Space stocks had their day Monday, June 29: Rocket Lab (RKLB), AST SpaceMobile (ASTS) and Iridium (IRDM) soar

Monday belonged to the space names. After months of being treated like a leftover corner of the market, the publicly traded space stocks all caught a strong bid at the same time, and a few of them put up the kind of single-day move you usually only see around earnings.

The short version: this was a deal day. The longer version is that three separate things landed on top of each other, and it helps to know which one actually did the heavy lifting, because the answer changes how you read the next few weeks.

The spark: Rocket Lab is buying Iridium for about $8 billion

Before the open, Rocket Lab (RKLB) and Iridium Communications (IRDM) said they had signed a definitive agreement for Rocket Lab to acquire Iridium. The price is $54.00 per Iridium share, paid as $27.00 in cash plus a portion of Rocket Lab stock, with a collar that protects both sides if Rocket Lab's share price swings before the deal closes. That works out to an enterprise value of roughly $8.0 billion. Both boards approved it unanimously, and the companies expect it to close in mid-2027, pending Iridium shareholder and regulatory sign-off.

Here is why the market cared. Iridium is not a hope-and-a-prayer space story. It runs a real, working network of 66 satellites in low Earth orbit, it owns globally licensed L-band radio spectrum, and it has more than 2.55 million paying subscribers across government, defense, aviation, maritime and commercial customers. Rocket Lab already builds rockets and satellites. Buying Iridium means it would design, build, launch and then operate its own constellation, and collect the recurring subscription revenue at the end. That is the vertically integrated model investors have wanted to see from a space company that is not named SpaceX.

Iridium (IRDM) closed at $54.60, up 25.4% on the day and right around the deal price, which is exactly what you expect a takeover target to do. Rocket Lab (RKLB) finished at $97.97, up 15.9%. The market usually punishes the acquirer in a big deal. The fact that Rocket Lab went up this much says investors liked the logic, not just the headline. You can track both companies' filings on their pages at /filings/RKLB and /filings/IRDM as the paperwork comes in.

The fuel: a fresh Wall Street upgrade

On the same morning, KeyBanc upgraded Rocket Lab to Overweight, which is its version of a buy rating, with a $135 price target. The analyst called the recent space selloff overdone and framed Rocket Lab as the clear number two player in launch behind SpaceX. An upgrade like that, landing the same day as an $8 billion deal, is gasoline on a fire. It gives momentum traders a reason to chase, and it puts a specific number on the upside.

SpaceX is now public and joining the Nasdaq-100

SpaceX is now public. It listed on June 12 under the ticker SPCX and has been one of the most actively traded stocks since. On June 26, Nasdaq confirmed that SpaceX qualifies for the Nasdaq-100 under a fast-tracked rule it changed in May, which lets a large new listing join within 15 days of its IPO instead of waiting months.

Here is the timeline that matters: the index funds and ETFs that track the Nasdaq-100 have to buy SpaceX to match the benchmark, and that buying starts after the close on July 6, with SpaceX officially in the index before trading opens on July 7. We broke down the mechanics and the under-one-percent weighting in our piece on the SpaceX Nasdaq-100 inclusion.

How the rest of the group traded

When one name in a theme gets a takeover bid, traders go shopping for who is next, and the read-through spread across the whole satellite and launch complex. Closing moves versus Friday:

• Viasat (VSAT), up 23.8% to $76.67. The other public satellite communications operator, and the most obvious "who gets bought next" candidate after the Iridium news.
• AST SpaceMobile (ASTS), up 21.3% to $86.70. The direct-to-phone satellite story, which we covered alongside the Starlink and mobile carrier angle.
• Planet Labs (PL), up 15.5% to $31.26. Earth-imaging data, a different niche but the same rising-tide trade.
• BlackSky (BKSY), up 14.5% to $28.34. Another satellite imaging name.
• KULR Technology (KULR), up 10.7% to $3.98, and Redwire (RDW), up 7.1% to $11.71, the smaller space-hardware names that tend to move late.
• Intuitive Machines (LUNR), up 6.0% to $20.97, the moon-lander company, which lagged the group because it is a lunar story rather than a satellite-network one.

The Procure Space ETF (UFO), which holds a basket of these companies, rose 6.4%, a clean snapshot of a broad sector day rather than a single stock running. If you want the plain-English map of who does what in this group, start with our explainer on space stocks and the SpaceX IPO.

The buying did not stop at the 4 p.m. close. In after-hours trading the group held and even extended its gains, with Rocket Lab changing hands above $101 and AST SpaceMobile near $87, a sign the move was more than a closing-bell spike.

What to keep in mind before chasing

None of this is a recommendation to buy, and a 15 to 25 percent single-day move cuts both ways. A few honest caveats:

The Rocket Lab and Iridium deal is not done. It needs Iridium shareholder and regulatory approval and is not expected to close until mid-2027, which is a long time for something to go wrong. Iridium is trading near the $54 deal price for a reason, so most of that pop is already in. The smaller names that ran 10 to 25 percent on read-through, rather than on their own news, are the ones that can give it all back fastest if the mood turns. Days like this are exciting, but the move was driven by news and momentum, and both can fade.