Shares of AST SpaceMobile (NASDAQ:ASTS) are climbing 20% in midday trading on Tuesday. Planet Labs (NYSE:PL) is up 15%, Rocket Lab (NASDAQ:RKLB | RKLB Price Prediction) is gaining 6%. The rally is being driven by renewed investor focus on SpaceX’s pending public listing.
SpaceX filed its S-1 last week. The document frames a roughly $1.75 trillion targeted valuation against revenue in the $18 billion range. That setup is forcing the public market to reset how it values commercial space companies as a group.
Today’s price action reflects classic pre-IPO halo behavior tied to SpaceX. Capital is rotating into public space names ahead of one of the most-anticipated equity events in years, and three major pure-play movers (ASTS, PL, and RKLB) are telling slightly different stories.
SpaceX IPO Resets the Sector Math
SpaceX’s S-1 disclosed that its Connectivity segment, primarily Starlink, generated $11,387 million in 2025 revenue with Segment Adjusted EBITDA of $7,168 million. That scale provides a new benchmark for satellite connectivity peers, including AST SpaceMobile.
The company’s Space segment generated $4,086 million in 2025 revenue with a loss from operations of $(657) million. SpaceX funded $3.004 billion in research and development for its next-generation Starship program last year, the key enabler of cheaper launch capacity.
On a consolidated basis, SpaceX reported $18.674 billion in revenue and Adjusted EBITDA of $6.584 billion for 2025. Those numbers form the comparable set which the public market will measure Rocket Lab and Planet Labs against once SpaceX lists.
AST SpaceMobile Leads the Halo Trade
AST SpaceMobile is the leader of the day, up 20% intraday following a 334% climb over the past year. The company sits in the most direct comparable category to Starlink, operating a space-based cellular broadband network that beams connectivity directly to standard smartphones.
AST SpaceMobile CEO Abel Avellan’s team has lined up nearly 60 mobile network operator partners covering more than 3 billion subscribers. The company is targeting roughly 45 BlueBird satellites in orbit by year-end, with BlueBirds 8-10 launching mid-June aboard a Falcon 9.
Reddit sentiment on AST SpaceMobile stock hit a very bullish score of 88 Tuesday morning, with the dominant WallStreetBets thread explicitly referencing the “Space Trade” tied to the SpaceX IPO. That retail enthusiasm contrasts with the analyst consensus target of $83.47, which sits well below the current price.
Planet Labs Rides the Lower-Cost-to-Orbit Tailwind
Planet Labs stock is up 15% intraday, capping a 1,270% one-year run that makes it the eye-catcher of the trio. The company operates the largest commercial Earth observation fleet and layers AI-driven analytics on top of its imagery products.
The lower-cost-to-orbit trend SpaceX enables through Falcon and Starship directly supports Planet Labs’ economic model. Cheaper launches translate into faster constellation refreshes and lower unit costs per image, which strengthens the entire imagery business case.
Recent results back the operational story. Planet Labs’ Q3 FY2026 revenue hit a record $81.25 million, up 33% year over year, and remaining performance obligations surged 361% year over year to $672.47 million. Government customers including the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA), National Reconnaissance Office (NRO), NASA, and NATO are scaling deployments.
Rocket Lab Faces a Double-Edged Catalyst
Rocket Lab stock is up 6% intraday and 104% year-to-date. The relatively muted move reflects the company’s direct competitive overlap with SpaceX in commercial launch services.
Rocket Lab’s Q1 2026 results showed revenue of $200.35 million, up 64% year over year, with backlog reaching a record $2.2 billion. Rocket Lab was also selected for the Department of War’s Space Based Interceptor program under Golden Dome, partnering with Raytheon.
The Reddit tone on RKLB stock has actually flipped bearish today. A top WallStreetBets thread declares, “If space X is overvalued then RKLB is 5x worst.” Polymarket traders, however, are pricing a 97% probability of an “Up” day for Rocket Lab on Tuesday.
What to Watch
The SpaceX IPO pricing is the next major catalyst for the entire complex. Once SpaceX shares actually trade, investor attention shifts from “rising tide” to relative comparison, and that comparison may not be favorable to every public peer.
Pre-IPO halos have historically been some of the more reliable mean-reversion setups in equity markets. Two of the three names today, AST SpaceMobile and Rocket Lab, compete with SpaceX in distinct ways. Their post-IPO trading behavior is unlikely to be uniformly bullish.
Investors can watch how the public space comparables trade in the immediate aftermath of SpaceX’s listing. Company-specific milestones, including Rocket Lab’s Neutron debut later this year and AST SpaceMobile’s mid-June BlueBird launch, could shape the next share-price move for each name independently of the SpaceX halo.
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