SpaceX hit $1.75 trillion — three small-caps were already inside it

The SpaceX public offering arrived at a valuation that made most comparisons inadequate. At roughly $1.75 trillion, Elon Musk‘s rocket company posed a straightforward arithmetic problem to ordinary investors: if commercial space is the infrastructure bet of the next two decades, how do you participate when the entry price exceeds France’s entire GDP?

Three US-listed companies have been quietly answering that question — not as a deliberate strategy, but as a byproduct of their own business plans. Intuitive Machines (NASDAQ: LUNR), AST SpaceMobile (NASDAQ: ASTS), and Viasat (NASDAQ: VSAT) each built operations around the commercial space economy and embedded themselves inside SpaceX’s launch network. Their revenue trajectories are partly shaped by SpaceX’s expansion. The market has not fully priced that in.

Intuitive Machines runs lunar landers that travel aboard SpaceX Falcon 9 rockets. Its Q1 2026 backlog reached $1.055 billion, nearly three times the prior year, and full-year guidance sits between $900 million and $1 billion. A $180 million NASA contract for seven payloads to the lunar South Pole adds government runway. The company’s growth depends on NASA’s commercial lunar program, which in turn depends on Falcon 9 capacity.

AST SpaceMobile is building a satellite constellation designed to deliver cellular broadband directly to standard mobile phones without specialized hardware. It recently allocated its next three BlueBird satellites to a SpaceX Falcon 9 launch, and it carries multiyear commercial agreements with AT&T and Vodafone. By year-end, it is targeting roughly 45 satellites in orbit.

Viasat operates in a different layer of the space economy. Its government and defense satellite communications business serves military and intelligence clients who require connectivity independent of any single commercial provider. The ViaSat-3 F3 satellite launched on a SpaceX Falcon Heavy — a partnership of convenience that nonetheless illustrates how thoroughly SpaceX capacity has penetrated classified-service-adjacent procurement.

None of these three companies functions as a SpaceX mirror. Intuitive Machines carries execution risk on a lunar program driven by government contract cycles, not commercial demand. AST SpaceMobile is pre-profitability and dependent on carrier agreements that could be renegotiated. Viasat’s consumer satellite broadband division competes directly against Starlink — the commercial arm of the same company it uses for launches. Indirect ecosystem exposure does not neutralize each company’s own execution risk. A stronger SpaceX does not guarantee stronger returns in LUNR, ASTS, or VSAT.

Viasat closes its fiscal year in June, making government revenues the next read. AST SpaceMobile’s Falcon 9 launch in mid-June extends the active constellation count. Intuitive Machines will update 2026 revenue guidance on its next earnings call. For investors who believe the commercial space economy is a structural shift and not a cycle, these three offer a lower entry point than SpaceX — along with risks that are theirs alone to carry.

Tags: SpaceX, AST SpaceMobile, commercial launch, Intuitive Machines, space economy, Viasat