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January 2, 2026 13 mins

AST SpaceMobile Inc. this month launched its largest-ever satellite from India, the first in a series of deployments to help the company compete against Elon Musk’s SpaceX in delivering space-based connectivity to mobile phones. The BlueBird 6 satellite took flight from the Satish Dhawan Space Center in southern India aboard the Indian Space Research Organization, or ISRO’s LVM3 rocket. It reached the low-Earth orbit in about 16 minutes, the live cast on YouTube showed. The successful launch is a big boost for the Texas-based company as well as India’s space program which wants to build its orbital space station among other ambitious projects.

Investors are taking notice of the growing number of publicly-traded firms within the fast-growing market for services related to space exploration, satellite technology and enhanced telecommunications. Greg Pendy serves as an equity research analyst at Clear Street, focusing on the disruptive technology sector. He discusses the key trends and firms to watch in 2026 with Carol Massar, Tim Stenovec and Bloomberg Tech Co-Host Ed Ludlow on Bloomberg Businessweek Daily

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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news. You're listening to Bloomberg
Business Week with Carol Masser and Tim Stenovek on Bloomberg Radio. Well,
we've talked a lot about long away to return of
IPO activity this year. A story on the Bloomberg noted
that it minted twenty one new billionaires, although many insiders
have seen the value of these holdings plunged. Let's talk

(00:24):
about the renaissance IPO etf attracks a basket of newly
public companies. It's set to end twenty twenty five with
a single digit GAINSHIY of seven percent. Twenty twenty six, though,
presents new opportunities for IPO investors with SpaceX potentially going public.
Joining us with more on this is Bloomberg Tech co
host ed Ludlow. Also with us Greg Pendy, director of

(00:47):
equity research at Clearstreet. He covers companies that play in space,
including Intuitive Machines and Planet Labs. And I want to
start with you and just get the latest on SpaceX's
IPO because you and the team reporting to the company
earlier this month had told him employees it's entering a
quiet period. What can you tell us about the latest size,
the scope, the timing of the IPO.

Speaker 2 (01:07):
Yes, SpaceX and the leadership team are pretty far ahead
at this point in their plans for an IPO mid
twenty twenty six, maybe June. What we've reported is that
it's actually an interesting kind of change in approach from
Elon Musk. In particular, they want to raise thirty to
forty billion dollars, maybe even more. You'd have to do

(01:28):
the math. The valuation will come out in the wash, right,
depending on how much the company offer, But one point
five trillion dollars on the dollar, raise thirty billion to
forty billion dollars would be the biggest IPO of all time,
right beyond what a Ramco did in twenty nineteen. The
bigger question is why why do they need to raise
all that money? You know, Musk always downplays the idea
that SpaceX needs cash, and they certainly doesn't like the

(01:51):
scrutiny of the public markets. But my understanding is they
need the cash to buy GPUs and put those GPUs
into a design for a space based data center.

Speaker 1 (02:01):
Wait, don't they have enough GPUs over at XAI that
they can just use?

Speaker 2 (02:07):
You know, I don't want to punp this one necessarily,
But you know, it's the idea that in a world
where we shift from training AI models to running inference
running the models, all kinds of models, different sizes, and
data center capacity on Earth becomes constrained. That is the
thesis that this is an energy efficient way of doing

(02:28):
it because they're out bi solar and it gives you
the capacity. But again, based my.

Speaker 1 (02:32):
Report on hold on, I'm so confused here, okay, because
you're you're in Silicon Valley right now, right, yep. There
are a couple of data centers that are completely built
out there that we've written about here at Bloomberg News
that are not online yet as a result of not
being hooked up to the power grid at this point.
So it seems like the constraint you know, here on
Earth exists before we even have to go up to space.

(02:54):
And it's not necessarily about having the power. I mean,
it certainly is, But it's funny that we're talking about
solar powered data centers and space, but we're you know,
not really talking about that much here in the US.

Speaker 2 (03:07):
Usual disclaimers and caveats supply when we're talking about people
must let me. But the big picture thesis right, If
you accept SpaceX's stated goal of making humankind and interplanetary
species that get to Mars, then at face value, with
an IPO whose rationale is backed by space based data center,

(03:27):
you accept the bigger picture thesis right that SpaceX in
Elon Muscia world where there just will be insufficient compute
capacity here on Earth and a good technical solution is
to do it in space. And like slightly different from
a starlink satellite even though it's consolation based, we're talking
about ginormous scale, right, and we don't know anything about it, Like,

(03:49):
we have no idea how fast SpaceX.

Speaker 1 (03:51):
Is along on this.

Speaker 2 (03:51):
All we've reported is they need a lot of wedge
to get there.

Speaker 3 (03:55):
You know, in a nan Elan world, I would be
like this is crazy, but you know, Elon has shown
that things can be done in a new way. I
want to bring Greg into the conversation. Greg Pandey, director
of equity research at clear Street Street. He does cover
companies a play in space, and we talked about it
to mentioned it Intuitive Machines and planet labs. I know
you don't cover SpaceX, Yeah, yes, but curious that do

(04:18):
you plan to cover it when it goes public? Like
will it fall will be something that you've got to
keep tabs on.

Speaker 4 (04:23):
Oh, I can't really comment on future coverage right now.
What we're focused on is really low earth orbit satellite
companies which are currently public that we do cover. And
you know, as you are mentioning you know about data
centers and space, I would just highlight Planet Labs as
the name that we have a BI rating on that
we really like now. Their primary business is Earth observation,

(04:46):
so they have cameras in their satellites and they're mapping
the entire Earth. We're talking terabytes of data daily. So
the real catalyst for the stock thus far has been
AI unlocking this massive database and being able to give
real insights. However, what we learned on their most recent
earnings call is they're working with Google on Project Suncatcher,

(05:08):
which is data center off working data center capabilities off
their satellites in space and where we see the advantages
You've mentioned the solar power is a big advantage, but
also keep in mind coolings another big thing that happens
here on Earth. We use a lot of water to
cool data centers. Obviously space, it's much colder out there,

(05:30):
so there are unique advantages that with Planet Labs specifically
that we like.

Speaker 3 (05:35):
How far long are they on this or what are
you hearing?

Speaker 4 (05:38):
So the catalyst for Planet Labs suncatchers of the twenty
twenty seven story I believe as of right now is it.

Speaker 3 (05:44):
An elon twenty twenty seven that could go to twenty.

Speaker 4 (05:47):
Twenty eight tour. You know, thus far, Planet Labs is
really executed on their expectations and hitting their targets. The
big one for twenty twenty six will be the OWL.
So these dove satellite that they have, they have two
hundred of them. We're talking lower Earth orbit, the size
of a laptop computer. They map the entire Earth every day.

(06:07):
They've done this for eight years, so it's a massive archive.
It follows kind of Moore's law. We've gone from doves
to super doves, better resolution, but the OWL will be
down to one meter resolution. And when you pair that
with AI, what that really means is the images are
much crisper, sharper, and you're picking up on more objects.
So the AI just becomes even more powerful.

Speaker 1 (06:29):
Yeah, I mean, it's incredible. We've had some Business Week
stories in recent years about the way Planet Labs and
people just using Planet Labs data has been to have
been able to make discoveries and the implications for defense
and national security are really impressive. Stocks up close to
four hundred percent so far this year. It's just had
a massive run, Greg, the revenue opportunity, notwithstanding the data

(06:52):
centers in space, but the imaging that they're doing right now,
who are the huge customers?

Speaker 4 (06:56):
Yeah, so right now. Obviously you mentioned the government, but
commercial use cases are still being discovered because now that
people can use AI, it's more democratizing that type of
satellite data. So companies like Acces Insurance in Swiss Free
are really using it. We're talking about the ability to
use their planet data to price drought insurance or just

(07:20):
to follow patterns after a natural disaster to be able
to assess that damage and do automatic payouts. So the
insurance industry is one we can all identify with. We've
seen it creep into the finance industry. Oil traders are
now able to actually track tankers in maritime and be
able to predict better supply and demand patterns. You know,

(07:40):
other areas rainforest, deforestation, climate change patterns, all very big
use cases for Planet Scope data.

Speaker 2 (07:49):
So Greg, I'm super interested in your areas of coverage.
You know, Planet Labs super interesting as well. Farming comes
up quite a lot, you know, in that space based
data center. The thing that I'm curious to needle you
on is Planet Labs relies on SpaceX, right, They need
that regular cadence of capacity to get into orbit. And
one thing we talk about here on the West Coast

(08:10):
is the ripple effect, the alumni ecosystem of the wake
that SpaceX has left for the rest of the commercial industry.
How do you model that into your coverage of the
company kept Planet Labs?

Speaker 4 (08:22):
Well, I guess if you're talking about launch specifically, there
are multiple launch operators. You know, we don't cover Rocket Labs,
but that's another launch operator. So if you're all the
you are correct that you know all the satellite majority
of the satellite operators are using a third party for launch.
So securing launch windows is very important. It's something that

(08:45):
often comes up, you know, within the companies to make
sure and we're worried. During the government shutdown just overall,
a lot of launches were delayed that looks to have
been cleared up.

Speaker 2 (08:57):
Like many Americans these days, greg I's spent a lot
of my time thinking about the Moon. You cover Intuitive Machines,
you know, I recently had the first interview of Jared
Isaacman literally after he was sworn in. Clearly it's a
big focus. Why is the Moon and an opportunity for
that company in particular?

Speaker 4 (09:16):
Sure, so there's for them specifically. They've already won the
NASA NSN contract that's in Near Space Network contract. So
their third Moon mission, which is expected to take place
mid twenty twenty six, it's an important one for Intuitive
Machines because they'll actually be carrying their own satellite. It's

(09:36):
one of five satellites that they won with this contract
that will orbit the Moon. So if you're going to
build this permanent presence on the Moon, which is the
goal by twenty thirty, you're going to need communications, You're
going to need GPS, You're going to need to be
able to send data. We think it's very important for
Intuitive Machines because it's the start of a recurring revenue.

Speaker 1 (09:58):
You think you think Intuitians can pull this off because
they had a pretty tough year with Athena failing. Has
the company recovered from that?

Speaker 4 (10:06):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (10:07):
But did they have lessons from that? Are they going
to be able to figure this out moving forward.

Speaker 4 (10:11):
Yeah, Yeah, for sure. I do think that they've learned
a lot. Obviously, space is very humbling. We always hear about,
you know, a rocket blowing up and what intuitive machines
was trying to do on that particularly launch. I would
just note, is ever trying to go to a polar
region on the Moon. They were not trying to you know,
land on an easy area of the Moon. It's a

(10:31):
very very challenging area. Think of it. You know, the
difference between JFK and landing in the North Pole on
an iceberg here, so very big challenge. It's never been
done before that mission. Obviously it did tilt over and
land on outside. They were able to get multiple tests done,
but they did not pick an easy landing spot because
they wanted to be the first to accomplish that, but

(10:52):
also because we believe there's water there.

Speaker 3 (10:54):
Ed Love, I want to bring you back. You mentioned
talking about Jared Isaacman, and I'm just curious, in terms
of government and new initiatives, what more might be coming
in twenty twenty six that's going to impact whether it's
a SpaceX or some of the other companies that we've
just been hearing about from Greg.

Speaker 2 (11:09):
Yeah, so you know, SpaceX is going to do whatever
SpaceX is going to do. But the kind of mainstay
of the President's strategy, other than appointing Isaacman, was basically
to shuffle where responsibility later. So NASA is kind of
very focused on science and research, nascent technologies and development.
What the President's executive Order earliest month did that's really

(11:32):
critical is it kind of transferred power to OSTP the
offers for science and technology and what you see, you know,
and we've been talking about this all day with regards
to AI policy, is it's kind of putting the goals
of this country, the United States, both in terms of
national security and what's strategically important in space, into an

(11:53):
office and a team of advisors that the president really
really trusts. So it'll be interesting, you see if that
kind of allows things to move a little bit more quickly,
because like historically NASA has just been given a budget
and hands out contracts, you know, assigning funds, but actually
moving things that are faster pace. This seems to be

(12:14):
the president's strategy put the power in the hands of
a different group.

Speaker 1 (12:19):
Hey, Greg, before we let you go, you cover a
lot of companies, not just you know the ones we've
been talking about right now. Which one are you most
bullish on for twenty twenty six and why?

Speaker 3 (12:30):
Yeah?

Speaker 4 (12:30):
I mean I think the high risk reward, high opportunity
is intuitive Machines. Lan Terras was an acquisition that got
them into the satellite manufacturing. We expect that to close
by the second quarter, but twenty twenty six, but we
think it's highly a creative and it pulls forward their profitability.
And then we see several catalysts.

Speaker 1 (12:53):
And very briefly, Ast Space Mobile, you cover that company
to competitor, how much of a competitor is it to starlink?

Speaker 4 (13:00):
Well, they have a different approach on how they're working.
So ast space Mobile is partnering with Verizon, Vodafone, AT
and T, so they're working in a partnership capacity, and
you know, I think they have much different approach.

Speaker 3 (13:18):
Good stuff, love, love love, Greg Penty, Thank you so much,
Happy new year, Director of Equity research at clear Street.
And of course or thanks to our own Blueberg Tech
co host ed Ludlow out there Tim on the West
Coast
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Carol Massar

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