SpaceX caps Starlink speed for Ukraine military, sending shockwaves through space stocks
The move, made without warning, triggered a sharp divergence in global space stock performance last week.
SpaceX capped the speed of Starlink terminals used by Ukraine's military through its Starshield service last week, triggering a sharp divergence in global space stock performance.
Serhiy Beskrestnov, a technology adviser to Ukraine's president, said Wednesday that SpaceX had overnight capped the speed of Starlink terminals in motion that Ukraine's forces use, without warning.
Investors sent shares of Eutelsat, which owns the rival OneWeb network, up 23 per cent that day.
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By Friday, the Procure Space ETF, a fund that tracks space stocks, was down 6.4 per cent for the week, while Eutelsat, SES and OHB were all sharply higher.
In Canada, Maritime Launch Services and NorthStar Earth & Space both won conditional approval to list on the Toronto Stock Exchange.
Maritime Launch's shares jumped 17 per cent on Thursday, the day it announced the approval.
The SpaceQ Canadian Space Index finished the holiday-shortened week where it began, at 98.70, after falling to 96.70 on Wednesday and recovering above its 100.00 base on Thursday.
Calian Group said Wednesday it had won a five-year contract worth about $47 million to design training scenarios for NATO's Joint Warfare Centre in Stavanger, Norway, and its shares rose 3.1 per cent for the week.
Magellan Aerospace rose 4.5 per cent, and its 77.5 per cent gain since January is the best of the nine companies on the Canadian index.
C-COM Satellite Systems edged up as well.
Czechoslovak Group (CSG), a Prague-based defence and industrial group, disclosed a 9.5 per cent stake in MDA Space in a U.S. securities filing on Wednesday and said it is now MDA's largest shareholder.
MDA's shares slipped 0.8 per cent over the week.
Telesat fell 2.7 per cent and is still up 61.1 per cent this year.
5N Plus fell 10.2 per cent, the steepest drop among the nine, though its shares are still up 53.4 per cent this year.
Baylin Technologies lost 4.8 per cent and closed at its lowest level of the past year.
Intermap Technologies set a 52-week closing low of 77 cents on Wednesday and finished the week down 8.2 per cent.
NorthStar Earth & Space's shares jumped 30 per cent on Wednesday after its conditional TSX approval was revealed, then gave the gain back over the next two days, ending the week down 11.6 per cent in New York.
The company has until Nov. 30 to meet the conditions for its Toronto listing.
U.S. and international markets react
Rocket Lab said after the close on Wednesday that the first launch of its Neutron rocket is now expected in 2027.
Its shares fell every day of the week and finished down 25.5 per cent, the steepest decline among the 20 U.S. space companies SpaceQ tracks.
Piper Sandler cut AST SpaceMobile to neutral from overweight on Tuesday, citing competition from SpaceX in satellite-to-phone service, and lowered its price target by 44.9 per cent, to $US 54.
AST ended the week down 20.2 per cent.
Satellogic dropped 25.4 per cent, Sidus Space 23.2 per cent, Planet Labs 21.1 per cent and Momentus 20.2 per cent; in all, 18 of the 20 U.S. names fell.
Comtech reported fiscal 2026 results late Wednesday, and its shares jumped 13 per cent the next day, making it the only U.S. name with a double-digit gain for the week.
SpaceX's shares fell 10.2 per cent over the week.
The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration published notice on Wednesday of a full environmental review of SpaceX's plan to launch Starship from Starbase, Texas, up to 456 times a year.
In Europe, Eutelsat rose 28 per cent for the week to €1.77, with almost all of the gain coming on Wednesday and Friday.
SES rose 11.4 per cent to €4.17.
OHB gained 21.4 per cent to €191.60.
Avio and Lockheed Martin announced an agreement on Tuesday to build solid rocket motors at Avio's plant in Hurt, Va.
Avio's shares rose 6.1 per cent to €30.11.
In Tokyo, Synspective fell 9.8 per cent and Astroscale lost 8.2 per cent.
Lunar-lander developer ispace edged up 1.1 per cent.
Innospace, the South Korean rocket developer, fell 22.9 per cent.
Seraphim Space Investment Trust, a London-listed fund, fell 6.4 per cent.
Its annual results on Thursday put its net asset value at about £2.40 a share on June 30, more than double a year earlier.
With files from SpaceQ