Did SpaceX Miss the Lottery? A Breakdown of Companies and Stocks Across SpaceX’s Full Supply Chain
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Did SpaceX Miss the Lottery? A Breakdown of Companies and Stocks Across SpaceX’s Full Supply Chain
Regardless of how SpaceX’s stock price moves, its annual procurement orders worth tens of billions of dollars still need to be fulfilled.
Navigating Web3 tides with focused insightsAuthor: nini
If you missed Apple’s supply chain in 2010, Tesla’s supply chain in 2020—and even NVIDIA’s supply chain over the past two years, which has left you regretful—
SpaceX’s supply chain is just getting started.
Of course, I don’t think chasing SpaceX itself directly makes much sense. On its IPO debut, its stock surged 19%, jumping from a $135 offering price to $160—a price-to-sales ratio nearing 100x—while the company remains deeply unprofitable. Retail investors rushing in on day one face considerable pressure.
What I’m really talking about are the companies supplying SpaceX.
History has repeatedly validated the same logic: super-terminals massively feed back into their underlying supply chains. In 2010, when Apple launched the iPhone 4, Luxshare’s revenue stood at RMB 1 billion; ten years later, it hit RMB 92.5 billion, with its share price up 30-fold. When Tesla’s Shanghai Gigafactory commenced production in 2019, CATL’s market cap was just over RMB 100 billion; five years later, it surpassed RMB 1 trillion. NVIDIA’s recent explosion propelled Zhongji Xunshuang from a market cap of several billion to over RMB 100 billion.
Apple, Tesla, NVIDIA—each time, the super-terminal stands center stage. But the real wealth creation for many comes not from the terminal itself, but from the suppliers behind it.
SpaceX spends tens of billions of dollars annually purchasing chips, materials, components, and industrial gases. These procurement orders gradually translate into tangible revenue on certain companies’ books. For the first time, after its prospectus went public, this supply chain became traceable with concrete data.
Let’s first examine where SpaceX’s money comes from—and where it goes
Its business falls into three main segments. First, Starlink. Last year, it generated $11.3 billion in revenue—60% of the group’s total—with over 10 million global subscribers. This is SpaceX’s only consistently profitable segment—and arguably funds all its other capital-intensive initiatives.
Second, rockets. Falcon and Starship R&D cost $3 billion annually, enabling the lowest commercial launch costs globally. In 2026, SpaceX plans 100 launches, requiring 1,500 Raptor engines. Third, AI. Last year, it lost over $6 billion. On the ground, it’s building the Colossus supercomputer—stacked with 220,000 GPUs; in orbit, it’s planning orbital data centers.
So the money flow is straightforward: Starlink’s profits → fund rocket development to drive down launch costs → low-cost launches enable AI hardware deployment in space → rent out AI compute power to generate new revenue. That’s the basic loop.
This cycle generates hundreds of billions in annual procurement orders. So who pockets that money?
We can categorize suppliers by how easily they can be replaced.
Category One: Irreplaceable—At Least in the Short Term
- NVIDIA (NVDA): All 220,000 GPUs powering the Colossus supercomputer are from NVIDIA. But NVIDIA’s true moat isn’t hardware—it’s CUDA. Nearly all AI training worldwide relies on this software ecosystem to write code. You can switch hardware—but migrating a decade’s worth of code isn’t something you fix in a year or two. As long as SpaceX keeps building supercomputers, NVIDIA keeps getting paid.
- Eutelsat (SATS): It holds radio-frequency spectrum licenses for satellite communications. Think of spectrum as “lanes in the sky.” Physics dictates only so many exist—and whoever claims them first owns them. No amount of technical prowess lets you conjure new spectrum. Musk’s direct-to-cellphone satellite service must route signals through Eutelsat’s spectrum; without paying tolls, signals would interfere with others’ satellites. SATS also holds ~3% of SpaceX’s equity. The day before its listing, SATS rose 11%, and options volume spiked 11-fold versus average.
- Filtronic (FTC), listed in London—note it’s not available on U.S. exchanges. It supplies millimeter-wave signal amplifiers for Starlink satellites, extending transmission range and clarity. In 2024, it signed a £47.3 million contract with SpaceX, which accounts for 83% of Filtronic’s revenue—and granted it up to a 10% subscription right. Seemingly small, these amplifiers require years of aerospace-grade certification—repeated testing under vacuum, radiation exposure, and extreme thermal cycling. Once certified, SpaceX won’t swap suppliers lightly: re-certification cycles lag behind production ramp-up. And Filtronic’s share price has nearly doubled over the past year.
- Materion (MTRN): The world’s only fully integrated beryllium producer—from ore to finished product—controlling ~56% of global supply. Beryllium is one-third lighter than aluminum, six times stronger than steel, and melts near 1,300°C—simultaneously light, strong, and heat-resistant. Few metals on Earth meet all three criteria. It’s used in the F-35 fighter jet, the James Webb Space Telescope mirror, and Starship’s load-bearing structures. The U.S. Department of Defense classifies beryllium as a strategic material—and Materion is the sole certified supplier for the F-35, with certification spanning over a decade. Its scarcity is evident.
- STMicroelectronics (STM): Supplies phased-array antenna chips for SpaceX, delivering over 5 billion units across more than 10,000 satellites. STM forecasts its LEO satellite business will reach $2 billion by 2028 and $2.9 billion by 2030.
Category Two: Technically Replaceable—But Replacement Is Prohibitively Costly
- Honeywell (HON): Provides flight control and inertial navigation systems—the “brain” telling rockets where they are, where they’re going, and how to orient themselves. Decades of certification—from Apollo to the Space Shuttle to commercial space—have built Honeywell’s dominance. Switching suppliers means transplanting the rocket’s brain: rewriting all foundational code and restarting full recertification. With SpaceX launching over 100 times per year, it simply cannot pause missions to save on procurement costs.
- Carpenter Technology (CRS): Produces specialty steel alloys for Raptor engines. Vacuum melting and repeated purification achieve impurity levels below one part per million. A tiny deviation risks combustion chamber failure. Such metallurgical expertise isn’t transferable via blueprints alone; replicating equivalent production capacity could take decades.
- Hexcel (HXL): Supplies aerospace carbon fiber. Every kilogram saved in rocket mass adds a kilogram of payload capacity. Carbon-fiber frames weigh half as much as metal while maintaining strength. Hexcel has collaborated with SpaceX for over a decade—tailoring material formulations and weaving processes specifically to SpaceX’s needs. Switching suppliers would force complete revalidation of the entire materials system.
- Broadcom (AVGO): Manages 10-gigabit-per-second space-to-ground data exchange. To prevent high-speed data bottlenecks, AVGO’s solutions are essential. Linde Group plans to invest $100 million in a Texas air-separation plant near Starbase—dedicated to producing liquid oxygen and nitrogen. Since rockets consume massive volumes of ultra-pure industrial gases, proximity cuts logistics costs significantly—making location itself a moat.
Category Three: High-Volume, Low-Cost Manufacturing—Stability & Scale Are Paramount
You may never have held a Starlink dish—but consider this: SpaceX aims to deploy a full 30 million units globally. Each contains thousands of components and dozens of manufacturing steps—requiring smartphone-level assembly-line efficiency, yet surviving aerospace-grade vibration and thermal extremes.
At this scale, technology becomes secondary. What matters most is stable, high-volume output—and who can drive unit costs lowest.
The Foxconn–Apple dynamic applies here identically. Quanta Computer (6285.TW) is the world’s largest contract manufacturer for Starlink terminals and routers. Its quality-control standards were jointly refined with SpaceX over years—so no random factory can step in.
Moving upstream are several A-share firms. Sunway Communication (300136.SZ) holds exclusive global supply rights for high-frequency connectors in Starlink terminals, with ~RMB 1.05 billion in SpaceX-related orders expected in 2025. Parker New Materials (605123.SH) is the sole Chinese supplier of forgings for Starship’s airframe and engines, with ~RMB 680 million in orders—35% of its total revenue. Western Superconducting Technologies (002149.SZ) holds exclusive supply rights for niobium alloy in Raptor engines, with ~RMB 1.02 billion in orders. Yingliu Co., Ltd. (603308.SH) supplies critical castings for Raptor turbopumps—accounting for 42% of its own revenue. SpaceX orders now constitute Yingliu’s single largest income source.
Smaller players include Tianyin Electric (002935.SZ), whose star trackers—akin to celestial compasses helping satellites determine orientation by “reading the stars”—hold over 60% global market share. Tongyu Communications (002792.SZ) produces Starlink ground-station antenna modules, with ~RMB 300 million in orders forecast for 2026.
In the U.S., several other names appear. Trimble (TRMB) handles timing synchronization: among thousands of orbiting satellites, every onboard clock must stay perfectly aligned—off by even one microsecond, and communication fails. Astronics (ATRO) manages rocket power distribution. CTS (CTSH) handles thermal management. None are “black magic,” yet each functions as an indispensable bolt in the entire system.
You might ask: These companies have existed for years—so why now?
Three reasons:
- First, procurement volumes are only beginning to ramp up. With 100 launches planned for 2026, Starship accelerating test flights, and orbital AI data centers slated to begin deployment in 2028, Starlink’s target of 30 million terminals remains far from achieved—only 10 million subscribers today. SpaceX’s cash outflow pace is still far from peak.
- Second, transparency has opened for the first time. Previously private, SpaceX’s procurement data was opaque. Now, with its prospectus public—and quarterly/annual reports forthcoming—order growth for supply-chain companies becomes trackable and verifiable.
- Third, history rhymes. Apple’s supply chain took a decade to peak—from iPhone 4 to its zenith. Tesla’s took seven years—from Model 3 mass production to today. Where SpaceX’s supply chain stands today resembles Tesla in 2018: mass production just beginning, suppliers recently locked in, order growth starting its steep climb. Starship is still in testing. Starlink continues expanding. Orbital AI data centers haven’t broken ground. This is SpaceX’s 2018.
Finally
Buying SpaceX on its IPO debut means paying a premium to buy into Musk’s dream—specifically, his very expensive space dream. Of course, you may simply believe in Musk—and that belief may be your own dream too.
But perhaps we can shift perspective.
Following the supply chain, we’re betting on something else entirely: regardless of SpaceX’s stock price, its hundreds-of-billions-in-annual procurement orders must land somewhere—and those orders are decoupled from share prices. They represent monthly, predictable revenue.
This article does not constitute investment advice. Risks remain: beryllium faces cyclical demand; Taiwan-based suppliers carry geopolitical discounts; smaller firms lack liquidity; certifications may reset amid technological shifts. Each company warrants individual assessment.
But if you didn’t get allocated shares on SpaceX’s IPO day,
you can adopt a different strategy—avoid chasing peaks, and instead look to the quiet suppliers doing the work.
The giant has already ignited. This time, the shovels are within reach.
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