The SpaceX IPO Could Trigger a $50 Billion Spending Spree. These Stocks Will Benefit.

When SpaceX (NASDAQ: SPCX) filed its S-1 prospectus on May 20, 2026, targeting up to $75 billion in fresh capital at a $1.75 trillion valuation, most of the attention went to Elon Musk, Starlink's subscriber growth, and whether any IPO in history has ever been this hyped.

But the more useful question for investors isn't whether SpaceX's stock will pop on Day 1. It's what happens after the roadshow ends and $50-plus billion hits the balance sheet. That capital goes somewhere -- into Starship production, Starlink infrastructure, the $55 billion Terafab chip plant in Texas, and an orbital compute build-out that has no precedent in the history of the aerospace industry.

When that spending begins in earnest, four industrial companies that most investors have never added to a watch list are directly in its path.

Image source: Getty Images.

1. Kratos Defense & Security Solutions

Every satellite constellation -- including Starlink's 10,000-plus satellites -- needs a ground system to operate. Kratos Defense & Security Solutions (NASDAQ: KTOS) builds those systems, and it has spent years becoming the dominant commercial provider of software-defined satellite ground infrastructure.

The company's OpenSpace platform, which is the only commercially available, fully orchestrated satellite ground system designed to support multiple simultaneous missions, is already deployed by Intelsat, SSC Space, and a growing list of international operators. As the commercial satellite economy scales alongside SpaceX's IPO ambitions, every new constellation is a potential OpenSpace customer.

In April 2026, Kratos was awarded a $446.8 million Space Systems Command contract to design, integrate, and operate ground system architecture for emerging medium-Earth-orbit space-sensing constellations. The U.S. government selected Kratos to build the backbone of its next-generation space surveillance network. The IPO doesn't create this demand, but it accelerates the entire ecosystem that Kratos already operates in.

2. Moog

Moog (NYSE: MOGA) is one of those companies that tend to show up in a press release, do its job, and disappear before anyone writes a headline about it. It supplies more than 100 different hardware components that run from tip to tail on NASA's Space Launch System -- propulsion systems, life support hardware, and communications components. Its technology flew on Artemis II in April 2026, performing without incident.

In March 2026, Moog debuted a new suite of satellite propulsion innovations at the SATELLITE 2026 conference, including high delta-V propulsion systems and scalable fluid controls for next-generation commercial constellations. As Starship enables a dramatic reduction in cost per kilogram to orbit, the volume of satellite hardware going up increases -- and Moog makes critical components for a lot of it.

3. Curtiss-Wright

Curtiss-Wright (NYSE: CW) makes the ruggedized electronics and mission computers that go inside the things that operate in extreme environments -- aircraft, satellites, ground systems, missile defense platforms. It is not a glamorous business, but it is a very hard one to displace.

In the first quarter of 2026, Curtiss-Wright posted sales of $914 million, up 13% year over year, with operating income up 23% and operating margin expanding to 17.5%. Management raised full-year guidance to $3.74 billion to $3.80 billion in sales, with diluted earnings-per-share (EPS) growth of 13% to 16% and free cash flow conversion above 105%. In February 2026, the company was selected by Boeing to supply mission computers for the U.S. Air Force C-17 fleet modernization program.

Curtiss-Wright benefits from the SpaceX IPO in an indirect but durable way: As the defense and commercial space sectors scale in parallel, demand for hardened, embedded computing grows alongside them. The company's free-cash-flow profile and margin expansion make it the most financially conservative of these four names, which is either a strength or a limitation depending on your time horizon.

4. Mercury Systems

Mercury Systems (NASDAQ: MRCY) sits at the processing edge of defense-grade space and missile programs -- building the compute hardware that handles sensitive signals in real time, in orbit, or in flight. In January 2026, Mercury announced contracts totaling more than $60 million for work on two classified U.S. space and strategic weapons programs. In April 2026, the company won a contract with L3Harris Technologies to supply solid-state data recorders for satellites in the Space Development Agency's Tranche 3 Tracking Layer missile defense constellation.

As the commercial space economy grows and increasingly intersects with national security infrastructure -- which the SpaceX IPO explicitly acknowledges -- the demand for trusted, classified-grade processing hardware doesn't go away. Mercury is a quiet company in a loud sector. The operational turnaround under current management bears watching, as the company has worked through a period of execution challenges, but the contract momentum in early 2026 is the most encouraging sign in years.

Micah Zimmerman has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Curtiss-Wright, Kratos Defense & Security Solutions, L3Harris Technologies, and Moog. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.