Starship is SpaceX's biggest bet - a fully reusable mega-rocket built to haul cargo and crew to the Moon, Mars, and basically anywhere else Elon Musk wants to send them.
The May 22 test flight - the debut of the upgraded "V3" design - was largely successful. The upper stage reached space, deployed 22 Starlink simulators, and splashed down in the Indian Ocean as planned. The Super Heavy booster failed its return burn and broke apart over the Gulf of Mexico, but SpaceX wasn't trying to recover it.
NASA's plan to put astronauts back on the Moon leans on Starship working, and Musk's pitch for cheap, mass-scale launches rides on the same hardware.
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Rocket Lab and AST SpaceMobile are the two public space companies with real, growing revenue right now.
Rocket Lab runs a smaller launch system called Electron and is building a bigger one called Neutron. It puts satellites into orbit for government and commercial customers - the kind of jobs SpaceX would dominate if Starship were ready.
AST SpaceMobile is taking a different swing, building a satellite network that beams cell service straight to regular smartphones with no special equipment needed. It already has partnerships with nearly 60 mobile carriers covering more than 3 billion subscribers.
Both stocks jumped this week as SpaceX's S-1 filing - which could value the company near $1.75 trillion and raise up to $75 billion - put fresh eyes on every public space name, with the Starship test adding to the sector buzz.
Starship isn't there yet, but it's getting closer. SpaceX has blown up a lot of rockets on its way to building the most successful launch business on Earth.
And while SpaceX iterates and prepares to go public, Rocket Lab is closing real contracts (a record $2.2B backlog as of Q1 2026) and AST is signing real carriers.
When the leader makes a move, the field moves with it.
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