Defense Tech

SpaceX

S

Active

Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SpaceX) designs, manufactures, and launches reusable rockets and spacecraft. The company operates Falcon 9, Falcon Heavy, Dragon, Starlink, and the government-focused Starshield line while continuing to develop Starship for high-cadence heavy-lift missions to the Moon, Mars, and beyond. Starlink crossed 12 million customers across 160+ countries on June 4, 2026 and the constellation now exceeds 10,400 working satellites in orbit. Following the February 2026 xAI merger, SpaceX also operates the Memphis Colossus 1 supercomputer as an AI hyperscaler — disclosing roughly $70B+ of contracted compute revenue across an Anthropic deal ($1.25B/month through May 2029) and a Google deal ($920M/month from October 2026 through June 2029). SpaceX completed the largest IPO in history on June 12, 2026, debuting on Nasdaq under ticker SPCX at its fixed $135-per-share price for a roughly $1.77 trillion valuation and about $75B in proceeds, with Elon Musk retaining ~82% voting control. The first Starship V3 completed a full-duration suborbital test flight (Flight 12) on May 22, 2026.

CASC

S

State-Owned (SASAC)

China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC) is the state-owned prime contractor for China's space program and the world's most prolific launch organization by missions flown. Wholly owned by the central government through SASAC, it develops and operates the Long March (Changzheng) rocket family — which flew its 650th cumulative mission on June 11, 2026 — along with the Shenzhou crewed spacecraft, Tianzhou cargo vehicles, the Tiangong space station, BeiDou navigation and GuoWang broadband satellites, the Chang'e lunar and Tianwen planetary probes, and China's strategic missiles. After a national-record 73 launches in 2025, CASC is targeting over 100 launches in 2026 amid an industry-wide national push toward ~140, debuted the partially reusable Long March 12B in June 2026, and saw its Tianwen-2 probe reach the quasi-moon asteroid Kamo'oalewa on June 7, 2026. On July 10, 2026 it made China the second nation ever to recover an orbital rocket first stage, when the new single-stick, partially reusable Long March 10B flew its maiden mission from Hainan and captured its booster in a sea-based net — a landmark step toward closing the reusability gap with SpaceX. It is preparing to fly Chang'e 7 to the lunar south pole no earlier than August 2026 while advancing the triple-core Long March 10 toward a crewed Moon landing before 2030.

Boeing

S

Public (NYSE: BA)

Boeing is one of the world's largest aerospace companies, spanning commercial airplanes, defense and space systems, and aftermarket services. After a deeply disrupted 2024, Boeing improved materially through 2025 and into 2026: it delivered 600 commercial aircraft in 2025, then opened 2026 with 143 commercial deliveries, $22.2B of Q1 revenue across all three segments, a record $695B total backlog, and a narrower core loss. The company completed the Spirit AeroSystems reacquisition in December 2025, and in May 2026 confirmed it had passed the FAA capstone review to lift 737 MAX output to 47 jets per month. Boeing remains one of the two central global commercial-jet manufacturers alongside Airbus, with its near-term trajectory hinging on the 737 ramp, 777X certification, and sustained progress on safety and quality reforms.

Airbus

S

Public (EPA: AIR)

Airbus is Europe's largest aerospace company, spanning commercial aircraft, helicopters, defence and space. In civil aviation it remains Boeing's only true peer at global scale and is pairing near-term production growth with longer-term work on lower-carbon aircraft technologies, future single-aisle designs and hydrogen propulsion. The company combines a mature global airliner business with broader aerospace capabilities across defence, space and rotorcraft. Q1 2026 was unusually weak — 114 deliveries (vs. 136 a year earlier), revenue down 7% to EUR 12.65B and adjusted EBIT halved to EUR 300M due to Pratt & Whitney engine shortages and Chinese delivery disruptions — but Airbus reaffirmed full-year 2026 guidance of ~870 deliveries, EUR 7.5B adjusted EBIT and EUR 4.5B free cash flow, with a record commercial backlog above 9,000 aircraft. Output recovered strongly through mid-year: official figures reported July 10 showed 351 deliveries in H1 2026 (up ~15% YoY), Airbus's best first half since 2019.

Rocket Lab

A

Public (NASDAQ: RKLB)

Rocket Lab is an end-to-end space company spanning launch, hypersonic test launch, spacecraft, payloads, satellite components, and now laser optical communications and space robotics. Electron remains the second most frequently launched U.S. rocket — Rocket Lab reached 92 missions with the July 1, 2026 'Grain Goddess' launch of iQPS' QPS-SAR-13 radar satellite, putting it on track for a record year and its 100th launch — and Rocket Lab is developing the medium-lift Neutron rocket for constellation, national-security, and exploration missions, with first launch still targeted for Q4 2026. The company posted record Q1 2026 revenue of $200.3M and backlog above $2.2B, completed the $155.3M Mynaric acquisition in April 2026 to add laser comms and a European footprint, and closed the Motiv Space Systems robotics acquisition in May 2026 to bring Mars-proven robotics in-house. On May 27, 2026 Rocket Lab cleared the System Requirements Review for the Space Development Agency's $816M Tracking Layer Tranche 3 missile-defense constellation, taking total SDA awards above $1.3B, and on June 22, 2026 the company joined the Nasdaq-100 Index. On June 29, 2026 Rocket Lab announced its largest-ever deal — an agreement to acquire satellite-communications operator Iridium Communications for about $8B in cash and stock ($54.00/share, roughly half cash and half Rocket Lab stock), adding an operational 66-satellite L-band constellation, ~2.55M subscribers, $871M of 2025 revenue, and globally harmonized spectrum, with the transaction expected to close in mid-2027.

Blue Origin

A

Active

Blue Origin is a privately held aerospace company founded by Jeff Bezos that develops reusable launch vehicles, rocket engines, lunar landers, in-space mobility systems, and satellite communications infrastructure. Its current programs span the New Shepard suborbital system, the New Glenn heavy-lift rocket, the BE-4 engine family that also powers ULA's Vulcan, the Blue Moon lunar lander family, the Blue Ring spacecraft platform, and the TeraWave network. The FAA closed its NG-3 mishap investigation and lifted the New Glenn grounding on May 22, 2026 — pinning the BlueBird 7 deployment failure on a cryogenic leak that froze a hydraulic line — but six days later, on May 28, a New Glenn exploded during a hotfire at Cape Canaveral's LC-36, destroying the transporter-erector at Blue Origin's only New Glenn pad. CEO Dave Limp said on June 2, 2026 that the rocket will fly again before year-end via an alternative vertical assembly path, with the propellant farm, water tower, a second flight-ready booster, and three upper stages intact; the Blue Moon MK1 'Endurance' cargo lunar lander has completed thermal vacuum testing at NASA Johnson and is being prepared for a launch later in 2026. Reporting in mid-May 2026 also revealed that Blue Origin is weighing its first-ever outside fundraising — Capstone Partners pegs 2026 spend at ~$4.8B against ~$28B of cumulative Bezos investment — as Limp targets a future cadence of about 100 launches a year.

Firefly Aerospace

A

Public (NASDAQ: FLY)

Firefly Aerospace is a public space and defense company that launches the Alpha small-lift rocket, is co-developing the Eclipse medium-lift vehicle with Northrop Grumman, flies Blue Ghost lunar landers, and builds Elytra orbital vehicles for maneuvering, communications, imaging, and other cislunar services. After becoming the first commercial company to complete a fully successful Moon landing, Firefly expanded further into defense software and data systems through its SciTec acquisition, which won a U.S. Space Force Space-Based Interceptor OTA agreement in May 2026 and a $5.5M Air Force CBC2 data-fusion option in June 2026 as part of the Golden Dome architecture. Q1 2026 revenue was $80.9M against $1.3B of backlog, Firefly doubled its Cedar Park campus to 144,000 sq ft to industrialize Blue Ghost and Elytra production, closed a 12M-share follow-on at $48/share on June 1, 2026, and — per June 23, 2026 Reuters reporting — is set to secure a ~$110M EXIM loan to fund further Texas production expansion as it prepares the first full Alpha Block II flight (Flight 8) for late summer 2026. In July 2026 Firefly also won a $13M NASA JPL subcontract — the first out of its new Gloworks innovation lab — to build the aeroshell for NASA's SkyFall Mars helicopter mission, extending it into planetary entry-descent-and-landing hardware.

Hermeus

A

Private

Hermeus is a defense aviation company focused on rapidly designing, building, and flight-testing high-Mach and hypersonic aircraft for national-security missions. Its Quarterhorse program is progressing through a series of unmanned demonstrators to unlock high-speed flight — Mk 2.1 reached Mach 1.21 on May 26, 2026 in its third flight from Spaceport America, becoming the first privately-developed unmanned supersonic jet — and the Chimera engine architecture underpins Darkhorse, the reusable hypersonic UAS Hermeus aims to field for defense customers. The company is now backed by a $1B post-money valuation, a $350M Series C closed in April 2026, and a Defense Innovation Unit contract scaled to a $219M ceiling in late May 2026 to demonstrate high-Mach flight and high-speed payload release at speeds up to Mach 3. In a May 2026 leadership transition effective June 1, 2026, president Zach Shore became CEO while co-founder AJ Piplica moved to executive chairman.

Archer Aviation

A

Public (NYSE: ACHR)

Archer Aviation is an electric aircraft company building Midnight, a piloted four-passenger eVTOL for short urban trips, while expanding into defense and powertrain sales. As of Q1 2026 Archer had passed 700 Midnight test flights, completed 70% of for-credit FAA flight-test points, and formally closed FAA Phase 3 in April 2026 — the first eVTOL company to do so — unlocking Type Inspection Authorization (TIA) and entering Phase 4 (formal compliance testing). In the UAE, the GCAA transitioned Midnight to a Restricted Type Certificate (RTC) program on May 7, 2026, targeting initial commercial certification as early as Q3 2026 — meaning Abu Dhabi is likely to see the first Midnight passenger flights before the U.S. The critical remaining FAA milestone is a publicly demonstrated piloted transition flight (VTOL→forward-flight mode), which is slated for H2 2026. U.S. operations are targeted for H2 2026 in Florida, New York, and Texas under the eIPP. Archer is also the named official air taxi provider of the 2028 LA Olympics. On July 20, 2026 at the Farnborough Airshow, Archer and Anduril unveiled a jointly-developed autonomous, series hybrid-electric tilt-rotor VTOL platform — a defense variant, Anduril's Group 5 'Thunder' attack rotorcraft, and Archer's commercial 'Halo' variant — sending Archer shares up about 20%. The company ended Q1 2026 with $951M cash and $1.8B total liquidity.

Beta Technologies

A

Public (NYSE: BETA)

Beta Technologies is an electric aerospace company building the ALIA aircraft family, electric propulsion systems, charging infrastructure, batteries, and flight-critical systems for cargo, passenger, medical, and defense markets. Founded in 2017 by Kyle Clark, the company went public on the NYSE in November 2025 and uses a stepwise commercialization path centered on certifying its conventional ALIA CTOL aircraft first while scaling motor, charger, and engineering services. By Q1 2026, Beta had grown its aircraft backlog to 991 units worth $3.9 billion — including a new 100-aircraft Surf Air Mobility partnership — and had accumulated 139,000+ nautical miles of flight testing across a 123-site charging network. Beta was selected for seven of the eight U.S. eIPP launch programs, and U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy flew an ALIA at Vermont HQ in May 2026. In July 2026, BETA flew the first operational missions of the U.S. DOT and FAA's eVTOL Integration Pilot Program (eIPP), using the ALIA CX300 to carry United Therapeutics' manufactured organs across a ~275-nautical-mile Virginia–Maryland corridor. Q1 2026 revenue was $10.1 million, with FY2026 guidance of $39–$43 million. H500A motor certification has slipped past H1 2026 due to an unresolved FAA 'continued rotation' test challenge, while CEO Kyle Clark now targets ALIA CX300 type certification in the second half of 2027 (with the A250 eVTOL following around 2028).

Eutelsat OneWeb

A

Public (EPA/LSE: ETL)

Eutelsat OneWeb is the LEO connectivity business within Eutelsat Group, operating a globally deployed broadband constellation in ~1,200 km orbit. The business combines a 650+ satellite OneWeb network with Eutelsat's GEO fleet to serve government, enterprise, maritime, aviation, and telecom customers. After closing its comprehensive ~EUR 5B equity and debt financing plan in March 2026, Eutelsat reported strong Q3 FY2025-26 results: nine-month LEO revenues reached EUR 172.7M (+61.6% YoY at constant currency), total nine-month revenue was EUR 884.7M, and the backlog held at EUR 3.4B. The first 100 next-generation OneWeb satellites ordered from Airbus are due for delivery in late 2026, with launches set to begin in 2027. Eutelsat is also one of three core satellite operators in the EU's EUR 10.6B IRIS2 sovereign constellation program.

AST SpaceMobile

A

Public (NASDAQ: ASTS)

AST SpaceMobile is building a direct-to-cell satellite network designed to connect standard smartphones to space-based 4G and 5G service without special hardware. After proving the concept with BlueWalker 3 and launching BlueBird 1-6, the company has 10 satellites in orbit after the successful June 17, 2026 SpaceX Falcon 9 launch of BlueBird 8, 9 and 10 — its first multi-satellite mission — alongside nearly 60 mobile-network-operator partners covering more than 3 billion subscribers and its first meaningful revenue from gateway deliveries, MNO milestones, and government work. In April 2026 the FCC granted AST commercial Supplemental Coverage from Space authority for a constellation of up to 248 satellites — its first U.S. operating license for direct-to-device service. BlueBird 7 was lost after an April 2026 New Glenn upper-stage issue, but AST has ramped manufacturing to as many as six fully equipped satellites per month across two Midland, Texas sites — keeping its target of roughly 45 BlueBirds in orbit during 2026 on track, with BlueBird 11-33 already in production and BlueBirds 11-13 set to launch in the first half of August 2026.

Voyager Technologies

A

Public

Voyager Technologies is a Denver-based defense-technology and space-infrastructure company best known for leading Starlab, the international joint venture building a commercial successor to the International Space Station. Founded in October 2019 by Dylan Taylor as Voyager Space Holdings, the company grew by rolling up twelve space and defense firms — including Altius Space Machines and Pioneer Astronautics (2020), The Launch Company, Valley Tech Systems and Nanoracks (2021), Space Micro (2022), ZIN Technologies (2023), and Estes Energetics, ExoTerra Resource and LEOcloud (2025). Through Nanoracks it owns the Bishop Airlock, the first and only permanent commercial module on the ISS, operating since December 2020. Starlab won a $160M NASA Commercial LEO Destinations award in December 2021 (later raised to $217.5M) and evolved into Starlab Space LLC, a US-led JV with Airbus, Mitsubishi Corporation and MDA Space, with Palantir supplying station software, Hilton designing crew quarters and Northrop Grumman providing Cygnus resupply. The single-launch, 8-meter-class station — with roughly half the ISS's pressurized volume — is contracted to fly on SpaceX's Starship, now targeted for 2029, and completed its Commercial Critical Design Review with NASA in February 2026, clearing the way for flight manufacturing. Voyager rebranded to Voyager Technologies in early 2025 to emphasize national security and went public on NYSE in June 2025, raising $382.8M and briefly touching a ~$3.8B valuation. Its Defense & National Security segment — solid and electric propulsion, energetics, signals intelligence and communications — is its fastest-growing business and put it on the Anduril-led team named among the Space Force's Golden Dome space-based-interceptor awardees in April 2026. In June 2026 it agreed to acquire lunar-lander developer Astrobotic for up to $300M. As of July 2026 Voyager trades near a $1.85B market cap, posted $166.4M of 2025 revenue (net loss $116.1M), guides to $230–255M for 2026 on a record $275.3M backlog, and awaits NASA's CLD Phase 2 competition, whose draft RFP was released July 7, 2026.

Relativity Space

B

Active

Relativity Space, led by CEO Eric Schmidt, is building Terran R, a reusable medium-to-heavy-lift rocket aimed at commercial, government, national-security, and telecommunications missions. After flying Terran 1 as a 3D-printing pathfinder in 2023, the company shifted fully to Terran R, pairing large-scale additive manufacturing with conventional structures for scale and cost. As of mid-July 2026 Relativity is in integrated vehicle build — the first flight-ready second stage has arrived at NASA's Stennis Space Center for testing, all Flight 1 Aeon R first-stage engines have passed acceptance testing, the first-stage qualification article has entered factory structural testing, and the LC-16 Horizontal Integration Facility at Cape Canaveral is structurally complete — against a backlog of roughly $3 billion across 12+ customers including OneWeb Gen-2 and SES. In June 2026 NASA selected Relativity to privately develop a Mars orbiter (carrying NASA's Aeolus instruments, targeting a 2028 launch), and on July 7, 2026 the U.S. Space Force added Relativity Federal to the NSSL Phase 3 Lane 1 national-security launch pool. Terran R's first launch is targeted for the second half of 2026, though some industry observers expect a slip into 2027.

ExPace

B

State-Owned (CASIC subsidiary)

ExPace (航天科工火箭技术), also known as CASIC Rocket Technology Company, is the commercial launch arm of state-owned missile and aerospace giant CASIC (China Aerospace Science and Industry Corporation). Founded in 2016 and based in Wuhan, it markets the solid-propellant Kuaizhou ('fast vessel') family — derived from missile technology — for rapid, low-cost small-satellite launches that can be readied in hours. The workhorse Kuaizhou-1A (and its upgraded 1A Pro) has flown about 30 times, and the larger Kuaizhou-11 returned to service in 2022 after its failed 2020 maiden flight; despite initial silence sparking failure speculation, Xinhua confirmed Kuaizhou-11's sixth flight successfully placed the CentiSpace-1 Group 05 navigation-augmentation satellites in orbit on June 18, 2026. Across all variants the family has logged roughly 40 launches. ExPace was an early mover in China's commercial sector — it famously auctioned a Kuaizhou-1A launch on Taobao for about $5.6M in 2020 — but its all-solid, expendable vehicles are increasingly challenged by reusable kerolox startups, and CASIC is pursuing larger Kuaizhou-21/-31 and reusable concepts to keep pace.

Vertical Aerospace

B

Public (NYSE: EVTL)

Vertical Aerospace is a Bristol, UK-based eVTOL developer building Valo, a piloted electric air taxi, and is the last major independent European player after the collapses of Lilium and Volocopter. Founded in 2016 by OVO Energy's Stephen Fitzpatrick, it listed on the NYSE in 2021 and survived a 2024 financial restructuring that made Mudrick Capital its controlling shareholder. In April 2026 its VX4 prototype completed the world's first piloted two-way eVTOL transition flight under civil DOA regulatory oversight — only the second company globally to achieve piloted transition — and its third full-scale prototype joined the test campaign in June 2026. The production aircraft, unveiled as Valo in December 2025, is backed by ~1,500 conditional pre-orders worth ~$6B from American Airlines, Avolon, Bristow, GOL, and Japan Airlines. On July 13, 2026 Vertical re-baselined its UK CAA/EASA type certification target from 2028 to 2029, and it is also developing a hybrid-electric Valo variant with up to 1,000 miles of range for defense and logistics markets.