When SpaceX publicly listed, the coverage focused on the rockets, the valuation, and the personalities. That’s understandable. But the more important story is what the IPO signals about where the space economy is heading — and what that means for the countries and companies that have been quietly building it.
For most of the history of space, getting there was so expensive and difficult that only governments could do it. SpaceX changed that. Cheap, reliable launch has become the enabling technology for a new space economy, much as affordable computing underpinned the rise of the internet. That shift has created entirely new markets: satellite communications, like Starlink; in-space manufacturing; potentially even orbital data centres. McKinsey and the World Economic Forum project the space economy could reach $1.8 trillion by 2035. Parametric insurance — where satellite data triggers claim payouts when flood, wildfire or drought thresholds are crossed — is projected to reach $51 billion by 2034. Not a space market, but mainstream financial services that run on space infrastructure.
Think of it like a gold rush — some are selling the shovels, others are digging. Filtronic, in County Durham, supplies the components that make Starlink’s ground network function, and has a market cap of more than 800 million pounds ($1.06 billion). Magdrive, in Oxfordshire, is developing propulsion systems for satellites in orbit and completed its first in-space demonstration last year. Glasgow’s AAC Clyde Space and Spire Global manufacture and launch constellations underpinning global data services — weather intelligence, maritime tracking and environmental monitoring. Open Cosmos, which builds and operates satellites for governments and businesses across the world, has secured over $120 million in contracted missions across four continents. SatVu, backed by the NATO Innovation Fund and the British Business Bank, is building thermal imaging satellites that can detect heat from power plants and military installations from orbit, commercially, for the first time.
Space Forge and BioOrbit have both put hardware in orbit to test what becomes possible under microgravity conditions. On Earth, molten materials settle unevenly and gravity-driven convection, sedimentation and thermal gradients can create defects; for pharmaceuticals, the crystallization and molecular assembly of compounds is improved without the constant pull of 1G. Space Forge fired up its orbital furnace in December, demonstrating for the first time that the conditions required for growth of ultra-high-purity semiconductor materials can be created and sustained on a commercial spacecraft. BioOrbit has sent a drug crystallization manufacturing unit to the International Space Station, aiming to do the same for cancer therapies — producing highly concentrated formulations that could lead to replacing hospital drips with treatments patients can inject at home.
These are not moonshot ambitions. They are commercial realities, happening now, in the U.K.
SpaceX’s prospectus confirmed what these companies already know. Starlink accounted for $11.4 billion of SpaceX’s $18.7 billion 2025 revenues, around 61% of the total, with $4.4 billion in operating profit at 63% margins. The valuation is not a bet on rockets. It is a bet on what rockets enable.
But the IPO also raises a harder question: can these companies take the next step and grow? Can the U.K. produce something like its own SpaceX — not in launch, but in the application layer where British companies are already competing?
The U.K. consistently produces high-quality space ventures — grant funding, incubators and seed investment have built a strong early-stage pipeline. But moving from demonstration to contracts requires growth capital at a scale the sector has not consistently attracted. According to Seraphim Space’s SpaceTech Index, global private investment in space technology hit a record $12.4 billion in 2025 — up 48% on the previous year — yet 60% of that capital flowed to US companies.
Many investors still view space through the lens of SpaceX: an extraordinary success story, but a risky one that required tens of billions of dollars before generating meaningful returns. The IPO may help change that perception. Starlink’s margins are not those of a speculative technology venture; they are the margins of infrastructure.
That does not mean investors need to find the next SpaceX to make a return. Many of the U.K.’s most promising space companies are developing technologies to address established commercial markets and require a fraction of the capital that building a launch company demands. The investment case is not a bet on reaching orbit. It is a bet on what can be done once access to orbit has become cheap and reliable.
Space investment is not without risk — timelines are long and not every bet pays off. But UK pension funds have already pledged to act. Under the Mansion House Accord, 17 providers have committed to investing at least 10% of their default funds in private markets by 2030 — around 50 billion pounds earmarked for exactly this kind of opportunity. So far, almost none of it has reached growth-stage companies. Space is now trusted infrastructure, embedded across the modern economy and UK companies are building important parts of it. U.K. pension funds signed the Accord. They should now back U.K. space companies at growth stage — the capital requirement is a fraction of a typical infrastructure deal, and the returns at the top of this sector speak for themselves.
Space is here. Not every business model or technology will scale. But the returns for those who invest in the right businesses could be substantial. The rocket is impressive. It is also, at this point, the least interesting part of the story.
John Abbott is the CEO of Satellite Applications Catapult.
