SpaceX vs. Rocket Lab: Which Space Stock Has More Room to Run?

SpaceX, the aerospace and AI institution founded by Elon Musk, could spell nationalist soon successful the world's largest archetypal nationalist offering with a valuation of up to $1.75 trillion. That buzz is besides casting a spotlight connected SpaceX's smaller competitor, Rocket Lab (NASDAQ: RKLB). Should you pursuit SpaceX erstwhile it goes public, oregon volition Rocket Lab beryllium a amended play connected the aforesaid market?

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SpaceX filed for its IPO astatine the opening of April, but that filing is confidential. Based connected estimates from Payload, the Wall Street Journal, and The Information, its gross reached $2.3 cardinal successful 2021, $4.6 cardinal successful 2022, $8.7 cardinal successful 2023, $13.1 cardinal successful 2024, and $18.5 cardinal successful 2025. That's an awesome 68% four-year CAGR.

SpaceX generates astir of its gross from Starlink satellites and net services. The remainder of its gross chiefly comes from its Falcon rockets and related motorboat services. Its customers see telecom companies, NASA, the U.S. Department of Defense, planetary abstraction agencies, and commercialized outer companies. SpaceX besides precocious acquired xAI, Musk's smaller AI steadfast that created the Grok generative AI platform. Still, that acquisition reportedly made it unprofitable this twelvemonth -- compared to its $8 cardinal nett net successful 2025.

SpaceX has completed implicit 600 rocket launches and presently operates a constellation of much than 10,000 Starlink satellites. That makes it the world's largest shaper of rockets and low-earth orbit (LEO) satellites by a wide margin.

Rocket Lab competes against SpaceX successful the reusable orbital rocket market. It's already launched its flagship Electron rocket, which carries smaller payloads than SpaceX's Falcon rockets, 85 times. It plans to motorboat its 2nd rocket, the Neutron, to transportation heavier payloads by the extremity of this year. Over the adjacent fewer years, it plans to germinate into an "end-to-end" abstraction institution by increasing its higher-margin Space Systems conception (which produces spacecraft, satellites, and subsystems), launching much "ride-share" services to transportation third-party payloads, and expanding its Photon outer autobus platform, which bumps satellites into their close orbits.

Rocket Lab already serves large customers specified arsenic NASA, the U.S. Space Development Agency (SDA), the Swedish National Space Agency, Capella Space, Kinéis, and BlackSky Technology. From 2021 to 2025, its yearly gross surged from $62 cardinal to $602 million, but its nett losses widened.