUITIVE MACHINES (LUNR) · Buy · Avg target $40.78
GLOBALSTAR (GSAT) · Avg target $90.00
FIREFLY AEROSPACE (FLY) · Buy · Avg target $48.00
MDA SPACE (MDA) · Strong Buy · Avg target $44.05
REDWIRE (RDW) · Buy · Avg target $15.67
VIASAT (VSAT) · Buy · Avg target $88.88
BLACKSKY TECHNOLOGY (BKSY) · Strong Buy · Avg target $40.50
VIRGIN GALACTIC (SPCE) · Hold · Avg target $3.55
SPIRE GLOBAL (SPIR) · Strong Buy · Avg target $20.88
LAUNCH WATCH
🔭 Launches that could move your portfolio
Full launch calendar with live status at Orbit Alpha Launches
Jun 9 · LandSpace — Unconfirmed Vehicle · LS-43/96, Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center, China. Unconfirmed payload.
Jun 10 · JAXA — H-3 · VEP-5 · LA-Y2, Tanegashima Space Center, Japan. With STARS-X and BRO 19. Test flight.
Jun 10 · CASC — Long March 5 · TBD · LP-101, Wenchang Satellite Launch Center, China. Unconfirmed payload.
Jun 10 · SpaceX — Starlink (17-44) · Falcon 9 · SLC-4E, Vandenberg SFB, California. Booster: B1071.
Jun 11 · Rocket Lab — "Curveball" · Electron · Pad 0C (LC-2), Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport, Virginia.
Jun 12 · SpaceX — Starlink (10-54) · Falcon 9 · SLC-40, Cape Canaveral SFS, Florida. Booster: B1080.
Jun 14 · SpaceX — Starlink (17-54) · Falcon 9 · SLC-4E, Vandenberg SFB, California. Booster: B1093.
Jun 17 · Arianespace — Ariane 6 · Amazon Leo (LE-03) · ELA-4, Guiana Space Centre, French Guiana. Third Amazon Leo communications satellite launch.
SENTIMENT SIGNAL
🎯 DEEP DIVE · SPCX · WHAT THE S-1 ACTUALLY SAYS, AND WHY THE PROXY TRADE IS ABOUT TO BE REPRICED
Everyone knows the headline: $135, $1.75 trillion, 12 June. This is the part the headline coverage skips, the segment architecture, the ARPU problem, and the second-order consequences for everything else on your watchlist.
Three companies, one ticker, three completely different financial profiles
Since the February 2026 xAI consolidation, the S-1 reports SpaceX in three segments, and the only honest way to underwrite this deal is to value them separately. The one-line summary of the cash flow graph: Starlink earns, Starship burns R&D, AI burns capex.
- Connectivity (Starlink): $11.4 billion revenue in 2025, up ~50%, with roughly $7.2 billion segment EBITDA and $4.4 billion in GAAP operating profit. This is the only part of the company a normal investor already knows how to price.
- Space (Falcon/Dragon/Starship): just $4.1 billion revenue and a $657 million operating loss in 2025, because $3.0 billion went straight into Starship R&D. The launch business that is the brand is a rounding error on revenue and a money-loser on paper.
- AI (xAI): a $6.35 billion operating loss in 2025 and $12.7 billion of capex. In Q1 2026 alone, AI capex hit roughly $7.7 billion, an annualized pace above $30 billion.
Put it together: the Q1 2026 consolidated net loss of $4.3 billion is, in effect, the xAI burn dragging an otherwise-healthy launch-and-connectivity company underwater. The merger turned a profitable business into a heavy loss-maker overnight, by design.
The number the bulls don't want you to anchor on: ARPU
Here's the figure that doesn't fit the growth narrative. Starlink ARPU has gone $99/month (2023) to $91 (2024) to $81 (2025) → $66 in Q1 2026. That's a 33% decline in three years, and it's accelerating. The subscriber count doubling to 10.3 million is the headline; the per-unit economics quietly eroding underneath it is the story. The trajectory is consistent with a deliberate land-grab, pushing into lower-income geographies and cheaper consumer tiers to win subscribers before competitors (including Amazon's Leo, now backed by the GSAT spectrum) can respond. The critical question for the filing: where is the ARPU floor, and does Starlink stay a price-and-volume story or become volume-only? Below $66, the entire Connectivity multiple is in play.
The Anthropic contract is a purchase order, not recurring revenue
A detail being widely misread: in March 2026, SpaceX's Colossus data centre signed a deal with Anthropic worth roughly $1.25 billion per month through May 2029, about $40 billion over its life, housing 220,000 Nvidia GPUs across 300MW. Impressive. But either party can terminate on 90 days' notice. Sophisticated readers should model this as a large, revocable purchase order, not a SaaS annuity. If that contract slips or GPU economics deteriorate, the single biggest external prop under the AI segment's revenue line goes with it.
Everything hinges on a 2H 2026 Starship milestone
The trillion-dollar premium above Starlink's standalone value is a bet on Starship working on schedule. The V3 Starlink satellites, 1 Tbps downlink each, a ~20x capacity step-change over V2 Minis, can only deploy on Starship, with up to 60 per launch. Orbital AI compute satellites (targeted "as early as 2028" per the S-1) need Starship. Lunar payload delivery needs Starship. If payload-to-orbit slips materially while ARPU keeps sliding, Falcon 9's cadence alone may not keep Connectivity as the cash engine funding the rest. The whole capital structure is sensitive to one execution variable.
The balance sheet is tighter than the valuation implies
As of 31 March 2026: $15.9 billion cash against $29.1 billion principal debt, including a March 2026 Morgan Stanley bridge loan, with $1.9 billion in 2025 interest expense. 2025 capex was $20.7 billion against operating cash flow that left a ~$14 billion gap funded by debt and preferred equity. The $75 billion raise and the Anthropic prepayments are explicitly there to fund the next leg, this is not a company raising for optionality, it's raising because the burn requires it.
Why the fixed price and the float matter more than they look
SpaceX skipped bookbuilding and went straight to a fixed $135, unusual at this scale. Private secondary markets were trading $129–$137 in early June, so the IPO price sits mid-range of where private buyers already transacted; there's no obvious day-one arbitrage baked in. More important is the float: under 5% of shares offered, with Musk holding ~42% equity and ~85% of votes. That thin float is what makes the index mechanics so consequential, a small free float plus forced passive buying is a recipe for violent moves in both directions.
The index split the market underpriced
This week's S&P decision is more important than the initial reaction suggested. S&P Dow Jones refused to waive its rules, so SPCX is barred from the S&P 500 until it posts a GAAP profit and clears 12-month seasoning, mid-2027 at the earliest, and "profit" is a high bar given the AI burn. That removes the single largest automatic buyer. But Nasdaq changed its rules to admit SPCX to the Nasdaq 100 in as little as 15 trading days. So passive flows arrive, through a narrower pipe, later, and into a sub-5% float. The expert read: the S&P denial caps the ceiling of forced buying, but the Nasdaq-100 inclusion into a thin float still sets up a mechanical squeeze risk in the first few weeks.
The lockup is the trade nobody is positioning for yet
Mark roughly 90–180 days out. Early employees, early investors, and a 21-bank syndicate all face the same lockup expiry into a stock with a tiny float and a retail-heavy shareholder base (up to 30% of the offering allocated to retail). That combination, concentrated insider supply meeting thin, sentiment-driven demand, sets up what could be one of the largest single-window insider distribution events in market history. December is the risk that isn't in any current price.
The second-order trade: what actually happens to your watchlist
- Correlation breaks. For 18 months the listed names traded as a basket because they were the only space exposure available. Once SPCX exists, that basket logic dissolves. Expect intra-sector dispersion to rise sharply, the names with idiosyncratic catalysts (ASTS's BlueBird launch, RKLB's Neutron) decouple from the ones that were pure beta to the SpaceX narrative.
- The "why own me" filter gets brutal. Post-12 June, every name has to answer why a generalist would hold it instead of SPCX. RKLB ($2.2B backlog, Neutron optionality, the closest thing to a Western Falcon alternative) and MDA (profitable, defence backlog, cheapest multiple in the group) have answers. PL's recurring government data model has an answer. The pure-narrative small caps trading at 9x+ forward sales on triple-digit YTD runs do not.
- The spectrum/D2D names are a special case. GSAT (being absorbed by Amazon Leo) and ASTS (direct-to-device) are arguably less correlated to SPCX than the launch names, because their thesis is connectivity spectrum, not launch cadence — and Starlink's own ARPU compression is a read-through risk to the entire D2D economics question, not a tailwind.
Takeaway: Strip away the spectacle and the S-1 describes one world-class satellite ISP (with a quietly deteriorating ARPU line), wrapped around a pre-revenue launch moonshot and an AI unit burning $30 billion a year, sold at 109–116x trailing revenue into a sub-5% float. The bull case is real and structural - orbital compute, V3, Mars optionality. But the near-term setup for your portfolio isn't about whether SPCX is cheap or expensive, it's that 12 June ends the era when "space" was a single trade. After that, dispersion is the regime: the names with backlog, margin, and a catalyst survive the rotation; the ones that were only ever a proxy for the thing that now trades under its own ticker do not. Position for divergence, not direction.
Previous: Issue 7: The biggest IPO in history drops June 12. SPCX ≠ SPCE. · Next: Issue 9: The week "space" stopped being one trade.