Defying Gravity: Space Stocks Reach Escape Velocity

NASA's $700 million contract with Blue Origin and Berenberg's bullish sector coverage signal that Wall Street now views space as institutional-grade infrastructure.

AST SpaceMobile drew a Buy rating and $92 price target from Berenberg after shares jumped 12%, despite a wider-than-expected quarterly loss and compressed margins.

Rocket Lab is offsetting its lost NASA Mars bid by winning a $190 million defense contract, while insider buying at AST SpaceMobile signals confidence in future growth.

The commercial space sector is undergoing an institutional re-rating. For years, space companies were viewed through the lens of venture-backed speculation. That narrative is rapidly expiring. Recent capital flows indicate a structural shift toward treating low-Earth orbit as a utility-grade infrastructure layer.

With NASA awarding Blue Origin a firm-fixed-price $700 million contract for a Mars Telecommunications Network, the fundamental thesis is clear. Telecommunications and defense agencies are deploying billions to secure orbital bandwidth.

Wall Street is adjusting its valuation models accordingly, initiating coverage of pure-play space stocks. For investors, the transition from speculative space ventures to contracted networks offers a compelling setup. Understanding how capital is flowing provides a clear map for evaluating these early-stage infrastructure assets.

The recent $700 million NASA contract awarded to Blue Origin serves as a macro catalyst for the broader space economy. While Blue Origin remains a private entity, the scale of capital locking into deep-space and orbital communications validates the business models of its publicly traded infrastructure peers.

Institutional research desks are waking up to this reality. Berenberg recently initiated coverage on the space sector with a bullish outlook. The investment bank modeled the global space economy crossing the $500 billion mark in 2025 and accelerating toward around $1 trillion by 2030. This expansion is primarily driven by collapsing launch costs.

As the cost to put a payload into orbit plummets, the unit economics of deploying large-scale satellite constellations finally make fundamental sense. Capital markets recognize that space is no longer just about building rockets. It is about building the infrastructure that those rockets deploy. Much like the terrestrial fiber-optic boom of the late 1990s or the cellular tower build-out of the 2010s, orbital networks are becoming an increasingly vital utility. Telecommunications carriers prefer to outsource extraterrestrial bandwidth to specialized operators rather than spend billions building their own space hardware.

The most immediate beneficiary of this institutional awakening is AST SpaceMobile NASDAQ: ASTS . AST SpaceMobile recently experienced an intraday jump of roughly 12% following Berenberg's initiation of coverage. The coverage featured a Buy rating and a highly aggressive $92 price target.

AST SpaceMobile Today ASTS AST SpaceMobile $62.31 +0.18 (+0.29%) As of 09/4/2026 04:00 PM Eastern 52-Week Range $36.08 ▼ $133.86 Price Target $86.58 Add to Watchlist To understand the premium Wall Street is willing to assign to AST SpaceMobile, investors should look at the technological moat the company is building. AST SpaceMobile is currently the only operator demonstrating true cellular broadband delivery to unmodified standard smartphones. Instead of requiring consumers to purchase expensive satellite phones or bulky receivers, AST SpaceMobile leverages over 60 partnerships with major mobile network operators. These agreements grant the comp...