AST SpaceMobile vs. Rocket Lab: 1 Number Separates These Space Stocks

Two of the most talked-about space stocks pull investors in opposite directions. AST SpaceMobile (NASDAQ: ASTS) is chasing the audacious dream of beaming broadband from satellites straight to ordinary phones, while Rocket Lab (NASDAQ: RKLB) launches rockets and builds satellites for paying customers.

There are a dozen ways to compare them, but one number cuts through the noise faster than any other: revenue.

The number that separates them

The gap is almost jarring. Rocket Lab pulled in roughly $200 million in revenue in a single quarter earlier this year, growing more than 60% from the year before. AST SpaceMobile, by contrast, guided to somewhere around $150 million to $200 million for the entire year of 2026.

Put another way, Rocket Lab books in three months what AST hopes to earn in 12 months. AST's most recent quarterly revenue of about $15 million was a small fraction of what Rocket Lab generates in the same span.

Image source: Getty Images.

That single comparison tells you almost everything about where these two companies sit on the maturity curve. Rocket Lab is an operating business with two revenue engines -- launch services and a growing satellite manufacturing arm -- plus a backlog of over $2 billion that provides visibility into future work. AST is still crossing the line from promise to product, only now switching on commercial service after years of building its network.

Why the number isn't the whole story

Here's the important caveat, though. Revenue measures where a company is today, not where it might be tomorrow.

AST has locked in more than $1 billion of contracted commitments from wireless carriers and sits on a large cash pile to fund its build-out. If satellite-to-phone service scales the way its partners are betting, AST's revenue could eventually grow into something far larger than Rocket Lab's, because it would be selling connectivity to a global consumer market rather than launching other people's hardware.

So the revenue gap is best read as a measure of risk and timing. Rocket Lab has already proven it can sell what it makes; AST is asking investors to trust that the sales are coming.

If you want the space stock with a real, diversified, rapidly growing revenue base underneath it, Rocket Lab is clearly the more established business today, and that lowers the risk. If you're willing to bet on a much bigger but unproven future, AST SpaceMobile offers the higher-ceiling story, provided its network delivers.

Neither company is consistently profitable yet, so both belong in the speculative corner of a portfolio. The one number simply tells you which businesses are now and which are still becoming one.

Micah Zimmerman has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends AST SpaceMobile and Rocket Lab. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.