AST SpaceMobile and Rocket Lab offer focused alternatives to SpaceX

Alphabet Inc. has launched a prototype Tensor Processing Unit satellite aboard SpaceX's Transporter-18 mission on October 1, 2026, in partnership with Planet, marking its first concrete step toward putting data centers in orbit. The test, part of Google's Project Suncatcher, will examine how its TPUs handle launch stress, radiation, and extreme temperatures in low Earth orbit, with ground testing already showing Trillium TPUs can withstand radiation levels higher than those expected across a five-year mission. Heat management remains a key challenge because conventional air cooling does not work in a vacuum, prompting Google to evaluate heat pipes and radiators, and a two-satellite test is planned for 2027. Google emphasized the current mission is intended to collect engineering data rather than demonstrate a commercial system. SpaceX could benefit from additional orbital AI experiments if hyperscalers continue choosing its launch services, even as its valuation of over $2 trillion at about 45 times forward sales rests on management's own targets, including Elon Musk's expectation of a $100 billion annual revenue run rate by December and a $1 trillion revenue target moved up to 2030.

Jeff Bezos said Blue Origin could eventually go public after the space company raised $10 billion in a funding round that reportedly valued it at $140 billion. Speaking Wednesday on Fox News Channel's "Special Report with Bret Baier," the Amazon founder said an initial public offering could happen "several years from now" and that "it probably makes sense for Blue Origin to be a public company at some point." Bezos said he has invested approximately $28 billion in Blue Origin since launching it in 2000, and that the latest round marks the company's first major capital raise from outside investors. Blue Origin holds multibillion-dollar contracts from NASA and the U.S. Space Force, including work tied to NASA's Artemis lunar program, and competes with Elon Musk's Space Exploration Technologies in the commercial launch market. Bezos also said Blue Origin expects to fly its New Glenn rocket again in December, after a May explosion during a static-fire test delayed launch plans.

Barclays initiated coverage of SpaceX with an Overweight rating and a $254 price target, part of a broad rollout of coverage across the aerospace and defense group in which the firm said the U.S. is in the "early innings of a modern day industrial revolution." In the same sweep, Barclays started RTX, Palantir, Kratos Defense, Karman, DPC Holdings, CAE, Beta Technologies and Rocket Lab at Overweight, Planet Labs, FireFly Aerospace, AeroVironment, York Space Systems and Lockheed Martin at Equal Weight, and Northrop Grumman at Underweight. Among other calls, Baird upgraded Humana to Outperform from Neutral with a price target of $596, up from $390, citing greater confidence in the company's $35-plus of 2028 adjusted earnings per share power, while Morgan Stanley double upgraded Cboe Global Markets to Overweight from Underweight with a price target of $358, up from $258. On the downgrade side, JPMorgan cut DuPont to Neutral from Overweight with a price target of $145, down from $172, and removed the stock from its Analyst Focus List, and also downgraded Illinois Tool Works to Neutral from Overweight with a price target of $270, down from $350, both on concerns around decelerating short cycle industrial demand into 2027. Citi downgraded Pershing Square Inc. to Sell from Neutral with an unchanged price target of $45 on valuation, and RBC Capital downgraded Knife River to Sector Perform from Outperform with a price target of $58, down from $103. Other initiations included Truist starting IBM at Hold with a $240 price target, Citi starting Fortune Brands at Buy with a $48 price target, Freedom Broker starting Ultra Clean at Buy with a $127 price target, and JPMorgan resuming Trane at Overweight with a $550 price target.

Japan's Defense Ministry announced on the 9th that it will conduct research and study aimed at speeding up the launch of rockets that would carry new satellites into space, in preparation for attacks on the satellites used by the Self-Defense Forces. It began soliciting proposals from private companies on the 9th for technologies related to rocket manufacturing and launch methods, and after selecting operators in February next year, it will examine transport capacity, cost, and production systems. In recent years, the United States, China, and Russia have been advancing the military use of space, and the importance of the space domain in the security field is growing; the Defense Ministry is also moving quickly on responses, including formulating a space domain defense guideline last year, but shortening the time needed to restore functions when a satellite is lost has become a challenge. As specific research themes, it envisions stockpiling components and manufacturing parts using 3D printers, and for launch methods it will also consider sea-based, airborne, and vehicle-mounted or mobile options.

President Donald Trump purchased between $1M and $5M in SpaceX bonds on August 18, two days before signing a policy aimed at expanding commercial space transportation in the U.S., according to a financial disclosure released Thursday. The bonds are senior unsecured notes carrying a 5.35% interest rate and maturing in July 2031. The August 20 National Space Transportation Policy aims to support more than 1,000 U.S. launches and reentries annually by 2030 by accelerating permitting and expanding commercial access to federal launch facilities. SpaceX, founded by Elon Musk, is a major NASA launch provider and U.S. government contractor, and the timing of the purchase does not establish whether Trump knew about the policy in advance. Trump's August disclosure covered 517 securities transactions, including a purchase of between $5M and $25M in Meta Platforms shares on August 21, and the trades came weeks before Trump hosted Musk, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, and other AI leaders at a White House summit on September 29. Richard Painter, a former White House ethics lawyer under President George W. Bush, told CNN there is a conflict of interest, while White House spokesperson Davis Ingle said Trump's stock and bond portfolio is independently managed by third-party financial institutions in discretionary accounts invested through computer-based model portfolios that automatically replicate recognized indexes such as the Schwab 1000.

NASA has cited Rocket Lab's Neutron rocket as a potential launch provider, alongside SpaceX's Falcon 9, for a bulk launch procurement tied to its planned US$30 billion moon base program. The agency is exploring multi-year launch contracts that could cover recurring cargo and infrastructure flights for the lunar initiative. If Neutron is selected, Rocket Lab would gain access to long-term, repeat business tied to the moon base plan, anchoring the rocket in a regular launch rhythm rather than one-off missions and helping spread development costs across a larger stream of contracted work. The key marker for investors is whether Neutron secures a place in NASA's multi-year contract awards once the bulk launch procurement is finalized, with a confirmed award and disclosed mission count or cadence showing how much of the program Rocket Lab actually captured versus other medium-lift providers.