Why Virgin Galactic, BlackSky, and AST SpaceMobile Stocks All Popped Today

This week is looking like an exciting week for space investors, with good news from SpaceX last night, and hopefully some more good news from Virgin Galactic Holdings (NYSE: SPCE) arriving in a couple of days. In late Monday-morning trading, as of 11:10 a.m. ET, shares of space tourism pioneer Virgin Galactic notched a 9.7% gain, followed closely by cellphones-in-space company AST SpaceMobile (NASDAQ: ASTS), up 7.2%, and spy satellite operator BlackSky Technology (NYSE: BKSY), up 6.6%. On Sunday evening, SpaceX launched the second Axiom Space "all-private astronaut mission" to the International Space Station.