What are the top space startups by revenue today?

The ranking of top startups in the space economy by revenue

Below is a table ranking all the companies in this market by their current revenue scale. You can find our methodology at the end of this page.

If you want a deeper understanding of the market and its current dynamics, get our report covering the Space Economy.

What are the top space startups by revenue today?

SpaceX is by far the largest NewSpace company by revenue today, while Rocket Lab is the clearest number two among companies that still resemble the usual idea of a space startup.

The gap after that is much more interesting. Intuitive Machines has jumped into the top group after buying Lanteris Space Systems. Planet is growing quickly again. ICEYE has passed €250 million in annual revenue. Firefly Aerospace is now producing more than $100 million in a quarter. HawkEye 360 and BlackSky have both built nine-figure intelligence businesses.

We use “space startup” in the broad NewSpace sense here. That includes companies such as SpaceX, Rocket Lab and Planet even though they are older, much larger and, in several cases, publicly listed. We exclude legacy satellite operators such as SES, Eutelsat, Viasat and Iridium because otherwise the ranking becomes a list of the broader commercial space industry rather than the startup-led NewSpace market.

The numbers also need to be read carefully. $1 billion of backlog is not $1 billion of revenue, a quarterly record is not automatically an annual run-rate, and a third-party estimate does not carry the same weight as a filed financial statement.

Approx. rank	Company	Strongest current revenue evidence	What we think it says
1	SpaceX	$9.13B Space + Connectivity revenue in H1 2026	A completely different scale from every other NewSpace company
2	Rocket Lab	$602M FY2025; $234M in Q2 2026	Clear number two on clean reported revenue
3	Intuitive Machines	$393M H1 2026	Acquisition has turned it into a much larger space prime
4	Planet	$308M FY2026; $116M latest quarter	Large EO business and currently accelerating
5	ICEYE	>€250M FY2025	Strongest large private NewSpace revenue disclosure we found
6	Firefly Aerospace	$160M FY2025; $199M H1 2026	Current business is already much larger than FY2025 suggests
7	HawkEye 360	~$118M FY2025; $49.8M Q2 2026	Quickly moving beyond its previous revenue base
8	BlackSky	$107M FY2025; $33.3M Q2 2026	Established $100M+ intelligence business
9	Loft Orbital	~$140M FY2025 estimate	Potentially larger than its position suggests, but evidence is weaker
10	AST SpaceMobile	$70.9M FY2025; $31.5M Q2 2026	Revenue remains far below its contracted opportunity
11	Axiom Space	Around $70M in third-party 2025 estimates	Meaningful scale, weaker public revenue evidence
12	Open Cosmos	~£45.9M FY2025 in filed group accounts	One of Europe's more substantial younger space companies
13	D-Orbit	~$52M FY2025 estimate	Real commercial scale, but estimate-dependent
14	OroraTech	~$45M FY2025 estimate	Fast-growing thermal Earth-observation company
15	Astroscale	¥5.94B FY2026	Orbital servicing is already producing meaningful revenue

Is SpaceX still really a space startup?

SpaceX has clearly outgrown the normal meaning of “startup,” but leaving it out would hide the company that now defines the commercial scale of NewSpace.

SpaceX was founded in 2002, has become a huge industrial company and now reports publicly. We therefore treat it as the benchmark rather than pretending that it belongs in exactly the same bucket as a 10-year-old venture-backed satellite company.

There is another complication: SpaceX now has activities outside the narrow space market. Its first-half 2026 reporting separated Space, Connectivity and AI. We count the $1.58 billion generated by Space and the $7.55 billion generated by Connectivity, while excluding the $3.38 billion attributed to AI.

That gives us roughly $9.13 billion of space and satellite-connectivity revenue in six months. Even with that narrower perimeter, no other NewSpace company comes close.

How far ahead is SpaceX from every other space startup?

SpaceX is currently more than an order of magnitude larger than the usual NewSpace challengers on revenue.

Its Connectivity business alone generated $4.29 billion in Q2 2026. Space added another $962 million during the quarter. Rocket Lab, which is the strongest number two in our ranking, generated a record $234 million in the same three-month period.

The comparison becomes even more extreme when we look at the whole first half. SpaceX produced about $9.13 billion from Space and Connectivity, versus roughly $434 million for Rocket Lab across Q1 and Q2.

That puts the gap at more than twenty times on those six-month figures. This isn't a close race for first place; it is two different commercial tiers.

Is Rocket Lab the clear number two space startup by revenue?

Rocket Lab is currently the clearest number two because no other independent NewSpace company combines comparable reported revenue, current growth and clean financial disclosure.

Rocket Lab generated $602 million in 2025, up 38% year over year. Then it reported $200 million in Q1 2026 and another record of $234 million in Q2.

That puts first-half revenue at roughly $434 million before we even reach the second half of the year. Its backlog also reached $2.36 billion.

The important part is the mix. Rocket Lab is no longer just an Electron launch company. Space systems, satellite components, spacecraft and defense work now provide a much wider revenue base. That makes the business less dependent on how many rockets happen to fly in a particular quarter.

How fast is Rocket Lab growing right now?

Rocket Lab is growing much faster today than its $602 million FY2025 revenue figure suggests.

Q2 revenue reached $234 million, 62% higher than a year earlier and $34 million above Q1. The company produced about $434 million during the first half alone, equal to roughly 72% of its entire previous-year revenue.

We would not double that six-month number and present the result as annual revenue. Space-company revenue can move sharply between quarters as milestones are completed. Still, the direction is obvious: the current Rocket Lab is already substantially larger than the business represented by its 2025 ranking figure.

Its $2.36 billion backlog reinforces that view. Backlog does not count as revenue, but record sales accompanied by record contracted work is stronger evidence than a one-off quarterly spike.

Is ICEYE now one of the biggest private space startups?

ICEYE is now one of the largest private space companies for which we have a strong recent revenue disclosure.

The company reported more than €250 million of revenue in 2025, more than €100 million of EBITDA and €1.5 billion of contracted backlog. ICEYE also said revenue doubled during the year.

That is a significant step up from the usual private-space profile. Many companies can point to large contracts, funding rounds or future constellation plans. ICEYE has already converted a substantial part of its demand into recognized revenue.

The company is also important because it shows how large Earth observation can become. A radar-satellite business that gets much less mainstream attention than rocket companies now generates more annual revenue than many well-known launch and lunar startups.

ICEYE's figures are company-disclosed and unaudited, so we give more weight to the broad conclusion — comfortably above €250 million — than to tiny differences between it and a nearby public company.

Is Firefly Aerospace catching Rocket Lab?

Firefly Aerospace is closing the gap quickly, although Rocket Lab still generates much more revenue.

Firefly reported $159.9 million of revenue for 2025. In the first half of 2026, it had already generated $198.6 million. Q2 alone reached a record $117.7 million.

That quarter was up 659% year over year, but the percentage starts from a very small comparable quarter. Looking at dollars gives a better sense of scale. Rocket Lab made $234 million in Q2, almost twice Firefly's revenue.

Firefly is nevertheless one of the companies whose old annual figure has become misleading unusually fast. Describing it simply as a $160 million space company now understates how much business is running through the company.

Has Intuitive Machines suddenly become one of the biggest space startups?

Intuitive Machines has become a much larger space company almost overnight, mainly because its acquisitions changed what the business actually is.

Intuitive Machines generated $392.9 million in the first half of 2026, compared with $112.8 million in the same period a year earlier. Q2 revenue alone reached $206.2 million.

A large share of that increase came from Lanteris Space Systems, formerly Maxar Space Systems. Product revenue accounted for more than $300 million of Intuitive Machines' first-half revenue after the deal.

So the jump should not be described as explosive organic growth in lunar services. Intuitive Machines has effectively rebuilt itself into a broader space prime spanning spacecraft manufacturing, lunar infrastructure, communications and mission services.

The result is still genuine company revenue. It simply tells us more about the new corporate perimeter than about the growth rate of the old Intuitive Machines.

Is Planet still one of the largest space startups?

Planet remains one of the largest space-native companies, and lately its revenue growth has accelerated again.

Planet generated about $308 million in its fiscal year ending in early 2026. Its latest reported quarter then reached a record $116.1 million, up 58% year over year.

The quarterly comparison is useful. Planet made more revenue in three months than BlackSky generated across all of 2025. One Planet quarter is also close to the annual revenue scale HawkEye 360 had reached before its recent acceleration.

Planet can get overlooked because it has been around since 2010 and has already been public for years. In pure revenue terms, though, it remains firmly in the first group below SpaceX and Rocket Lab.

Which space startups already make more than $100 million in revenue?

The number of NewSpace companies with defensible evidence of at least $100 million in annual or near-current revenue is now around ten, depending on how strictly we treat private estimates and partial-year figures.

That group has widened quickly. SpaceX and Rocket Lab are obvious. Planet and ICEYE are comfortably over the threshold. Firefly passed $100 million before its recent acceleration. BlackSky crossed it in 2025. HawkEye 360 is now producing roughly $50 million per quarter. Intuitive Machines has moved far above $100 million after Lanteris.

Loft Orbital is harder to place. Third-party estimates put the company around $140 million, while the company has separately disclosed more than $500 million in lifetime bookings. We keep Loft in the group but with much less confidence than a filed $107 million from BlackSky.

The broader point is that $100 million revenue is no longer an exceptional one-company milestone in NewSpace. There is now a real middle class of space companies above that level.

Company	Useful current revenue evidence	Evidence strength
SpaceX	$9.13B Space + Connectivity, H1 2026	Filed
Rocket Lab	$602M FY2025	Filed
Intuitive Machines	$393M H1 2026	Filed
Planet	$308M FY2026	Filed
ICEYE	>€250M FY2025	Company disclosed
Firefly Aerospace	$160M FY2025; $199M H1 2026	Filed
HawkEye 360	~$118M FY2025; ~$100M H1 2026	Filed / IPO financials
BlackSky	$107M FY2025	Filed
Loft Orbital	~$140M FY2025	Third-party estimate
Redwire Space segment	~$108M H1 2026	Filed segment revenue

Which private space startups make the most revenue?

ICEYE has the strongest high-confidence revenue case among large private pure-space startups today.

Its more than €250 million of 2025 revenue gives us a direct company disclosure at a scale few private NewSpace companies can match. Loft Orbital may be around $140 million, although that figure relies on external estimates. Axiom Space has been associated with roughly $70 million in 2025 revenue, again with weaker evidence than a filing.

Open Cosmos gives us a different kind of confidence. The UK company filed group accounts covering 2025 with Companies House. Those accounts support a revenue level around £45.9 million, making Open Cosmos easier to size than many better-funded private competitors.

D-Orbit and OroraTech also appear to be in the tens-of-millions range, but we treat their exact positions carefully because the available numbers rely more heavily on third-party estimates.

A private company estimated at $55 million is not automatically more convincing than another company with £46 million in statutory accounts. Once evidence quality differs that much, pretending the rank is precise would be misleading.

Are Earth-observation startups actually bigger than launch startups?

Earth-observation companies are now generating more revenue than many launch startups, even if rockets still get far more attention.

Planet is above $300 million on its latest full-year figure. ICEYE passed €250 million. HawkEye 360 is approaching a $50 million quarterly level. BlackSky generated $107 million in 2025 and has accelerated in 2026.

Firefly was at $160 million for 2025, although its latest quarterly numbers are rising fast. Rocket Lab remains much larger than the EO companies, but Rocket Lab itself is no longer a clean launch comparison because a large share of its business comes from space systems.

The revenue mix says plenty about NewSpace today. Selling imagery, radar data, RF intelligence and analytics can build a nine-figure business without operating dozens of launches per year.

Is HawkEye 360 becoming a $200 million revenue company?

HawkEye 360 is now operating close to the quarterly level of a $200 million business, but we would not call it a $200 million annual-revenue company yet.

HawkEye 360 reported $49.8 million of revenue in Q2 2026, up 87% from $26.6 million a year earlier. It also generated a record $21 million internationally.

The previous quarter was similarly strong at $49.8 million. That means HawkEye produced nearly $100 million in the first half, which is already close to the roughly $118 million scale associated with its entire 2025 year.

Government and defense revenue can move around significantly between quarters, so mechanically multiplying the latest quarter by four would give the number more certainty than it deserves.

What we can say confidently is that HawkEye 360 has moved well beyond the revenue scale implied by its old annual figure. Its $292 million backlog also gives the current growth more support.

Is BlackSky still growing or stuck around $100 million?

BlackSky has started growing faster again after spending 2025 close to the $100 million level.

The company generated $106.6 million in 2025, compared with $102.1 million a year earlier. That full-year growth was modest.

Q2 2026 looked much better. Revenue reached $33.3 million, up 50% year over year, while space-based intelligence and AI services produced a record $25 million.

The recent acceleration comes as customers adopt BlackSky's Gen-3 imagery and intelligence services. So no, BlackSky does not look stuck at $100 million.

Planet remains considerably larger, but BlackSky's current trajectory is stronger than its 2025 annual comparison makes it look.

Is AST SpaceMobile already one of the biggest space startups by revenue?

AST SpaceMobile is becoming a substantial revenue-generating company, but its current revenue is still much smaller than the huge commercial opportunity around it.

AST produced $70.9 million of revenue in 2025 and another $31.5 million in Q2 2026. The company also says it remains on track for $150 million to $200 million of full-year 2026 revenue.

At the same time, contracted revenue backlog has reached around $1.3 billion. More than 60 mobile-network partners collectively cover over three billion subscribers.

Those numbers make AST look enormous from a future-demand perspective. For a revenue ranking, however, the $31.5 million quarter and recognized 2025 revenue are the cleaner measurements.

AST could move several places up this ranking once commercial direct-to-device service scales. For now, the company's contracts and addressable market are much larger than the revenue appearing in its accounts.

Why can space startup backlog be so much bigger than revenue?

Space companies often sign large multi-year contracts long before the work appears as revenue, which is why backlog can dwarf current sales.

Intuitive Machines ended Q2 with roughly $1.8 billion of backlog while producing $392.9 million in first-half revenue. Rocket Lab had $2.36 billion of backlog after reporting $234 million in Q2. ICEYE disclosed €1.5 billion of backlog alongside more than €250 million of annual revenue. AST SpaceMobile sits around $1.3 billion of contracted revenue backlog while still building toward broader commercial service.

These figures are useful because they tell us how much work has already been contracted. They become misleading when people compare them directly with another company's sales.

Recognition can take years. Programs can depend on milestones. Government awards may include options. Manufacturing contracts can stretch across long delivery schedules.

So when we rank today's companies, revenue comes first. Backlog helps us judge what might happen next.

Is Blue Origin bigger than Rocket Lab?

Blue Origin may be larger than Rocket Lab in people, infrastructure and capital deployed, but the public evidence does not let us rank it above Rocket Lab on revenue with the same confidence.

Blue Origin runs New Glenn, develops engines, works on major NASA programs and operates a huge industrial footprint. Those facts show scale, but they do not give us a clean recent company-wide revenue number comparable with Rocket Lab's filings.

Rocket Lab, by contrast, reported $602 million of 2025 revenue and has since produced consecutive record quarters.

This is where a revenue ranking can look strange beside public perception. Blue Origin feels like one of the biggest companies in space because its assets and spending are huge. Revenue evidence answers a narrower question.

Until Blue Origin publishes a sufficiently comparable figure, leaving the uncertainty visible is better than manufacturing a precise position.

Where do Axiom Space and Sierra Space fit in the revenue ranking?

Axiom Space and Sierra Space are clearly important commercial-space companies, but neither currently gives us revenue evidence strong enough for a precise high-confidence rank.

Axiom has been associated with roughly $70 million of 2025 revenue in external financial datasets. That gives us a useful order of magnitude, although it is much weaker than an SEC filing or statutory account.

Sierra Space is harder to size cleanly. Its Dream Chaser program, space-station work and government contracts create a large commercial footprint, but contract value and capital raised cannot substitute for company revenue.

Both companies show why prominence and reported sales are different things. A company can employ thousands of people, raise huge amounts of capital and work on billion-dollar programs without giving outsiders enough information to rank its actual revenue precisely.

Does being public make a space startup look bigger in revenue rankings?

Public space companies have a huge information advantage because we can see exactly what they sell every quarter.

Rocket Lab, Planet, Firefly, BlackSky, HawkEye 360, Intuitive Machines and AST SpaceMobile regularly publish revenue, segment detail and backlog. For BlackSky, we can say that 2025 revenue was $106.6 million. For HawkEye 360, we know Q2 revenue was $49.8 million.

Private companies may disclose nothing comparable. Loft Orbital, Axiom Space, D-Orbit and OroraTech can therefore look smaller or less certain even if their underlying businesses are substantial.

We account for that by separating the size of the number from the quality of the evidence. A $140 million estimate can still be useful, but we do not treat it as more precise than a filed $107 million simply because the number is larger.

This is one reason the middle of the ranking should be read as a set of revenue bands rather than a perfect race separated by a few million dollars.

Which younger space companies are closest to becoming $100 million businesses?

Open Cosmos, D-Orbit, OroraTech and Astroscale are among the companies now close enough to make the next $100 million group worth watching.

Open Cosmos is particularly interesting because we have filed UK group accounts rather than only an external revenue model. The company was already around £45.9 million in the underlying 2025 data.

D-Orbit sits around the $50 million range in current estimates, while OroraTech has been estimated around $45 million. Astroscale reported ¥5.94 billion for its latest fiscal year, putting orbital servicing firmly into the tens-of-millions-of-dollars revenue category.

None should simply be promoted to $100 million on the basis of contracts, fundraising or a good quarter. But these companies are much closer to meaningful commercial scale than the long list of space startups still earning only a few million dollars per year.

What revenue numbers should we ignore when ranking space startups?

Funding, valuation, headline contract value and user counts should never be quietly turned into revenue.

The same rule applies to backlog. AST SpaceMobile's roughly $1.3 billion of contracted revenue backlog does not make AST a $1.3 billion-revenue company. ICEYE's €1.5 billion backlog does not replace its more than €250 million revenue figure. Rocket Lab's $2.36 billion backlog cannot be compared directly with Planet's annual sales.

Quarterly annualization can create the same problem. HawkEye 360 making roughly $50 million in a quarter tells us that the business is now running at a much higher level. Calling that $200 million of annual revenue would add an assumption the company never reported.

We would rather keep a slightly messy real figure than replace it with a neat number created from our own assumptions.

So which space startups are really making the most money today?

SpaceX dominates NewSpace revenue today, Rocket Lab has clearly separated itself from most of the field, and the biggest change is the group now forming underneath them.

Intuitive Machines is suddenly operating at a much larger scale after Lanteris. Planet is back in strong growth. ICEYE has built a private €250 million-plus business. Firefly is moving beyond the revenue level implied by its 2025 accounts. HawkEye 360 and BlackSky have both turned space intelligence into nine-figure businesses.

AST SpaceMobile sits in a different position: current revenue remains smaller, but contracted demand and planned commercial deployment could push the company much higher if service revenue begins scaling as expected.

That gives us a clearer picture than the usual “SpaceX and everyone else” view. SpaceX still sits alone at the top, but below it NewSpace now has a genuine commercial middle class. Several independent companies are producing hundreds of millions of dollars in real revenue, and another group is moving through the $50 million to $100 million range.

Current tier	Company	Best current evidence	Takeaway
Dominant	SpaceX	$9.13B Space + Connectivity H1 2026	No close NewSpace comparison
Clear #2	Rocket Lab	$602M FY2025; $234M Q2 2026	Strongest independent challenger on clean revenue
$250M+ group	Intuitive Machines	$393M H1 2026	Acquisition changed the company's scale
$250M+ group	Planet	$308M FY2026	EO business is accelerating
$250M+ group	ICEYE	>€250M FY2025	Largest strongly disclosed private contender
Fast-rising $100M+	Firefly Aerospace	$199M H1 2026	Current scale already exceeds old annual picture
Fast-rising $100M+	HawkEye 360	~$100M H1 2026	Moving rapidly toward a larger revenue tier
Established $100M+	BlackSky	$107M FY2025	Real nine-figure intelligence business
Developing $100M+	AST SpaceMobile	$31.5M Q2 2026; $150M–$200M FY guidance	Commercial ramp is beginning
Next group	Open Cosmos, D-Orbit, OroraTech, Astroscale	Roughly tens of millions each	Plausible next wave of $100M space companies