Let’s be direct about what’s happening in the space sector right now.

SpaceX — the most valuable private company on Earth — is preparing to go public. And if the numbers being floated around Wall Street are even half right, it will be the largest IPO in the history of financial markets. We’re talking about a company targeting a valuation of between $1.75 trillion and $2 trillion, with plans to raise as much as $75 billion in a single offering. For context, Saudi Aramco raised $29 billion in 2019 and held the prior record. SpaceX is targeting more than double that.

There’s just one problem for most investors: you can’t buy SpaceX yet.

So the market is doing what it always does when a massive, pent-up trade becomes visible on the horizon — it finds the next best thing. And right now, that means Rocket Lab (RKLB) and AST SpaceMobile (ASTS) are lighting up the options tape.

The IPO That Changes Everything — Or at Least the Sector

Here’s the setup. SpaceX confidentially filed its S-1 with the SEC on April 1, 2026, moving the IPO from cocktail party speculation into a formal regulatory process. Bloomberg reported that the target valuation has been revised upward to over $2 trillion. The company is reportedly planning a June or July listing and has already lined up Bank of America, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, and Morgan Stanley as lead underwriters.

One of SpaceX’s lead underwriters reportedly predicted that retail demand for the offering will be something they’ve “never seen before.” Musk is reportedly looking to allocate up to 30% of shares to retail investors — triple the typical allocation for a major IPO.

The financial picture is genuinely impressive, even at these valuations. SpaceX generated over $18.5 billion in 2025 revenue, driven primarily by the Starlink satellite constellation, which now serves more than 5 million subscribers across 125 countries and accounts for roughly 80% of total revenue. Starlink alone could realistically be valued at over $500 billion as a standalone business, according to some analysts.

But at $2 trillion, investors would be paying more than 80 times forward revenue — a multiple that dwarfs even Nvidia at the peak of its AI-driven rally, when it traded at 40–45x revenue. This is “everything goes right” pricing, as one analyst put it. That kind of valuation demands a near-perfect execution story across Starlink scaling, Starship commercialization, and xAI integration simultaneously.

Which brings us back to RKLB and ASTS.

RKLB: The Operator Proxy

Rocket Lab is the most operationally credible pure-play publicly traded space company. While SpaceX operates in its own stratosphere, RKLB is building its own vertically integrated space infrastructure stack — and doing it with impressive financial momentum.

In 2025, Rocket Lab posted record annual revenue of $602 million, up 38% year-over-year. Q4 alone came in at $180 million — up 35.7% YoY — and the company guided Q1 2026 revenue to $185M–$200M, representing roughly 57% growth at the midpoint. The backlog tells an even more exciting story: $1.85 billion at year-end 2025, up 73% YoY. That’s a company with visible, contracted revenue looking out multiple years.

Operationally, Rocket Lab flew 21 Electron missions in 2025 with a 100% mission success rate — a new annual record. The company also landed its largest single contract in history: an $816 million Space Development Agency award to design and manufacture 18 missile-warning satellites. Its recent acquisition of Mynaric expands its optical communications capabilities, pushing the company closer to becoming what management describes as a full-service space prime.

RKLB is still loss-making — GAAP EPS loss was roughly $0.09 in Q4 2025 — and Neutron, its medium-lift vehicle intended to compete in a larger launch market, hit a development delay after a stage 1 tank failure, with first launch now targeted for Q4 2026. But the financial trajectory is unmistakable. Gross margins hit 38% GAAP and 44.3% non-GAAP in Q4 2025, and the business is clearly scaling.

When SpaceX IPO headlines hit the tape, RKLB’s options market activates. The put/call ratio on RKLB has been running below 0.70, a distinctly bullish skew, and unusual call volume — defined as call volume significantly exceeding open interest — has been a recurring pattern during peak SpaceX IPO news cycles. Traders are effectively betting that a rising tide in space sector sentiment lifts RKLB as the most credible publicly traded launch operator.

ASTS: The High-Beta Connectivity Bet

AST SpaceMobile is a different animal entirely — higher risk, higher reward, and far more speculative. But it’s also the name most directly linked to the thematic narrative that SpaceX’s IPO is really about: space-based connectivity as infrastructure.

ASTS is building the world’s first space-based cellular broadband network that connects standard, unmodified smartphones directly from low Earth orbit. Its BlueBird satellite program has been advancing — BlueBird 6 launched successfully and features a 2,400-square-foot phased-array antenna capable of supporting speeds up to 120 Mbps. The company is targeting 45–60 satellites in orbit by end-2026, which represents the constellation density needed for genuine commercial continuous service.

The financials are still early-stage by design. ASTS reported Q4 2025 revenue of $54.3 million — up 2,731% year-over-year, beating estimates of $42.24 million. Full-year 2025 revenue came in at approximately $70.9 million, primarily from government contracts and carrier partner milestone payments. The company carries a net loss of around $341.9 million for the year, reflecting the capital intensity of manufacturing its massive Block 2 satellites at a cost of $21–$23 million per unit.

On the balance sheet, ASTS has a war chest of roughly $3.9 billion in liquidity, bolstered by a $1.075 billion convertible note offering in February 2026, plus strategic prepayments from both Verizon and AT&T. The company holds more than $1.2 billion in contracted partner commitments and received a $175 million prepayment from STC Group. That runway gives them the time to execute on the constellation buildout without near-term funding pressure.

The valuation, however, is extreme even by space sector standards. ASTS trades at a P/S ratio of over 1,400x trailing revenue, with a market cap exceeding $30 billion on less than $100 million in annualized current revenue. This is a pure execution bet — investors are paying today for the $50M–$75M H2 2026 revenue guidance and the path toward over $1 billion in contracted commercial partner revenue beyond that.

When SpaceX IPO buzz surged in early April, ASTS was up nearly 6% in a single session, driven in large part by the halo effect of broader commercial space enthusiasm. High-frequency trading activity around the SpaceX IPO narrative has added meaningful noise to ASTS price action, pulling speculative capital in and out of the name without much regard for near-term fundamentals.

The Logic of the Proxy Trade — And Its Limits

Here’s why the proxy trade works — and where it breaks down.

The SpaceX IPO, if it prices anywhere near $1.75–$2 trillion, will instantly be the largest company in the world by market cap at listing. That kind of event creates a gravitational pull on every related sector. Institutional allocators who can’t get SpaceX allocation — or who are waiting for post-IPO price discovery — naturally look at RKLB and ASTS as high-beta expressions of the same thesis: space infrastructure is becoming a multi-trillion dollar asset class.

For RKLB, the connection is tangible. Rocket Lab is a real operator with real contracts, real launches, and an accelerating revenue trajectory. It’s not a fantasy proxy — it’s a company doing $600+ million in annual revenue, growing nearly 40% per year, with a $1.85 billion backlog. The SpaceX IPO narrative amplifies RKLB’s multiple, but the underlying business is legitimate.

For ASTS, the connection is more thematic. SpaceX’s Starlink is ASTS’s primary competitor in the direct-to-cell market — so ironically, a $2 trillion SpaceX valuation simultaneously validates AST SpaceMobile’s addressable market while also spotlighting its most formidable rival. Traders are betting on the rising-tide effect; the risk is that SpaceX’s own D2C ambitions via T-Mobile ultimately compress ASTS’s differentiation.

The options flow tells the story clearly. When unusual call volume arrives in both RKLB and ASTS simultaneously, it’s almost always correlated with a SpaceX headline cycle. This is event-driven, sentiment-driven trading — not a fundamental re-rating. Smart money knows the difference, and so should you.

What to Watch Next

The SpaceX IPO timeline has a few key catalysts that will move RKLB and ASTS whether you’re positioned in them or not:

• SpaceX S-1 public filing — When the confidential filing becomes public, expect a significant sector-wide repricing event. Analysts will get their first real look at the full financial picture, including xAI integration costs and Starlink margin structure.
• SpaceX investor event on June 11 — The company is reportedly planning a major event for 1,500 retail investors. This date is circled on every space sector trader’s calendar.
• ASTS BlueBird 7 launch — Each successful launch moves ASTS closer to continuous coverage. A launch delay is the single biggest near-term risk to ASTS’s stock narrative.
• RKLB Q1 2026 earnings — With guidance of $185M–$200M in quarterly revenue, any beat or miss here will be amplified by the broader sector backdrop.
• Neutron first launch (Q4 2026 target) — This is RKLB’s long-term re-rating catalyst. A successful Neutron launch fundamentally changes the company’s competitive position in medium-lift — and its valuation story.

The bottom line: the SpaceX IPO is the most consequential capital markets event in the space economy’s short public history. Traders who understand the proxy relationship between SpaceX’s narrative and the RKLB/ASTS options market have been extracting value from that correlation for weeks. The key is knowing which moves are driven by fundamentals and which ones are pure sentiment beta — and sizing your exposure accordingly.

This is not a moment to be reckless. But it’s also not a moment to be asleep.

For informational and educational purposes only. Not investment advice. Trading involves risk, including loss of principal.