Rocket Lab reports third-quarter results on 9 November with the vehicle that justified its valuation no longer part of next year. The company has pushed the first flight of Neutron, its eight-tonne medium-lift rocket, into 2027 because of problems with the carbon-fiber parts used in its fuel tanks. What has to carry the price in the meantime is hardware: Space Systems billed $189.5m of a record $234.1m in June-quarter revenue, against $44.6m at Launch Services.

Record order books across listed space have been read as contracted revenue awaiting delivery, and Rocket Lab's is the largest among these names, reaching $2.36bn in June, up 137% year on year and weighted 58.5% to Space Systems. The past month has tested that reading. Buyers of these shares are paying for gross profit already banked rather than for signed backlog: on forward gross profit, five listed space names span roughly 10 times at York Space Systems to 89 times at Rocket Lab.

The leverage is real; the catalyst moved

Rocket Lab, the only listed company that both reaches orbit and builds the spacecraft and components that fly there, is converting. June-quarter gross profit rose 82.3%, faster than revenue, and gross margin reached 36.1% against 32.1% a year earlier. Annual gross margin has climbed from 9.0% in 2022 to 34.4% in 2025. The credentials behind that are specific: a prime contract worth $816m for 18 missile-warning satellites under the Space Development Agency's third tranche, plus solar cells, reaction wheels and star trackers sold into other primes' missions.

It still lost $57.5m at the operating line in the quarter and consumes cash, with a trailing free cash flow yield of -1.17%. Consensus does not have net income turning positive until 2028. Launch, the activity the equity story is named after, recognized about $7.4m per flight in the June quarter, a figure derived from segment revenue and the six Electrons flown; fifteen Electron missions flew in 2026 through 26 September. At 88.9 times forward gross profit the shares cost five times Planet Labs' 17.6 times.

Neutron was the asset meant to close that distance.

Planet turned cash-positive as its multiple fell by two-thirds

Planet Labs, which sells daily global imagery from a constellation of more than 150 satellites to governments, agriculture, finance and insurance customers, moved the opposite way. Revenue growth accelerated for four consecutive quarters to 58.1% in the July quarter, on gross margin of 56.6%, and the operating margin narrowed to -11.6% from -24.5%. The company posted adjusted EBITDA of $13.9m and guided fiscal 2027 revenue to $430m-$441m. Trailing sales now cost 11.3x, against 39.4x in early May.

The limit on that case is the order book. Backlog was $814.9m, up only 11% year on year, far behind revenue; one-time satellite handovers, led by the first Pelican delivered to the Swedish Armed Forces, were 12% of July-quarter revenue against 1% a year earlier, and existing customers expanded spend by 9%. The recurring imagery meter is growing more slowly than the headline.

Firefly's largest order is payable partly in a customer's shares

Firefly Aerospace, which sells the Alpha small launcher, the Blue Ghost lunar lander and defense software, rose 36.8% on 6 November on about five times its prior ten-session average volume after announcing a licensing and supply agreement with the satellite-to-phone operator AST SpaceMobile. It pays $800m upfront, half cash and half the buyer's Class A stock, $250m for 36 engines and $250m of engineering services over three years. The buyer's shares are down 50.5% over twelve months, so roughly $400m of that upfront moves with a counterparty's price, and the rocket the engines are for, Blacklift, is not targeted to fly until late 2028.

Chief executive Jason Kim called it a "bold transformation deal," saying "the engine is the hardest, highest-stakes decision they make." Firefly's own June quarter scaled revenue to $117.7m while gross margin compressed to 20.3% from 25.7%, and its trailing free cash flow yield of -9.39% is the worst of this group. It reports on 10 November, with analysts near $103m after a national-security customer pulled a hardware order into the prior quarter.

Karman Holdings, which builds payload fairings and solid-propulsion units for munitions and missile-defense programs, gained 42.1% the same session on a funded quarter: revenue of $202m, up 66%, with full-year guidance raised to $755m-$760m.

Redwire converted; York's buyer changed how it buys

Redwire, which builds spacecraft platforms, sensors and solar arrays for US and European government customers, printed third-quarter revenue of $109.0m, up 5.4%, at a record 32.3% gross margin with gross profit up 109.5%, and backlog of $619.7m, up 75%. "Gross margin improvement has been a key focus area this year... Space segment on an apples-to-apples basis was at 4% last year and 18% for this quarter, whereas our defense tech business was 45% last year and 50% this year," chief financial officer Chris Edmunds told the 5 November call. The shares fell 17.6% that day and rose 16.5% the next.

York Space Systems, which delivers satellite buses to national-security buyers, is the cheapest here at 2.1x trailing sales and 0.46x book, the only one below book, and the only one where consensus expects no growth: 2026 revenue of $393.3m, up 2.5%, after it cut guidance by $180m at the midpoint when its main buyer shifted to indefinite-delivery contracts awarded slowly. Its shares have trended down without a break since 3 June.

Where the markdown matches the business

Rocket Lab's quarter does not explain its 25.6% fall over thirty days, but its calendar does: a premium written against a first Neutron flight loses its justification when that flight moves a year, leaving a hardware business earning 36% gross margins priced at nearly nine times what Redwire's gross profit costs. Planet's markdown has no equivalent cause in its own numbers, only the slower backlog beneath the accelerating revenue. Firefly's gain came from an announcement with a 2028 flight date and a stock component attached.

Direction came from outside. The Nasdaq Composite fell 5.52% on 4 November, its worst session since April 2025, as investors priced a slower artificial-intelligence buildout after the midterms. Magnitude did not: appropriated primes Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman rose 11.4% and 8.4% over the same thirty days while these pure-plays fell 20% to 47%, placing the markdown in speculative space and not in defense demand. On 6 November every listed space name rose while the S&P 500 tracker fell 2.4%, and Momentus, Satellogic, Virgin Galactic and Sidus Space climbed with no company news of their own, so the likelier reading of that session is a squeeze ranked by volatility.

Backlog is the easiest number in this sector to grow and the slowest to prove. Rocket Lab has guided the September quarter to gross margin below the level it printed in June, the shape of a hardware business absorbing new programs. The rocket was supposed to pay for the parts shop; for another year, the parts shop pays for the rocket.