THE SPACEX PROXY STACK
If SpaceX $SPCX IPOs at $1.75T to $2T in June, the entire public space complex rerates.
Four listed names that already give you the exposure, ranked from most direct to most asymmetric.
$SATS, the under NAV play. EchoStar holds ~2.2% of SpaceX (52M shares from the $17B spectrum swap). At a $1.75T IPO that stake alone is worth ~$38B against a $36B market cap. You are paying nothing for $33B of contracted cash from the AT&T and SpaceX spectrum deals, plus the operating businesses. New Street just initiated at $161.
$ASTS, the biggest competitor at a 60x valuation gap. SpaceX gets a $1.75T mark because Starlink prints 63% EBITDA margins on $11.4B of revenue. Starlink is the high margin profit engine, the entire bull case. AST SpaceMobile, the only credible direct to device competitor going after the exact same opportunity, trades at $31B. That is a 56x to 65x valuation gap on a similar end market.
On tech, ASTS just deployed BlueBird 6, the largest commercial communications array ever flown to LEO, hitting 120+ Mbps to standard unmodified smartphones. Direct to Cell still needs a modified network path and underperforms on bandwidth per beam.
On commercial traction, ASTS has nearly 60 MNO partners covering over 3 billion subscribers, including AT&T, Verizon, Vodafone, Rakuten, Orange, Telefonica, Bell, TELUS, STC. The carriers picked ASTS. They did not pick Starlink. That is the leading indicator.
$RKLB, next best public rocket launcher. $72B market cap. $2.2B backlog. Q1 2026 revenue $200M, up 64% YoY. Neutron is the only credible medium lift reusable competitor to Falcon 9 in development. Confidential customer just booked the largest multi launch Neutron contract in company history. First flight targeted later this year. Selected with Raytheon for the Golden Dome space based interceptor program.
$VELO, the manufacturing pick. Tiny at $364M market cap. Qualified for five parts on the Raptor engine including the next gen Raptor 4. SpaceX runs 25 Velo3D Sapphire machines on site, with management indicating expansion in 2026. Defense pipeline 88% of Q1 bookings, $32.6M DIU contract in hand, positive EBITDA guided H2 2026. High torque, high risk.
The trade: SATS for direct ownership near NAV, ASTS for the obvious competitor on the high margin segment of SpaceX, RKLB for the launch comp rerate, VELO for asymmetric small cap exposure to the SpaceX supply chain.
