Best Satellite and Space Stocks for Long-Term Growth

The New Space Boom

During the 1950s-1970s, the space race between the USA and the USSR led to tremendous progress in space technology, moving from the primitive rockets derived from Germany’s V2 to landing men on the Moon in mere decades.

This created a massive enthusiasm for the prospect of space colonization, with both scientists and science-fiction authors envisioning colonies on the Moon or Mars by the early 2000s.

This vision failed to materialize, due to the inherent limitations of the rocket technology that brought astronauts to the Moon. The rockets were expendable, expensive, and at the very limit of what materials and information technologies of the time could achieve.

Combined with the end of the Cold War, this made space technology largely stagnant over the next 50 years.

This was true until SpaceX, followed by many other private companies and Chinese competitors, re-dynamized the field with the redesign of rockets from the ground up and achieved, for the first time, reusability.

By reusing the rockets, the cost to reach orbit has decreased dramatically, while the total payload that can be achieved in one flight is also growing quickly, further reducing costs.

Source: ARK Invest

While SpaceX is still a private company, inaccessible to most investors, this success has created a renewed enthusiasm for all space-related stocks. (You can read here how to invest in SpaceX pre-IPO.)

Lower cost to reach orbit makes satellites a lot cheaper to launch and maintain, or makes much larger satellites (and space stations) with more capacity finally economically viable.

Together with space tourism becoming an actual economic activity, and a brewing new space race between the USA and China, this gives investors plenty of opportunity to get in early on what is likely to be a multi-decade trend of boom in space and satellite-related businesses.

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Top Satellite and Space Stocks

1. Lockheed Martin

Lockheed Martin is one of the world’s largest aerospace & defense companies.

So it is not only a space company, but also the one behind iconic aircraft like the Black Hawk helicopters or the F-16, as well as advanced equipment like the F-35, flying radar planes or logistical aircraft like the C-5 Galaxy & C-130J Super Hercules.

Source: Lockheed Martin

It is also the producer of some of the US military’s most important missile systems, like the JASSM, Javelin, ATACMS, and HIMARS, in extremely high demand following the depletion of stockpiles by the conflict in Ukraine.

It is also an important provider of anti-missile defense systems like the naval AEGIS and the THAAD (Terminal High Altitude Area Defense) against ballistic missiles.

Source: Lockheed Martin

Weapons are, however, not all that the company does. The expertise in military avionics and missiles converts well into expertise in rocketry and space vehicles.

Lockheed is the lead contractor for the design, development, testing, and production of the Orion spacecraft, which is the least controversial or at risk of budget cut part of the entire Artemis program.

It includes Callisto, a voice-controlled AI assistance system, in partnership with Amazon’s Alexa (AMZN ), which also incorporates a test for video-chat support from Earth in collaboration with Cisco (CSCO ).

Source: Lockheed Martin

Would the Artemis program be ultimately scaled up, thanks to cheaper and more frequent launches using Starship, this could boost the production of Orion as well.

Also related to Artemis, Lockheed has announced that it has completed critical tests of a lunar solar array prototype that can function in the Moon’s South Pole. It, however, lost to Leidos (LDOS ) the project for the Artemis rover program.

The company is active in other space programs, like the GOES-R weather satellites, the collection of asteroid samples by OSIRIS-REx, the Jupiter probe JUNO, and a wearable radiation-shielding vest, AstroRad.

Overall, from key military systems to equally important space vehicles and programs, Lockheed Martin is at the forefront of American innovation and seems to have kept its edge a lot sharper than many of its large defense contractor competitors like Boeing (BA ).

The company should benefit from later iterations of the Artemis program, as well as many other deep space and Mars-focused missions in the long term.

(You can read more about the company in our dedicated investment report “Lockheed Martin (LMT) Spotlight: A Leader In Defense and Aerospace”).

2. Rocket Lab

Rocket Lab is one of the most serious contenders to SpaceX in the reusable rocket market.

The company has initially focused on small rockets, with the Electron launch system (320 kg of payload), which is progressively being turned into a partially reusable rocket. So far, Electron has deployed 224 satellites in 70 launches.

Later on, Rocket Lab is looking at creating a medium-sized reusable rocket, the Neutron, comparable to Falcon 9 (8,000 kg to LEO in fully reusable mode, 1,500 kg to Mars or Venus).

Source: Rocket Lab

The Neutron will be powered by a methane-burning rocket engine (like Starship), which seems to be the trend for the next generation of rockets.

It will use the newly opened Launch Complex 3, as well as a custom-built landing pad at sea constructed by Bollinger Shipyards, the largest privately owned new construction and repair shipbuilder in the United States.

Source: Rocket Lab

The company is also remarkable for its fully vertically integrated satellite manufacturing process, allowing it to optimize costs and design speed.

This resulted in multiple contracts with NASA & the US government, including a $515M military satellite contract. And a civilian $143m contract for Globalstar.

Rocket Lab is also a major manufacturer of solar panels for satellites after its 2022 acquisitions of SolAero Technologies, with 1000+ satellites powered by these panels, and 4MW solar cells manufactured in total.

Source: Rocket Lab

For now, its launch system is reliant on outside suppliers, but a series of strategic acquisitions is changing that, replicating for launch systems the vertical integration strategy already achieved in satellite design and manufacturing.

The company is also looking at the possibility of a telecom LEO constellation to generate recurring revenues. It is also contributing to research for in-space manufacturing with Varda Space Industries and orbital debris inspection.

While SpaceX had Elon Musk’s business talent (and money) to develop its technology from scratch, Rocket Lab used a mix of R&D and acquisitions to vertically integrate the technology required.

It has proven very successful in satellite manufacturing, and they are now looking to replicate this strategy for reusable rockets. Considering the existing cash flow from satellite production & the Electron successes, Rocket Lab is a good candidate to catch up with SpaceX’s head start.

(You can read more about the company in our dedicated investment report on Rocket Lab.)

3. Intuitive Machines

Founded in 2013 in Houston, Texas, Intuitive is a very “Moon-focused” company, as indicated by its stock ticker, and has already been selected for 4 NASA lunar missions, and employs 400+ people.

Source: Intuitive Machines

Intuitive was the first commercial company to successfully land and transmit scientific data from the Moon. It also performed the 1st firing of a LOx/LCH4 (liquid oxygen – liquid methane) engine in space.

The company is working on many projects that will form the base of a lunar infrastructure for exploration and settlement.

The first one is the “data transmission service”, with the technology being tested, and ultimately looking to end with a lunar data transmission constellation of satellites around the Moon’s orbit.

Source: Intuitive Machines

The second part is the “Infrastructure as a Service”. It should include a Lunar Terrain Vehicle (LTV) capable of autonomous operations, the telecommunication service, and GPS localization services.

Source: Intuitive Machines

The last segment developed for lunar missions is the delivery of materials to the Moon’s surface. So far, the company has delivered scientific payloads with the Nova-C lander, a 4.3-meter-tall lander (14-feet) able to deliver 130kg of payload to the Moon.

The next step will be with the Nova-D lander, able to deliver 1,500-2,500 kg of material to the Moon. This payload capacity and size will be the one required for delivery of the LTV, as well as the 40kW Fission Surface Power nuclear reactor expected to power the Moon base.

Source: Intuitive Machines

The company has already landed many valuable contracts with NASA, for example, the Near Space Network contract, with a maximum potential value of $4.82B.

The LTV contract final decision by NASA between the 3 potential suppliers is expected for the end of 2025, and would be worth up to $4.6B as well.

Besides NASA, the company is trying to diversify its client base, having been selected in April 2025 for a grant of up to $10M by the Texas Space Commission. This will support the development of an Earth reentry vehicle and orbital fabrication lab designed to enable microgravity biomanufacturing.

This reentry vehicle will also provide a backup option and reduce risks for the company’s future lunar sample return missions.

Another project is the development of low-power nuclear stealth satellites for an Air Force research laboratory JETSON contract.

As the company reached a positive free cash flow point in Q1 2025, and with the lunar telecommunication contract, it is now becoming a lot safer for investors, moving away from a cash-burning startup to an established services provider to the growing space economy.

As the development of new instruments for the LTV indicates, NASA is not going to let go of the Artemis project, even if elements like the SLS rocket might be overhauled. So the future for annex equipment providers like Intuitive seems promising.

4. Planet Labs

The space and satellite industry is experiencing a revolution with companies like Rocket Lab or Intuitive Machines entering the market aggressively.

This does not mean that established players in this space are not still important and able to keep up.

One of them is Planet Labs, with a focus on Earth-observation satellites. The company owns a fleet of approximately 200 earth imaging satellites, the largest in history, imaging the whole Earth’s land mass daily.

These images are high-resolution and include hyperspectral data (visible + infrared and UV light), making them useful for geodesy, agriculture, insurance, government (including military), and finance.

The satellite images can be used for monitoring, disaster response (wildfire, tornadoes, etc.), defense & intelligence, mapping infrastructures, detecting methane emissions, etc.

Source: Planet Labs

The company offers transparent pricing, with different subscriptions depending on the regions of the world covered and the number of square kilometers of surface demanded.

90% of revenue is recurring and from annual or multi-year contracts.

Source: Planet Labs

It recorded $245M in revenues in the 2025 fiscal year, doubled from only $122M in 2022, with record revenues in Q1 2026 and an adjusted EBITDA turning positive for the first time in Q4 2025.

The largest source of revenues is the North American region (45%), and defense and intelligence represent more than half of revenues.

Source: Planet Labs

As a trusted provider of data, Planet Labs could benefit from a few trends, irrespective of where the space industry goes:

• It can license out or use itself the images to train AIs, both for better real-time monitoring and novel insights.
• It will benefit from the price war between launch providers like SpaceX and Rocket Labs, making the maintenance and replacement of its satellite fleet cheaper.
• It will benefit from the economies of scale in satellite manufacturing, making new, more capable models cheaper, as it demonstrated with the recent addition of hyperspectral data to its offerings.

5. Virgin Galactic

The idea of travelling to space without having to qualify as an astronaut after years of hard training and ultra-selective qualification is appealing to many people.

Experiencing weightlessness, seeing Earth from orbit, or even later traveling and staying for an extended period of time on the Moon or Mars has a built-in demand that just begs to be satisfied and will likely be a pillar of the future space-based economy.

Unfortunately, this is yet to fully happen, with only a handful of ultra-rich space tourists having pioneered this idea, for example, Katy Perry with Blue Origin in April 2025, or an all-amateur 4-person space crew with SpaceX in 2021.

Building a regular stream of space tourism opportunities is the goal of Virgin Galactic, initially created by billionaire and media personality Richard Branson.

The tickets are in the $250,000-450,000 range, with a long waiting list. The first customers seem to be ecstatic with their experience:

“This has been the best day of my life, the most sensational day of my life. And you can’t get any better than that. It exceeded my wildest dreams.”

Virgin Galactic has been working on improving its unit economics, with a new launch system, the “Delta”, able to carry 6 passengers instead of 4, and to perform 8 flights/month instead of just one.

Together, these 2 improved metrics should boost revenue per unit by 12x, with a payback time of less than 6 months for each Delta shuttle.

Source: Virgin Galactic

The Delta flight test was expected in mid-2025, before being rescheduled for the fall of 2026.

“The company ran into a problem with the production of the first carbon composite skins for the vehicle’s fuselage.

The material had different densities based on the compressive forces it was designed to handle, which caused problems when the composites were placed in an autoclave.”

Michael Colglazier – Chief executive of Virgin Galactic

This delay might put the company in a tight spot, with a rather low share price and the need to turn to positive cash flow as soon as possible.

At the same time, the previous customers’ satisfaction, a clear plan for a profitable design (Delta shuttles), and a long waiting list of potential clients show that the company might still be viable even without raising much more funds.

So a lot will rely on the success of developing, manufacturing, and operating the Delta shuttle.

(It should be noted that Virgin Galactic is different from Virgin Orbit. Virgin Orbit filed for bankruptcy in April 2023, and provided launch services for small satellites, with Rocket Lab acquiring the company’s Long Beach facility, manufacturing, and tooling assets.)

Other Options

Among alternative ways to get portfolio exposure to the space sector, one can invest in related ETFs, which you can find in our article “5 Best Aerospace ETFs to Invest In”.

Another way can be to invest in aerospace materials, as explained in our report about rhenium and titanium.