iQPS misses post-Trump space stock run; plagued by two 2024 on-orbit satellite failures

QPS-SAR-6 fell out of orbit on November 17th, spending just 17 months of its 5 year design life in orbit. QPS-SAR-6 suffered failure in July when a thruster malfunctioned. Then in September, QPS-SAR-5 failed reportedly from a freak cosmic ray event (and lack design redundancy by its satellite engineers). iQPS resultantly revised its FY 2025 net profit forecast downward. iQPS stock has lost 75% of its value from its March 2024 peak. It now trades at levels not seen since immediately proceeding IPO in December last year.

While many other space stocks are soaring, iQPS (TYO: 5595) remains left behind. After a successful IPO last December, iQPS for a hot second was the golden child of the Japanese space industry. Three months post-IPO its stock increased over 5X. But that’s when problems started.

While U.S. space companies have watched their stocks climb since Trump won the 2024 election, iQPS is not the only Japanese space company to decline over the same period. Lunar transport provider ispace (TYO: 9348) and in-orbit service provider Astroscale ( TYO: 186A) both also experienced double digit percent losses since the U.S. election.

The major downside for iQPS investors, aside from loss of their investment value, is inability to gauge iQPS’s ability to close foreign sales. Because two satellites failed, iQPS has just two functioning satellites in orbit (QPS-SAR-7 and -8). Thus saturation of domestic sales remains far off. Investors wishing to see if iQPS can prove SAR imagery sales to customers outside of Japan will likely have to keep waiting.

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