<p xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><i xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">Issued on behalf of ...

ASTS

The Space Economy Is Heading for $1.8 Trillion. The Bottleneck Nobody Talks About Is Getting There

Space sector backs multi-year growth; ASTS exposure rises amid infrastructure thesis

<section class="insight" data-version="1">
  <section data-block="information">
    <h3>Information</h3>
    <p>&lt;p xmlns=&quot;http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml&quot;&gt;&lt;i xmlns=&quot;http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml&quot;&gt;Issued on behalf of ...</p>
  </section>

  <section data-block="ai-summary-paragraph">
    <h3>AI Summary</h3>
    <p>The Equity Insider piece argues the space economy has become revenue-driven, with a backlog above $500B and rising government demand. It highlights Starfighters Space (FJET) and peers as beneficiaries of demand for launch capacity, while cautioning that ASTS remains pre-revenue and relies on milestone execution to unlock value over 12–24 months.</p>
  </section>

  <section data-block="ai-summary-bullets">
    <h3>Key Points</h3>
    <ul><li>Space sector becomes revenue-driven. Backlog &gt;$500B.</li><li>Public markets validate space infra demand; SpaceX Nasdaq debut broadens access.</li><li>ASTS cited among peer cohort; orbital timeline 18–24 months.</li><li>STARLAUNCH progress aided by $17.5M investment and Blue Origin hires.</li><li>Russell 3000 inclusion added June 29, 2026; sector backlog remains key risk.</li></ul>
  </section>

  <section data-block="companies-mentioned">
    <h3>Companies Mentioned</h3>
    <ul><li><strong>Starfighters Space, Inc. (FJET)</strong>: Subject of the piece; STARLAUNCH program and near-term milestones highlighted; potential stock reaction tied to milestone progress and funding.</li><li><strong>Rocket Lab (RKLB)</strong>: Seen as closest real-world demand read for launch; sizeable backlog and DoW overlap; sector context.</li><li><strong>Intuitive Machines (LUNR)</strong>: Demonstrates how government demand can translate to revenue; large backlog and CLPS-style exposure imply sensitivity to budget shifts.</li><li><strong>AST SpaceMobile (ASTS)</strong>: Highlighted as a demand-side constituent; pre-revenue with 45 satellites targeted by year-end; near-term execution risk noted.</li><li><strong>Planet Labs (PL)</strong>: Illustrates transition from asset sales to outcomes; recent guidance uplift and Russell 1000 inclusion signal broader sector appetite.</li></ul>
  </section>

  <section data-block="category">
    <h3>Industry News</h3>
    <p>Industry News framing of a sector-wide shift from speculative hype to revenue-backed growth; positions ASTS within a rising ecosystem where capital markets and government demand increasingly monetize satellite outcomes rather than assets.</p>
  </section>

  <section data-block="market-moving">
    <h3>Market-Moving</h3>
    <ul><li>STARLAUNCH milestones and investment progress.</li><li>Russell 3000 inclusion boosts liquidity and visibility.</li><li>ASTS Q1 revenue miss highlights near-term execution risk.</li><li>Public-market attention to space infra supports high-beta names.</li></ul>
  </section>

  <section data-block="key-facts">
    <h3>Key Facts</h3>
    <ul><li>Global space economy: $626B in 2025; ~$670B in 2026.</li><li>Backlog exceeds $500B across the sector.</li><li>STARLAUNCH: $17.5M strategic investment; Blue Origin hires.</li><li>ASTS FY2026 revenue guidance reaffirmed: $150M–$200M.</li><li>Starfighters joined Russell 3000 effective June 29, 2026.</li></ul>
  </section>

  <section data-block="trading-thesis">
    <h3>Trading Thesis</h3>
    <p>ASTS may re-rate with sector demand expands into 2027–2028, contingent on milestones and revenue ramp.</p>
  </section>
</section>


<article>
  <h2>The Space Economy Is Heading for $1.8 Trillion. The Bottleneck Nobody Talks About Is Getting There</h2>

  <p><em>Issued on behalf of Starfighters Space, Inc.</em></p>

  <p>The commercial space sector has crossed from promise into a real, revenue-generating industry with a backlog north of <strong>$500 billion</strong>. Starfighters Space, Inc. (NYSE:<a href="https://www.benzinga.com/quote/FJET" class="ticker">FJET</a>) is betting the next phase belongs less to bigger rockets than to cheaper, faster, more flexible ways of reaching altitude. Investors tracking the space economy may also consider <strong>ASTS</strong> as part of the broader investment landscape.</p>

  <p><span class="legendSpanClass">CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla.</span>, <span class="legendSpanClass">July 20, 2026</span> /CNW/ -- (<a href="https://equity-insider.com/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">Equity Insider</a> News Commentary) —</p>

  <p>For most of the last decade, the story of commercial space was told in rocket sizes. Bigger boosters, heavier payloads, taller vehicles on bigger pads.</p>

  <p>That story produced real results and one enormous winner. But it also obscured something the numbers now make impossible to ignore: the space economy has quietly become an actual industry, with actual revenue, actual backlog, and an actual bottleneck.</p>

  <p>And the bottleneck is not ambition. It is access. <strong>Starfighters Space, Inc.</strong> (NYSE:<a href="https://www.benzinga.com/quote/FJET" class="ticker">FJET</a>) has built its entire thesis around that gap.</p>

  <div id="DivAssetPlaceHolder1" aria-label="Equity Insider Logo">
    <p><img src="https://mmx.prnewswire.com/media/MS1718299/Equity-Insider-Logo.jpg?id=OA2773009" title="Equity Insider" alt="Equity Insider" /></p>
  </div>

  <section id="key-takeaways" aria-label="Key Takeaways">
    <h3>Key Takeaways</h3>
    <ul>
      <li><strong>The sector has crossed into industry status.</strong> Estimates put the global space economy around <strong>$626 billion</strong> in 2025, heading toward roughly <strong>$670 billion</strong> in 2026 and projected past <strong>$1 trillion</strong> by 2040, with the most aggressive forecasts reaching <strong>$1.8 trillion</strong> by 2035. Commercial space is growing at an estimated 12% to 15% annually, outpacing the broader economy.</li>
      <li><strong>Capital markets have validated it.</strong> The <strong>2025 IPOs of Voyager Technologies and Firefly Aerospace</strong>, Amazon's <strong>$11.6 billion</strong> acquisition of Globalstar, CACI's <strong>$2.6 billion</strong> purchase of ARKA, and SpaceX's Nasdaq debut on <strong>June 29, 2026</strong> collectively mark a sector that public and strategic investors now treat as investable infrastructure.</li>
      <li><strong>Government demand is the floor.</strong> The U.S. FY2027 space budget totals <strong>$59.7 billion</strong> and funds 31 launches, a step-change from prior years, while NASA routes roughly <strong>73.5%</strong> of its <strong>$24.44 billion</strong> FY2026 budget through contracts with outside businesses and institutions.</li>
      <li><strong>Access is the constraint.</strong> Space launch services are projected to grow from roughly <strong>$13.85 billion</strong> in 2026 to <strong>$24.42 billion</strong> by 2030 at a 15.2% compound rate. Demand for flight testing, payload validation and small-satellite delivery is rising faster than conventional launch capacity can absorb it.</li>
      <li><strong>A different route to altitude.</strong> Starfighters Space operates what it describes as the world's only commercial fleet of flight-ready Mach 2+ F-104 supersonic aircraft, providing commercial supersonic flight-test services that support hypersonic research and development programs while developing its STARLAUNCH air-launch program, and joined the Russell 3000 Index effective June 29, 2026.</li>
    </ul>
  </section>

  <section id="from-science-to-industry" aria-label="From Science Project to Industry">
    <h3>From Science Project to Industry</h3>

    <p>The most important thing that happened to commercial space is that it stopped being a story about the future and became a story about revenue. Estimates place the global space economy at roughly $626 billion in 2025, rising to about $670 billion in 2026 as operational Starship flights begin, and approaching $740 billion by 2028 as the Kuiper constellation deploys. By 2030, the market could approach $950 billion, supported by commercial space stations. The most aggressive long-range forecasts put the sector at $1.8 trillion by 2035, factoring in space tourism, in-space manufacturing and cislunar activity.</p>

    <p>Those are large numbers, and large numbers in emerging sectors deserve skepticism. The sector has declared inflection points before. What makes this moment different is the mix of evidence underneath the projections. The World Economic Forum, examining the same trend, pointed to the 2025 IPOs of Voyager Technologies and Firefly Aerospace, Amazon's $11.6 billion acquisition of Globalstar, and CACI's $2.6 billion purchase of ARKA as signals of something more durable than a single mega-listing. Then came the biggest marker of all: SpaceX debuted on the Nasdaq on June 29, 2026, giving public investors direct access to the sector's dominant player for the first time.</p>

    <p>The structural shift the WEF identified is worth stating plainly: value is moving from selling space assets to selling the outcomes they enable. That is the difference between a hardware business and an infrastructure business, and it is why the growth rates hold up. Commercial space is estimated to be compounding at 12% to 15% annually against roughly 9% for the space economy overall, itself outpacing global GDP.</p>

    <p><strong>The Floor Under the Sector</strong></p>

    <p>Speculative sectors get repriced violently when sentiment turns. What limits the downside in space is that a large share of the demand is not sentiment at all. It is appropriated. The U.S. FY2027 space budget totals <strong>$59.7 billion</strong> and funds 31 launches, a meaningful step up from prior years. NASA's FY2026 budget of <strong>$24.44 billion</strong> routes roughly <strong>73.5%</strong> of annual spending through agreements and contracts with nearly 5,000 businesses, universities and nonprofits, an explicit structural preference for commercial partners over government-owned systems.</p>

    <p>That preference shows up in program design. The Commercial Lunar Payload Services program began with a ceiling near <strong>$2.6 billion</strong> and has been raised to roughly <strong>$4.2 billion</strong> by 2026, with a Phase 2 roadmap targeting 77 lunar lander missions over the next decade at an estimated <strong>$6 billion</strong>, explicitly engineered to drive per-mission cost from about <strong>$129 million</strong> toward <strong>$91 million</strong>. Defense demand runs on a parallel track, with hypersonic flight testing, missile-defense programs and space-based interceptor work all funded through sustained procurement cycles.</p>

    <p>The practical consequence is that the commercial-space backlog recently crossed <strong>$500 billion</strong>. Backlog is not revenue, and conversion is where companies live or die. But a half-trillion-dollar order book anchored substantially in government appropriations is a fundamentally different risk profile than a sector running purely o...</p>
  </section>

  <section id="closing-context" aria-label="Additional context for investors">
    <p>As the space economy evolves toward infrastructure-like revenue streams, investors may monitor related equities such as <strong>ASTS</strong> to gauge how public markets price space outcomes, not just space assets. This transition supports a narrative where the space economy is increasingly driven by outcomes and services rather than solely hardware.</p>
  </section>
</article>

The Equity Insider piece argues the space economy has become revenue-driven, with a backlog above $500B and rising government demand. It highlights Starfighters Space (FJET) and peers as beneficiaries of demand for launch capacity, while cautioning that ASTS remains pre-revenue and relies on milestone execution to unlock value over 12–24 months.

The Space Economy Is Heading for $1.8 Trillion. The Bottleneck Nobody Talks About Is Getting There

AI Summary

Sentiment Rationale

Trading Thesis

Market-Moving

Key Facts

Companies Mentioned

Industry News

Related News