SpaceX Is Down 3.5% Thursday. Why Are Space Stocks Like AST SpaceMobile Under Pressure?

LUNR's Q2 revenue miss weighed on space stocks, while SPCX digests a 35% weekly run powered by 247% AI revenue growth.

Planet Labs and Redwire held modestly green on earnings strength, signaling today's weakness is sector rotation, not a broad space selloff.

RKLB bucked the group with Q2 revenue jumping 62% year over year and backlog swelling to a record $2.36 billion.

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Space stocks are trading in split fashion Thursday morning, and the tape tells a more nuanced story than the headline suggests. SpaceX ( NASDAQ:SPCX ) is down 3.5% intraday, AST SpaceMobile ( NASDAQ:ASTS ) is off 3%, and Intuitive Machines ( NASDAQ:LUNR ) is down roughly 1.6% after opening deeply negative on earnings. Rocket Lab ( NASDAQ:RKLB ) is bucking the group, up 1.1%.

The catalyst driving today's chop is Intuitive Machines' Q2 report, released Thursday morning. Revenue hit a company-record $206.2 million but missed the FactSet consensus of $216.3 million, paired with a wider-than-expected loss. What kept the selloff shallow: $920 million in new awards booked during the quarter and a backlog that ended at $1.8 billion. The stock opened sharply lower and buyers stepped in almost immediately. That intraday round trip matters. It signals investors are treating weakness in this group as an entry point.

Intuitive Machines' lunar delivery work overlaps commercially with SpaceX's launch services and NASA program exposure, so a soft earnings report here tends to bleed into sentiment across the space complex.

SpaceX's pullback looks like a breather after a strong run. Shares are up 35% over the past week, powered by Wednesday's rally on the release of Grok 4.6. The xAI model reportedly scored 61 on an intelligence index, matching OpenAI's GPT-5.6 Sol.