Space is recapturing Americans' imagination, mainly thanks to SpaceX, Elon Musk, and his trillion-dollar dreams to make humans a multi-planetary species. There's more to space than just SpaceX, which will benefit other shares beyond Musk's rocket and AI company.

On Sunday, NASA is scheduled to launch the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope.

"Named after NASA's first chief astronomer, the 'mother of the Hubble Space Telescope,' the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope will have a field of view at least 100 times as large as Hubble's, potentially measuring light from a billion galaxies in its lifetime," said NASA ahead of the launch.

Eventually, the satellite will settle in at Lagrange point two, about one million miles from Earth, where the gravity of the sun and the planet keep things relatively stable. Initial images from the satellite are expected in early 2027.

The telescope will help unravel mysteries such as dark matter and dark energy. Those topics don't move stocks, but several companies have a stake in the telescope's success. L3Harris Technologies supplied parts and services for the optical assembly, BAE Systems supplied instrumentation, and Teledyne Technologies supplied infrared sensors, to name three.

Space is a subset of their business, but a growing subset.

L3Harris generated about $6 billion in first-half 2026 space system sales, up 15% year over year. Total sales topped $11.5 billion. Space is part of BAE's electronics segment, which generated first-half sales of about $4.2 billion. Total sales were about $21.4 billion. Teledyne's second-quarter sales were $$1.7 billion. The company's space business spans the aerospace and digital imaging segments, which combined accounted for about 70% of second-quarter revenue.

Lower-cost reusable rockets have supercharged the space race. More than 320 rockets were launched in 2025, up from less than 90 10 years ago.

Launches should top 320 again this year. Half will be completed by SpaceX. It's also launching the telescope from Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

That revenue is recognized in SpaceX's space segment, which is expected to generate 2027 sales of about $6.3 billion, up from $4.5 billion in 2026.

The growth is impressive, but it's only a small part of total sales, which are expected to be about $100 billion. SpaceX's rockets enable other businesses, such as its Starlink space-based broadband product, which has roughly 11,000 satellites in low-Earth orbit.

Eventually, SpaceX plans to put AI data centers in orbit. Wall Street sees AI sales for SpaceX hitting $575 billion by 2031, up from $65 billion in 2027. Sales this coming year will come from SpaceX's terrestrial data centers. Eventually, most of that revenue will come from beyond the Earth.