Before SpaceX Goes Public: Why the Space Economy Could Escape Velocity

SpaceX is discussed as an industry players to illustrate the structural shift in the space economy. It is not held by the VanEck Space Innovators UCITS ETF (JEDI) at the time of writing.

The single biggest news in capital markets this spring did not come from a central bank or a hyperscaler earnings call. It came from a confidential S-1 filing in Delaware.

SpaceX has confidentially filed for what would be the largest IPO in history — targeting a $1.75 trillion valuation and up to $75 billion raised, with a Nasdaq listing expected in June 2026¹.

That single data point reframes the entire space investment conversation. For more than a decade, space has been priced as a frontier theme: speculative, capital-intensive, and largely state-led. The arrival of a definitive public-market benchmark of this size does something different. It forces every other space-exposed asset — listed and private — to be priced relative to a credible commercial standard. And it pulls a wall of fresh capital into adjacent names: launch, satellite communications, Earth observation, in-orbit services, and the supply chain feeding all of them.

In other words: the IPO is the headline. The investable story is what sits underneath it.

Key Risks. Investors should consider the following strategy-specific risks before investing in JEDI. Sector concentration risk: the fund is concentrated in companies linked to the space economy and may therefore be more volatile than a broadly diversified equity fund. Emerging-technology risk: many constituents operate in early-stage or rapidly evolving segments where business models, customer adoption and competitive dynamics are unproven. Liquidity risk: a number of holdings are smaller-capitalisation companies whose shares may be less liquid, with wider bid-ask spreads and greater price impact in stressed markets. Geopolitical and regulatory risk: the space sector is materially exposed to government procurement cycles, export controls, defense policy and international relations; changes in any of these can affect demand, contract awards and share prices. Currency risk: a significant share of underlying holdings is denominated in currencies other than the euro; movements in exchange rates may increase or decrease the value of an investment.

Please refer to the Prospectus – in English language – and the KID/KIID – in local language – before making any final investment decisions and for full information on risks. These documents can be obtained free of charge at www.vaneck.com.

Why This Moment Looks Different from Every Previous Space Cycle

Every major industry expansion has begun with falling costs. The internet scaled as computing and bandwidth became cheaper. Electric vehicles became viable as battery costs collapsed. Cloud software accelerated as storage and processing costs declined.

Space appears to be reaching the same inflection point — and SpaceX itself is the clearest illustration of why.

Advances in launch technology, particularly reusability, have fundamentally changed the economics of access to orbit. The cadence now matches the cost story. SpaceX completed its 50th Falcon 9 mission of 2026 on 26 April, launched the Falcon Heavy with the ViaSat-3 F3 satellite on 29 April, and crossed 1,000 Starlink satellites launched in 2026 alone with the 14 April mission².

That is not a future trajectory — that is current operating tempo. When launch becomes both cheap and routine, every layer of the stack downstream becomes investable in a way it was not five years ago. And when the company driving that cadence is preparing to list, the entire ecosystem it has enabled is being repriced in anticipation.

The Space Economy Has Four Distinct Revenue Layers

One of the most important shifts underway is that space is no longer defined by a single use case. The IPO conversation tends to focus narrowly on launch — but the commercial economy now extends across several distinct, investable layers, each with its own demand drivers and economics.

Satellite communications.

Space-based connectivity is becoming a critical part of modern communications infrastructure, especially where terrestrial networks fall short. The category was forcefully re-rated in April: Amazon's confirmed $11 billion acquisition of Globalstar on 14 April³ triggered a sector-wide repricing of satellite spectrum assets. Investors reassessed the strategic value of orbital infrastructure almost overnight, lifting Iridium (+40.84%), Viasat (+43.91%)⁴, and the broader satellite communications group. Viasat was further bolstered by the successful ViaSat-3 F3 launch on 27 April⁵— demonstrating that operational milestones, not just M&A, are driving the re-rating. Several of these names sit directly within JEDI's holdings. Amazon is not held by the VanEck Space Innovators UCITS ETF (JEDI) at the time of writing.

Earth observation and data.

Satellites are increasingly used to monitor infrastructure, agriculture, supply chains, weather patterns and geopolitical activity, creating a growing market for real-time, space-based intelligence. BlackSky (+41.02%)⁴ is the clearest April case study: the company secured two Assured defense contracts totalling roughly $55 million⁶ — validating its Gen-3 Earth observation subscription model with international military customers, and confirming that imagery-as-a-service is a viable, recurring revenue category. BlackSky is held by JEDI.

Launch and propulsion.

This is where the SpaceX IPO directly applies. As the dominant launch provider goes public, listed peers and component suppliers gain a comparable. For European UCITS investors who cannot access SpaceX equity directly, the more accessible question becomes: which listed names benefit from the read-across? JEDI's launch-adjacent exposure — including Rocket Lab, Avio and the broader propulsion supply chain — sits squarely in that beneficiary cohort.

Defense and national security.

Governments are investing more heavily in space as a strategic domain, supporting demand for communications, surveillance, missile warning and space situational awareness capabilities. The numbers behind this layer — covered in the next section — are the single most consequential policy signal of 2026.

AI and orbital intelligence.

Artificial intelligence is making satellite data more useful by helping convert imagery and signals into actionable insights more quickly and at greater scale. Adjacent categories such as in-orbit servicing are also entering the diplomatic mainstream: Astroscale (+49.38%)⁴ re-rated after French President Macron and Japanese Prime Minister Takaichi visited its Tokyo headquarters on 2 April⁷, putting space debris removal on the global diplomatic agenda. Intuitive Machines (+36.58%) -⁴ also surged on multiple contract exposures, reinforcing that lunar and orbital services are no longer speculative.

Taken together, these developments point to a broader reality: space is becoming an ecosystem with multiple layers of economic activity, not a narrow theme — and the SpaceX listing is the catalyst that forces the market to acknowledge it.

Defense Is Re-Rating the Entire Space Stack

The single most consequential policy signal of 2026 is the U.S. Space Force FY2027 budget request: $71.1 billion, announced on 21 April. That is a 124% year-over-year increase - a step-change, not an incremental adjustment⁸.

Beneath the headline number, the allocation tells the strategic story:

Chief of Space Operations General Saltzman framed space as “the invisible frontline in any conflict”⁸- the clearest official signal yet that space infrastructure is being treated as a generational defense priority rather than a discretionary line item.

For JEDI, this is a direct tailwind across satellite communications, Earth observation, launch and space situational awareness - precisely the categories the strategy is built around. When sovereign budgets re-rate at this magnitude, the effect compounds through procurement cycles, contract awards and ultimately through the multi-year revenue visibility of the underlying companies.

From Exploration to Infrastructure

For some investors, space may still sound speculative. The theme often brings to mind tourism, moonshots or futuristic concepts that seem disconnected from the real economy. The more compelling investment case is much more practical.

Space is increasingly part of the infrastructure that supports modern life. It plays a growing role in communications, navigation, logistics, defense, environmental monitoring and enterprise data collection. Many of these functions are becoming more essential over time.

That is why the reduction in launch costs is so important. Lower-cost access to orbit makes it easier to build and expand infrastructure. More infrastructure enables more services. More services support more durable business models. Over time, that can lead to a broader and deeper commercial opportunity set.

The April 2026 data points reinforce the case. We are no longer arguing from analogy or trajectory — we are observing an $11 billion acquisition, a $71 billion sovereign budget request, an landmark IPO filing and a 50-mission launch cadence in a single quarter. That is the signature of an industry transitioning from frontier to platform.

Why the JEDI UCITS ETF

The VanEck Space Innovators UCITS ETF (JEDI) is designed to provide European investors with targeted exposure to companies participating in the growing space economy, within a UCITS-compliant framework.

Rather than treating space as a side business within large industrial or defense conglomerates, JEDI is built around a more focused approach, emphasising companies with meaningful revenue exposure to space-related activities. That includes launch, satellite communications, Earth observation, and the technologies and services that support space infrastructure.

For investors who believe the space economy is moving into a more commercial phase — and who want to be positioned before the SpaceX listing crystallises a definitive benchmark for the category — JEDI offers a rules-based, pure-play framework. One designed to capture the kind of broad-based, sector-wide re-ratings observed in April 2026, rather than diluting the exposure across diversified industrial conglomerates whose space revenue is a rounding error.

What This Means for Investors

At VanEck, we have long believed that some of the most durable opportunities come from identifying structural change early and giving investors targeted exposure to the businesses helping drive it.

The case for space fits that view.

This is not simply a story about rockets. It is a story about falling costs unlocking new markets, infrastructure becoming more scalable, services becoming more commercial, defense budgets confirming strategic priority, and space becoming increasingly integrated into the global economy.

The final frontier may still sound distant. But as launch becomes more affordable, sovereign capital flows in at record scale, and the largest IPO in history prepares to put a definitive valuation on the category, space is beginning to look less like science fiction and more like the next major economic platform.

The benchmark is arriving in June. The infrastructure is already in orbit.

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JEDI — VanEck Space Innovators UCITS ETF · Explore Fund