The grand ambitions for space exploration have been running high in Silicon Valley for decades. But now, Wall Street is getting excited about what the future opportunity of aerospace looks like too.
What’s happening:
- Publicly traded aerospace and space exploration companies have been making a flurry of new moves recently, spurring a new excitement in the traditional markets around the opportunity of space companies
Who is making moves:
- Rocket Lab (NASDAQ: RKLB) recently announced they are supplying NASA with twin satellites for an upcoming launch into orbit
- Intuitive Machines (NASDAQ: LUNR) previously made waves by becoming the first ever for profit company to successfully land on the Moon and have already begun official planning for their next mission
- Virgin Galactic (NYSE: SPCE) previously launched their new manufacturing facility located in Arizona to accelerate the production of their flagship Delta spaceships
- MDA Space (TSX: MDA) was previously awarded $1B CAD from the Canadian Space Agency to help advance the Canadarm3 mission
- Lockheed Martin (NYSE: LMT) also recently announced they plan to acquire spacecraft manufacturing company Terran Orbital (NYSE: LLAP), who Lockheed Martin was an early strategic investor in
Going deeper:
- Private aerospace companies such as Elon Musk’s SpaceX and Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin also continue to make significant progress with new missions, with SpaceX previously successfully launching the largest rocket in history into orbit
The intrigue:
- Venture backed startups focused on space exploration have also been seeing an uptick in funding, notably with the recent large financing round for AstroForge who is aiming to mine asteroids for platinum group metals
The fine print:
- While many aerospace companies have been ramping up partnerships and technology breakthroughs, there has been minimal profitability thus far and most publicly traded companies continue to expect to need to raise meaningful amounts of further capital before they can begin to start operating at a breakeven cost due to the extremely high costs of research and development
