ARKK
RKLB
ARK’s not-so-subtle space trade
Cathie Wood’s ARK is leaning into a very specific idea: if SpaceX keeps steering hard toward Starship, the launch market could get a little cramped for everyone else. And when capacity gets tight, the leftovers on the launchpad tend to get pricier.
ARK Investment Management bought 233,482 Rocket Lab shares, or about $16.6 million, across three ETFs: ARKK, ARKQ and ARKX. That’s not exactly a “tiny nibble.” It reads more like ARK is saying, ‘Yes, we’d like a seat before the line gets longer.’
Why Rocket Lab is the point of the spear
The logic is pretty simple: SpaceX’s Falcon 9 is already heavily booked, and if more of the company’s attention shifts to Starship, third-party customers may start hunting for alternatives. Rocket Lab is one of the names ARK thinks could benefit most if its Neutron rocket gets off the ground and into the real-world launch rotation.
There’s just one catch: Neutron isn’t flying yet. Rocket Lab says it has more than 100 launches in backlog, but the bigger rocket is still targeting a first launch in late 2026. So this is less “instant win” and more “future capacity trade with training wheels.”
ETFs: the wrapping paper around the thesis
If you want the purest ARK-flavored exposure, ARKX is the cleanest wrapper here. It has Rocket Lab as about 6.1% of assets, while SpaceX sits around 10.6%.
Other space-themed funds in the mix include:
- Procure Space ETF, where SpaceX and Rocket Lab also show up alongside AST SpaceMobile, EchoStar and Viasat
- SPDR S&P Kensho Final Frontiers ETF, which spreads the bet across names like Firefly Aerospace, Voyager Technologies and Redwire
Big picture
This isn’t really a story about SpaceX losing. It’s a story about what happens when the hottest kid on the launchpad starts hogging all the locker space. If Falcon 9 availability gets tighter, Rocket Lab and its ETF backers may finally get the market’s attention — assuming the hardware shows up on time.