Scared to Buy SpaceX Shares? These 3 Stocks Give You a Back Door In.

SpaceX's public debut is taking place right now and it has captured Wall Street's attention, but investors should remember that even great companies can be volatile stocks after an initial public offering (IPO). At a roughly $1.75 trillion valuation, expectations are already extraordinarily high, and history is full of highly anticipated offerings that experienced sharp swings as the market digested their valuations. For many investors, the better opportunity may not be buying SpaceX itself but investing in companies that stand to benefit from the growth of the broader space economy that SpaceX is helping to build.

Something gets overlooked in IPO frenzies like this. SpaceX is not only a company going public and teasing people to open a brokerage account. It is an infrastructure event. The build-out that follows its listing -- Starlink's constellation expansion, new ground stations, a growing commercial launch manifest, and the Terafab chip facility -- requires customers, partners, and payload operators who need to put things in orbit.

Three publicly traded companies are already part of that ecosystem in ways the market hasn't fully priced in.

Image source: Getty Images.

1. Intuitive Machines

Intuitive Machines (NASDAQ: LUNR) sits in the most unusual position in all of commercial space: It has already landed on the lunar surface twice, holds a growing backlog of NASA and defense contracts, and is building out the infrastructure that any serious long-term lunar economy needs to function.

In March 2026, NASA awarded the Houston-based company a $180.4 million contract to deliver seven science and technology payloads to the lunar South Pole -- a mission that fits directly into the Artemis program's infrastructure agenda. The company's first-quarter 2026 backlog hit $1.055 billion, nearly tripling year over year after the close of the $800 million Lanteris acquisition and new contract wins. Revenue reached $186.7 million in Q1, three times the prior year's figure, and management guided for $900 million to $1 billion in 2026 revenue with positive full-year earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA).

In May 2026, the company announced a definitive agreement to acquire Goonhilly Earth Station, which is a historic deep-space communications facility in Cornwall, England, and its U.S. operations. Goonhilly has the kind of infrastructure that future commercial lunar missions will depend on: deep-space antennas, frequency licenses, and decades of operational heritage that cannot be replicated quickly.

The SpaceX connection is direct: Intuitive Machines flies its lunar landers on Falcon 9 rockets. As SpaceX IPO capital funds expanded launch cadence and Starship's lunar capability matures, Intuitive Machines is the company on the other end of those missions.

2. AST SpaceMobile

AST SpaceMobile (NASDAQ: ASTS) is one of the more audacious companies in commercial space: It is building a space-based cellular broadband network that connects standard mobile phones directly to satellites in orbit. The company already has multiyear commercial agreements with AT&T (NYSE: T) and Vodafone (NASDAQ: VOD).

Here's the detail that makes AST SpaceMobile a genuine SpaceX-adjacent play: After losing BlueBird 7 in a New Glenn deployment in April 2026, the company made a decision. It pivoted its next three BlueBird satellites to a SpaceX Falcon 9 launch, targeted for mid-June 2026. That is the company voting with its manifest. When execution matters most, it chose SpaceX's rocket. The company is targeting approximately 45 satellites in orbit by year-end 2026, with constellation scaling continuing through 2027.

The investment case here is longer dated than Intuitive Machines. AST SpaceMobile is still in the early stages of building out the constellation needed to provide continuous coverage across major markets, meaning meaningful commercial revenue growth will take time. That longer timeline is reflected in the stock's volatility and the market's ongoing debate about execution. Still, the opportunity is significant: creating a global cellular broadband network that eliminates coverage gaps. As SpaceX's IPO draws more attention to satellite connectivity, it could increase investor interest across the entire sector and help highlight the scale of AST SpaceMobile's long-term opportunity.

3. Viasat

Viasat (NASDAQ: VSAT) is the most unloved of these three names, and that's partly why I find it interesting.

Most investors who follow satellite stocks associate Viasat with the failed ViaSat-3 F1 antenna, which launched in 2023 and never deployed correctly -- a genuine setback that cost the company years of growth. What's less discussed is what Viasat built on the other side of that problem: a government and defense satellite communications business that is structurally separate from the consumer broadband competition with Starlink, and a ViaSat-3 constellation that is finally completing.

In April 2026, Viasat confirmed the launch of its ViaSat-3 F3 satellite -- the third and final planned satellite of the next-generation constellation -- aboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy on April 29, 2026. The company launched on SpaceX's rocket. Viasat does not view SpaceX as a pure competitor in its most valuable segment: government communications. The U.S. military and intelligence community need satellite connectivity that is not tied to a single commercial provider, and Viasat's defense division supplies exactly that.

The risk is straightforward: Starlink's market share growth is real, and if Viasat's consumer segment deteriorates faster than the defense segment grows, the thesis breaks.

Micah Zimmerman has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends AST SpaceMobile and Intuitive Machines. The Motley Fool recommends Vodafone Group Public. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.