Why Did 2 Space Stocks Blast Off Tuesday?

Stocks can often move on press releases and company updates. Two space-related stocks are moving higher Tuesday on announcements from the companies with shareholders reacting positively to the news.

Rocket Lab: Shares of Vector Acquisition Corporation VACQ are up Tuesday on news from its merger partner Rocket Lab.

The company announced its plan to study Mars’ magnetosphere has received NASA approval to move toward a future launch. Rocket Lab will begin the final design and manufacturing for the mission.

The ESCAPADE (Escape and Plasma Acceleration and Dynamics Explorers) mission will orbit two Rocket Lab-built Photon spacecraft around Mars. The mission will seek to understand the structure, composition and other dynamics of Mars’ magnetosphere.

Rocket Lab said its science mission to Mars will be done at “a fraction of the cost of typical planetary missions.”

Rocket Lab has missions under development for its Photon spacecraft to go to the Moon and Venus.

The company’s SPAC merger was approved and shares will begin trading on Nasdaq as ticker "RKLB" on Wednesday. Less than 5% of VACQ shares were redeemed during the merger vote.

VACQ shares are up 7% to $11.85 Tuesday afternoon.

Astra Space: Shares of space launch company Astra Space Inc ASTR, which successfully completed a SPAC merger, are also moving Tuesday on news from the company.

Astra Space reported a successful orbital ignition of its Apollo Fusion thruster on its Spaceflight Sherpa-LTE1 orbital transfer vehicle.

The company expects to deliver thrusters for additional satellites over the next quarter. Astra Space will also see a flight window open for its first commercial orbit launch later this week.

“The successful commissioning and ignition of Apollo Fusion’s system paves the way for expanding orbital destinations for small sats [satellites] and is paramount in achieving our goal of getting our customers’ payloads to space whenever and wherever they want,” Astra VP of Engineering at Spaceflight Philip Bracken said.

Apollo Fusion was acquired by Astra in July 2021 to help the company reach destinations beyond low Earth orbit.

ASTR shares are up 7.37% to $11.36 Tuesday afternoon.

Rocket Lab and Astra Space were two stocks covered on Tuesday's 'SPACs Attack' show. 

Photo: Sam Toms and Simon Moffatt courtesy of Rocket Lab