SpaceX made a dramatic stock market debut, jumping roughly 19% in its first session as a public company, while several smaller space sector rivals moved sharply in the opposite direction.
Rocket Lab (NASDAQ: RKLB), AST SpaceMobile (NASDAQ: ASTS), and Intuitive Machines (NASDAQ: LUNR) all fell meaningfully on the same day investors were celebrating SpaceX’s historic market entry.
One leading theory is that investors sold existing space holdings to free up capital for SpaceX shares, creating a rotation-driven sell-off across the sector.
AST SpaceMobile took the hardest hit, sliding more than 15%, which fits its profile as the most speculative of the three publicly traded names.
The company is building a satellite constellation designed to beam broadband directly to ordinary smartphones, an ambitious vision that remains largely unproven in commercial terms.
AST does hold more than $3 billion in cash to fund its buildout, and it is targeting approximately 45 of its BlueBird satellites in orbit by the end of 2026.
Adding a layer of irony, AST has three more satellites scheduled to launch in mid-June aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, underscoring how several SpaceX rivals still depend on the company to reach orbit.
Intuitive Machines dropped roughly 13%, though it stands apart from AST with first-quarter sales of approximately $187 million, nearly triple its year-ago figure following its acquisition of satellite builder Lanteris.
The lunar specialist also carries a backlog of approximately $1.1 billion, including NASA and national security contracts, giving it considerably more revenue visibility than most sector peers.
Rocket Lab, by contrast, represents the most established business of the three, with revenue rising about 63.5% year over year in the first quarter of 2026 and an active small-rocket launch service alongside a growing space systems segment.
The company is also developing a larger rocket called Neutron, aimed at heavier payload missions, which could significantly expand its addressable market over time.
Despite its operational progress, Rocket Lab’s valuation remains difficult to defend, with the stock trading at around 80 times sales even after absorbing the sell-off.
None of the three companies have reached profitability, and all were carrying rich valuations before SpaceX’s debut introduced fresh competitive sentiment into the market.
If the sell-off was primarily driven by capital rotation toward SpaceX, a single-day decline in otherwise unrelated businesses could reasonably be dismissed as noise rather than a fundamental signal.
However, high-growth stocks with stretched valuations tend to fall hardest when sentiment shifts, regardless of what triggers the move, and these names were arguably overdue for a correction before this week.
Of the three, Rocket Lab presents the most defensible business model, with Intuitive Machines offering a more speculative bet on lunar and government work, and AST SpaceMobile the furthest from proving its commercial model at scale.
The sell-off warrants a closer look at each business, but none of the three stocks fell far enough to make a compelling entry point for new investors at current prices.
