MW Space is the next frontier for the U.S. and China to fight over. These stocks are ready for launch.

By Charlie Garcia

Investors don't need to know when the shooting starts. They need to own the companies that get paid whether it starts or not.

The militarization of space is bringing stock investors astronomical gains.

?Space just crossed the line from science project to government-procurement plan, which is Washington-speak for "Congress finally found something they agree on and it comes with a price tag that would make a Ferrari dealer blush."

The Pentagon finally figured out that putting all your satellites in a few billion-dollar baskets is the military equivalent of wearing a "kick me" sign in a bad neighborhood. So they're switching to hundreds of cheaper satellites you can replace fast.

Meanwhile, China is practicing close-in orbital maneuvers. Russia is perfecting ways to blind satellites. I'm told these are defensive measures. Right. Like calling a $900 billion spending bill "infrastructure."

This is an investment theme, which means people are going to make money while the rest of us worry about whether GPS will work during the next international incident.

Terms you need to know so you don't sound stupid

Space Force officers now use the phrase "dogfighting in space" to describe what China's been practicing. "Top Gun" in orbit.

Responsive launch means ?America's Space Force can call on a Tuesday and ??launch on Wednesday. The U.S. proved this with Firefly Aerospace $(FLY)$ in an exercise called VICTUS NOX. Firefly got the final orbital parameters with basically no warning and launched 27 hours later.

Orbital combat is mostly non-kinetic these days, which is military-speak for "We're screwing with each other but nobody's shooting yet." We're talking jamming, cyberattacks, sensor "dazzling" - which sounds like something from a Broadway show, but is actually blinding satellites and "rendezvous-and-proximity operations" - RPO for short. That's when one satellite sidles up to another and either fixes it or kills it, depending on whose satellite it is and what day of the week it is.

Space Force officers now use the phrase "dogfighting in space" to describe what China's been practicing. "Top Gun" in orbit.

Cislunar space is the area between Earth and the Moon, and it's becoming contested territory. The Air Force Research Lab tracks spacecraft beyond geosynchronous orbit - basically a traffic camera for the Solar System. Because if history teaches us anything, it's that humans can turn any frontier into a border dispute.

War starts in space (how convenient)

Welcome to the 21st century, where your car's navigation system is a legitimate military target.

On the day in 2022 that Russia invaded Ukraine, a cyberattack took out ViaSat's $(VSAT)$ KA-SAT broadband service - a commercial satellite network - across parts of Europe.

Civil aviation has diverted flights repeatedly because of GPS interference around the Baltic. This is the new normal. Welcome to the 21st century, where your car's navigation system is a legitimate military target.

What China and Russia are doing (Spoiler: nothing good)

Space Force officials say five Chinese satellites flew in tight formation last year, closing within meters of each other in coordinated patterns. If you're feeling generous, call it choreography. If you remember Pearl Harbor, call it a dress rehearsal. The Pentagon calls it "synchronized proximity maneuvers," which is what happens when military bureaucrats try to describe dogfighting in space without using the word "dogfighting."

In 2022, China's Shijian-21 docked with a dead BeiDou satellite and dragged it to a graveyard orbit. Debris removal, they said. Which it was. It's also exactly what you'd do in wartime if you wanted to remove someone else's satellite and make it look like housekeeping. It's the Swiss Army knife problem: It's not a weapon until you use the sharp parts.

The international space treaty system is collapsing just as the hardware gets interesting. This has happened before: The Washington and London Naval Treaties limited battleship construction in the 1920s and 1930s, right up until Japan withdrew in 1934 and everyone started building again. World War II followed. It never ends well, but it's always profitable for somebody.

America's strategy: More is more

The Pentagon's answer? The Space Development Agency's Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture. Yes, that's its real name. It's a 154-satellite mesh network designed to track missiles and route data around whatever? gets killed first. Launches are running roughly monthly into 2026. This is the Costco model of national defense: buy in bulk, expect casualties, keep the replacements coming.

Twenty-one more satellites went up recently for what the Pentagon calls Tranche-1, the first batch of the 154-satellite network. Ten more Falcon 9 launches are already booked. Elon Musk is having a better decade in defense contracting than most people have in life.

Space Force has just awarded contracts to SpaceX, ULA, and Blue Origin for their big launches. They also brought in new companies for smaller missions, which is Washington's way of saying "We need more vendors because we're about to need a lot of launches."

Rocket Lab (RKLB) is the small-launcher outside of SpaceX that works. Rocket Lab is part of the VICTUS HAZE exercise - the sequel to VICTUS NOX, because the military is now doing franchise launches, paired with a startup for rapid-response missions that include on-orbit maneuvering. Rocket Lab also builds spacecraft, which matters because the Pentagon is buying satellites by the hundreds now. Build them and launch them? That's two revenue streams.

The moon is back (unfortunately)

Beijing brought back lunar samples in 2024 and is building a Moon base with Russia. Yes, Russia - the country whose satellite-navigation system barely works. This should go well.

The U.S. is commercializing lunar access. NASA's CLPS program pays private companies to land cargo on the Moon. These are simple delivery contracts, not government megaprojects.

Intuitive Machines (LUNR) landed the first American spacecraft on the Moon since Apollo in 2024. More contracts are coming. This is logistics infrastructure for military and commercial operations between the Earth and the Moon. Watch Intuitive Machine's landing-success rate and contract flow. Either this becomes a business or it doesn't.

Firefly Aerospace followed Intuitive Machines with Blue Ghost in March 2025 - a full 14-day surface mission before the lunar night shut everything down. Firefly is acquiring SciTec for missile-warning analytics, which means they're building a vertical stack: responsive launch, lunar missions, in-space services and defense analytics. This is either visionary integration or an earnings-call disaster.

Debris: The problem everyone ignores until it hits them

Kinetic antisatellite weapons - the kind that blow things up - make clouds that last decades.

If you want something to worry about late at night besides your mortgage, pick orbital debris. Kinetic antisatellite weapons - the kind that blow things up - make clouds that last decades. Everyone knows this. Everyone has an incentive to jam, hack or tow before they smash. That's why debris removal is moving from feel-good environmentalism to actual procurement.

Astroscale (JP:186A) $(ASRHF)$ is the pure play here. Debris removal and satellite life extension - Astroscale is the only company where this is the whole business model. Picks-and-shovels for the orbital-trash problem. This Japanese company will either get contracts from governments that suddenly care about space junk, or they won't. If they do, it's a business. If they don't, it's a tax loss. Watch for government contracts and technical demonstrations: actually capturing debris, extending a satellite's life and proving the robotics work in orbit. I'd say watch for revenue, but that might be optimistic.

One other cheerful note: The International Space Station deorbits in 2030. NASA plans to bridge to commercial stations, but government schedules are about as reliable as a drunk's promises.

If those slip, China's Tiangong could be the only crewed outpost in orbit for a while. That'll be awkward at the next diplomatic summit.

This is about money, not destiny

The Pentagon doesn't need exquisite systems that do everything perfectly. It needs good-enough systems it can afford to lose and replace.

Proliferated constellations and responsive launch means an economic model of lower costs per unit, higher volumes and faster replacement. It's the shift from battleships to PT boats, from handmade suits to off-the-rack ones.

The Pentagon doesn't need exquisite systems that do everything perfectly. It needs good-enough systems it can afford to lose and replace.

Investors don't need to know when the shooting starts. They need to own the companies that get paid whether it starts or not. That's the beauty of defense contracting: The threat is enough.

The bottom line

The question is not whether space defense spending is real, it is whether these companies can execute at scale.

The market has already been pricing in this growth. Rocket Lab's stock is up 540% year-to-date. Firefly's stock is down 51% since its IPO - one of the few not following the rally. Intuitive Machines' stock is up 30%. Astroscale's stock is up 18% since listing in Tokyo. The smart money got in two years ago, when these were speculative bets. Now these companies are defense contractors with actual revenue. That does not mean you are late. It means the thesis is proving out.

MW Space is the next frontier for the U.S. and China to fight over. These stocks are ready for launch.

By Charlie Garcia

Investors don't need to know when the shooting starts. They need to own the companies that get paid whether it starts or not.

The militarization of space is bringing stock investors astronomical gains.

?Space just crossed the line from science project to government-procurement plan, which is Washington-speak for "Congress finally found something they agree on and it comes with a price tag that would make a Ferrari dealer blush."

The Pentagon finally figured out that putting all your satellites in a few billion-dollar baskets is the military equivalent of wearing a "kick me" sign in a bad neighborhood. So they're switching to hundreds of cheaper satellites you can replace fast.

Meanwhile, China is practicing close-in orbital maneuvers. Russia is perfecting ways to blind satellites. I'm told these are defensive measures. Right. Like calling a $900 billion spending bill "infrastructure."

This is an investment theme, which means people are going to make money while the rest of us worry about whether GPS will work during the next international incident.

Terms you need to know so you don't sound stupid

Space Force officers now use the phrase "dogfighting in space" to describe what China's been practicing. "Top Gun" in orbit.

Responsive launch means ?America's Space Force can call on a Tuesday and ??launch on Wednesday. The U.S. proved this with Firefly Aerospace (FLY) in an exercise called VICTUS NOX. Firefly got the final orbital parameters with basically no warning and launched 27 hours later.

Orbital combat is mostly non-kinetic these days, which is military-speak for "We're screwing with each other but nobody's shooting yet." We're talking jamming, cyberattacks, sensor "dazzling" - which sounds like something from a Broadway show, but is actually blinding satellites and "rendezvous-and-proximity operations" - RPO for short. That's when one satellite sidles up to another and either fixes it or kills it, depending on whose satellite it is and what day of the week it is.

Space Force officers now use the phrase "dogfighting in space" to describe what China's been practicing. "Top Gun" in orbit.

Cislunar space is the area between Earth and the Moon, and it's becoming contested territory. The Air Force Research Lab tracks spacecraft beyond geosynchronous orbit - basically a traffic camera for the Solar System. Because if history teaches us anything, it's that humans can turn any frontier into a border dispute.

War starts in space (how convenient)

Welcome to the 21st century, where your car's navigation system is a legitimate military target.

On the day in 2022 that Russia invaded Ukraine, a cyberattack took out ViaSat's (VSAT) KA-SAT broadband service - a commercial satellite network - across parts of Europe.

Civil aviation has diverted flights repeatedly because of GPS interference around the Baltic. This is the new normal. Welcome to the 21st century, where your car's navigation system is a legitimate military target.

What China and Russia are doing (Spoiler: nothing good)

Space Force officials say five Chinese satellites flew in tight formation last year, closing within meters of each other in coordinated patterns. If you're feeling generous, call it choreography. If you remember Pearl Harbor, call it a dress rehearsal. The Pentagon calls it "synchronized proximity maneuvers," which is what happens when military bureaucrats try to describe dogfighting in space without using the word "dogfighting."

In 2022, China's Shijian-21 docked with a dead BeiDou satellite and dragged it to a graveyard orbit. Debris removal, they said. Which it was. It's also exactly what you'd do in wartime if you wanted to remove someone else's satellite and make it look like housekeeping. It's the Swiss Army knife problem: It's not a weapon until you use the sharp parts.

The international space treaty system is collapsing just as the hardware gets interesting. This has happened before: The Washington and London Naval Treaties limited battleship construction in the 1920s and 1930s, right up until Japan withdrew in 1934 and everyone started building again. World War II followed. It never ends well, but it's always profitable for somebody.

America's strategy: More is more

The Pentagon's answer? The Space Development Agency's Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture. Yes, that's its real name. It's a 154-satellite mesh network designed to track missiles and route data around whatever? gets killed first. Launches are running roughly monthly into 2026. This is the Costco model of national defense: buy in bulk, expect casualties, keep the replacements coming.

Twenty-one more satellites went up recently for what the Pentagon calls Tranche-1, the first batch of the 154-satellite network. Ten more Falcon 9 launches are already booked. Elon Musk is having a better decade in defense contracting than most people have in life.

Space Force has just awarded contracts to SpaceX, ULA, and Blue Origin for their big launches. They also brought in new companies for smaller missions, which is Washington's way of saying "We need more vendors because we're about to need a lot of launches."

Rocket Lab (RKLB) is the small-launcher outside of SpaceX that works. Rocket Lab is part of the VICTUS HAZE exercise - the sequel to VICTUS NOX, because the military is now doing franchise launches, paired with a startup for rapid-response missions that include on-orbit maneuvering. Rocket Lab also builds spacecraft, which matters because the Pentagon is buying satellites by the hundreds now. Build them and launch them? That's two revenue streams.

The moon is back (unfortunately)

Beijing brought back lunar samples in 2024 and is building a Moon base with Russia. Yes, Russia - the country whose satellite-navigation system barely works. This should go well.

The U.S. is commercializing lunar access. NASA's CLPS program pays private companies to land cargo on the Moon. These are simple delivery contracts, not government megaprojects.

Intuitive Machines (LUNR) landed the first American spacecraft on the Moon since Apollo in 2024. More contracts are coming. This is logistics infrastructure for military and commercial operations between the Earth and the Moon. Watch Intuitive Machine's landing-success rate and contract flow. Either this becomes a business or it doesn't.

Firefly Aerospace followed Intuitive Machines with Blue Ghost in March 2025 - a full 14-day surface mission before the lunar night shut everything down. Firefly is acquiring SciTec for missile-warning analytics, which means they're building a vertical stack: responsive launch, lunar missions, in-space services and defense analytics. This is either visionary integration or an earnings-call disaster.

Debris: The problem everyone ignores until it hits them

Kinetic antisatellite weapons - the kind that blow things up - make clouds that last decades.

If you want something to worry about late at night besides your mortgage, pick orbital debris. Kinetic antisatellite weapons - the kind that blow things up - make clouds that last decades. Everyone knows this. Everyone has an incentive to jam, hack or tow before they smash. That's why debris removal is moving from feel-good environmentalism to actual procurement.

Astroscale (JP:186A) (ASRHF) is the pure play here. Debris removal and satellite life extension - Astroscale is the only company where this is the whole business model. Picks-and-shovels for the orbital-trash problem. This Japanese company will either get contracts from governments that suddenly care about space junk, or they won't. If they do, it's a business. If they don't, it's a tax loss. Watch for government contracts and technical demonstrations: actually capturing debris, extending a satellite's life and proving the robotics work in orbit. I'd say watch for revenue, but that might be optimistic.

One other cheerful note: The International Space Station deorbits in 2030. NASA plans to bridge to commercial stations, but government schedules are about as reliable as a drunk's promises.

If those slip, China's Tiangong could be the only crewed outpost in orbit for a while. That'll be awkward at the next diplomatic summit.

This is about money, not destiny

The Pentagon doesn't need exquisite systems that do everything perfectly. It needs good-enough systems it can afford to lose and replace.

Proliferated constellations and responsive launch means an economic model of lower costs per unit, higher volumes and faster replacement. It's the shift from battleships to PT boats, from handmade suits to off-the-rack ones.

The Pentagon doesn't need exquisite systems that do everything perfectly. It needs good-enough systems it can afford to lose and replace.

Investors don't need to know when the shooting starts. They need to own the companies that get paid whether it starts or not. That's the beauty of defense contracting: The threat is enough.

The bottom line

The question is not whether space defense spending is real, it is whether these companies can execute at scale.

The market has already been pricing in this growth. Rocket Lab's stock is up 540% year-to-date. Firefly's stock is down 51% since its IPO - one of the few not following the rally. Intuitive Machines' stock is up 30%. Astroscale's stock is up 18% since listing in Tokyo. The smart money got in two years ago, when these were speculative bets. Now these companies are defense contractors with actual revenue. That does not mean you are late. It means the thesis is proving out.

(MORE TO FOLLOW) Dow Jones Newswires

October 30, 2025 08:27 ET (12:27 GMT)

MW Space is the next frontier for the U.S. and -2-

Are these stocks fully valued? Rocket Lab trades at 52 times trailing revenue, with a $1 billion backlog. About 58% of that should convert to revenue over the next 12 months. Space Force contracts currently provide roughly 6% revenue visibility, with more upside ahead as U.S. military demand accelerates. The question is not whether space defense spending is real, it is whether these companies can execute at scale.

Policy will shift, while budgets will get cut and then restored. Someone will write an op-ed about peaceful uses of space, everyone will nod seriously, and then Congress will appropriate another $10 billion.

But the direction is set: more satellites; more launches and more servicing; and faster replacement cycles. Rocket Lab is in the loop. Firefly is executing. Intuitive Machines is building lunar logistics. Astroscale is cleaning up the mess - or trying to. They're all public. They're all investible. The cosmos beckons. The U.S. defense budget is $900 billion and counting.

Don't overthink it. Nobody else is.

Charlie Garcia is founder and a managing partner of R360, a peer-to-peer organization for individuals and families with a net worth of $100 million or more.

Agree? Disagree? Share your comments with Charlie Garcia at charlie@R360Global.com. Your letter may be published anonymously in the weekly "Dear Charlie" reader mailbag. By emailing your comments to Charlie Garcia, you agree to have them published on MarketWatch anonymously or with your first name if you give permission.

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-Charlie Garcia

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(END) Dow Jones Newswires

October 30, 2025 08:27 ET (12:27 GMT)

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