Piper Sandler Starts Coverage, Sends AST SpaceMobile and Rocket Lab Shares Lower

Overview

• Piper Sandler analyst Alexander Potter began coverage of both companies with an Overweight rating and $100 price target for AST SpaceMobile and a Neutral rating with an $83 target for Rocket Lab, triggering roughly 18% and 13% share declines respectively.
• The research spotlighted a wide revenue gap: Rocket Lab recently reported about $200 million in one quarter, while AST has guided $150–$200 million for the entire 2026 year and reported about $15 million in its latest quarter.
• AST SpaceMobile has secured more than $1 billion in contracted commitments from wireless carriers as it rolls out consumer satellite-to-phone service, but its gross margin remains deeply negative as commercial scale is still unproven.
• Rocket Lab runs both launch services and satellite manufacturing, carries a backlog north of $2 billion, and reported roughly a 33% gross margin, giving it clearer near-term revenue visibility than AST.
• Both companies are not yet consistently profitable and remain speculative investments, so investors will be watching whether AST converts carrier deals into recurring service revenue and whether Rocket Lab sustains margin expansion.