Space Stock Boom Shifts Investor Focus to Infrastructure and Recurring Revenue

Morgan Stanley analyst Adam Jonas reiterated a Buy rating and $300 price target on SpaceX, implying roughly 99% upside, as investors await Starship's first orbital test on September 22. The 14th Starship flight is expected to send the vehicle into orbit and deploy 26 Starlink V3 satellites, tying the launch directly to one of SpaceX's biggest growth businesses. CEO Elon Musk has said Starlink V3 deployment will begin in September and that the next-generation satellites could eventually deliver more than 100 times the bandwidth of the current constellation. Bernstein analyst Douglas Harned maintained an Outperform rating with a $248 target, implying about 64% upside, and said gaining Starship reusability to enable orbital data centers remains most important for SpaceX's valuation; he expects the Connectivity business to generate more than $100 billion in EBITDA by 2031. William Blair analyst Louis DiPalma called the latest deal SpaceXAI's fourth compute agreement in the past four months exceeding $11 billion in ARR, while Wall Street's average SpaceX price target stands at $232.07, implying about 54% upside.

United Airlines Holdings has signed a deal with DISH to bring live streaming content to onboard passengers using DISH's OnStream platform over United's Starlink connectivity. Starting this week, United customers can watch live professional and college football games on Starlink-enabled seatback screens on domestic flights, with broadcasts from ABC, CBS, NBC, FOX, FS1, ESPN, ESPN2, NFL Network and TNF on Prime Video available on more than 200 Starlink-equipped airplanes. Starlink is free for MileagePlus members in every class of service, and United expects to complete installations before the end of 2027; the service is now active on more than 560 United mainline and United Express aircraft. United has already flown more than 31 million passengers on Starlink-powered aircraft across more than 464,000 flights, powering 14.2 million devices. The agreement follows United's earlier Starlink tie-ups, including an ESPN partnership that hosted a first-of-its-kind live Fantasy Football Draft from 30,000 feet and onboard streaming of the biggest soccer tournament in the world on domestic flights.