A Supersonic Jet Fleet, a Step-by-Step Path to Orbit, and a New Spot in the Russell 3000: Inside Starfighters Space’s Plan

Issued on behalf of Starfighters Space, Inc.

Starfighters Space, Inc. (NYSE:FJET) joined the broad-market Russell 3000® Index effective June 29, 2026, a visibility milestone that follows CEO Tim Franta’s discussion of a two-track business spanning hypersonic flight testing and a phased path toward commercial space launch.

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla., July 01, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- American News Group News Commentary — Before a satellite can beam data or a rocket can reach orbit, the hardware has to be tested, the crews trained, and satellites and payloads validated, and that infrastructure layer is exactly where Starfighters Space, Inc. (NYSE:FJET) is staking its claim. The Kennedy Space Center-based company, operator of what it describes as the world’s only flight-ready fleet of MACH 2+ supersonic aircraft, just picked up a notable marker of market maturity: on June 29, 2026, it joined the broad-market Russell 3000® Index as part of the index’s first 2026 reconstitution.

Key Takeaways

• Starfighters Space (NYSE:FJET) was added to the Russell 3000® Index effective June 29, 2026, a step the company says broadens its visibility among institutional investors.
• In a June 23 MarketLink "Watch List" interview, CEO Tim Franta described a two-track business: a hypersonic flight-testing and R&D operation for government and commercial clients, plus the STARLAUNCH air-launch program.
• Franta outlined a "steps to space" strategy: a likely suborbital launch next year, then orbital roughly 18 months to two years later, all designed so a setback at one stage is not a failure of the whole program.
• Other public names across the launch, hypersonics, and defense-testing landscape include Rocket Lab (NASDAQ:RKLB), Kratos Defense (NASDAQ:KTOS), Karman Holdings (NYSE:KRMN), and Joby Aviation (NYSE:JOBY), each distinct, and none a proxy for FJET.
  
  
  
  

A Visibility Milestone, by the Numbers

The Russell reconstitution is a rules-based exercise: FTSE Russell ranks up to the 4,000 largest U.S. stocks by total market capitalization as of April 30 each year, and membership in the Russell 3000® means automatic placement in either the large-cap Russell 1000® or small-cap Russell 2000®, along with the relevant style indexes. It is an objective, market-cap-driven screen rather than an endorsement of any company’s prospects, but clearing it still matters, because of who is watching. According to FTSE Russell data as of the end of June 2025, approximately US$12.2 trillion in assets are benchmarked against the Russell U.S. indexes, which means index funds and active managers alike use them as reference points.

"We believe our inclusion in the Russell 3000® Index represents an important milestone in Starfighters Space’s evolution as a publicly traded space company and reflects growing awareness of our differentiated commercial space platform," said Tim Franta, Chief Executive Officer of Starfighters Space, in the company’s announcement. "As we continue advancing STARLAUNCH and expanding our future commercial space launch capabilities, we believe this increased visibility can broaden awareness among institutional investors and support our long-term growth strategy." For a company that completed its IPO only in December 2025, landing in a benchmark index within roughly six months is a quick step onto the institutional radar.

"Two Things, and We Do Them Well"

In a June 23, 2026 conversation on MarketLink’s "Watch List," Franta framed the business in plain terms, telling host Ricki Lee that the company essentially does two things. The first is testing. "We have a fleet of high altitude, very fast supersonic jets, and we fly payloads at high speeds at high altitudes to test things, primarily test things before they go to space or things for hypersonics for the federal government," he said, describing Starfighters as a research, development, testing, and evaluation (R&D and T&E) firm serving a range of providers.

The second is launch, the part Franta called "the sexy part." He said the company’s first rocket launch will likely come next year and will be suborbital, giving clients roughly ten minutes of microgravity on a flight that goes to space and returns. "There are other air launch companies, but we’re the only ones that air launch at supersonic speeds," he said. The orbital step, placing satellites and payloads into low Earth orbit, would follow roughly 18 months to two years after that. Franta noted that the company’s recent public listing and subsequent financing rounds have strategically capitalized its near-term development goals. "We now have the financial foundation to aggressively execute our immediate milestones," he said.

A Deliberately Incremental Path to Orbit

The most distinctive part of Franta’s pitch is the structure of the plan, not just its destination. He drew an explicit contrast with space companies that, in his words, "put all their eggs in one basket, and if they had a failure, they went out of business." Starfighters, he said, is instead taking "steps to space where each step builds upon the previous one, and so if we fail at the next step, it’s not a failure of the whole program, it’s just the failure of the last step," something the company believes it can then correct and move past. He likened the operating philosophy to aviation, a discipline the company knows well given that it launches from aircraft, and credited lessons learned from operators including SpaceX and Rocket Lab.

That incrementalism is the core of the risk framing, too. A staged approach does not eliminate the formidable technical, regulatory, and financing hurdles of reaching orbit. Those remain, and the company is candid that execution and licensing milestones lie ahead. But it is designed so that the program can absorb a stumble at any single stage without collapsing. For a development-stage space company, that is a meaningful distinction in how investors might weigh the binary "all-or-nothing" risk often associated with the sector.

One Platform, Two Revenue Streams

A key part of the investment narrative is that the same hardware serves both lines of business. "When we fly in a straight line, parallel to the ground, we are conducting hypersonic research. When we fly in a curved trajectory upward, we are going to space. We’re using the exact same platform to do two things, so that saves us a huge amount of money," Franta said. He pointed to the defense side as the source of near-term stability, saying the company expects steady hypersonic-testing work: in his words, "we will have good defense contracts for the next 10 years for hypersonic testing," backed by federal funding. Hypersonics, defined as flight faster than five times the speed of sound, benefits from the supersonic launch profile, since releasing a test article while already traveling near Mach 2 extends the speed a vehicle can ultimately reach.

Franta also emphasized that the testing model is modular: customers do not have to fly an entire vehicle, but can test "just your avionics, just your antenna, just your battery, just your targeting" to validate components before committing them to an expensive mission. He suggested that proposition could resonate with the insurance world, floating Lloyd’s of London as a potential supporter, because operators could flight-test a new component before placing it on a high-value satellite rather than relying on decade-old proven hardware. These are the CEO’s characterizations of potential demand, not confirmed agreements, and should be read as forward-looking.

The Sector Backdrop and the Names Around It

Franta’s timing reflects a sector drawing unusual attention, something he illustrated with color from his own community after the recent SpaceX public offering created a wave of local interest in space investing and tightened the market for experienced aerospace talent. Several public companies populate the broader launch, hypersonics, and defense-testing landscape FJET operates within, each with a different model and risk profile, and none a proxy for Starfighters. Rocket Lab (NASDAQ:RKLB), which Franta cited as a company Starfighters has learned from, runs a high-cadence launch business and a suborbital hypersonic-test program (HASTE), reporting record first-quarter 2026 revenue and a backlog above US$2 billion. Kratos Defense & Security Solutions (NASDAQ:KTOS) is a pure-play defense technology company whose hypersonics business is anchored by the large MACH-TB 2.0 test program, the closest comparison to FJET’s government testing line.

Karman Holdings (NYSE:KRMN) designs propulsion, payload-protection, and interstage systems for hypersonics, missile-defense, and space-launch programs, representing the components-and-subsystems layer of the same defense-space buildout. And Joby Aviation (NYSE:JOBY), while focused on electric vertical-takeoff aircraft, sits at the broader commercial-aviation-meets-defense crossover, having pursued defense applications alongside its commercial program, a reminder that advanced-flight platforms increasingly straddle civilian and national-security markets. Together these names sketch a defense-and-space-testing theme drawing real capital, even as each company’s outcome rests on its own execution.

The Bottom Line

Index inclusion does not change a company’s fundamentals, and Starfighters Space remains a development-stage company with its most consequential milestones, a first suborbital launch, then orbit, still ahead of it. But the Russell 3000® addition gives FJET a wider audience precisely as its CEO articulates a clear, deliberately staged plan and a business model intended to combine near-term defense testing with the long-term development of commercial launch capabilities. For investors tracking the infrastructure layer of the commercial space economy, the markers to watch from here are concrete: the cadence of hypersonic-testing contracts, progress on STARLAUNCH development, and whether that first suborbital flight arrives on the timeline Franta has laid out. More on the company is available at the Starfighters Space investor profile.

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CONTACT

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SOURCES

[1] Starfighters Space, Inc. (NYSE:FJET), "Starfighters Space (NYSE:FJET) Added to Membership of Russell 3000® Index" (Business Wire, June 3, 2026; effective June 29, 2026; ~US$12.2T benchmarked; Franta quote). Available at: https://stockhouse.com/news/press-releases/2026/06/03/starfighters-space-nyse-fjet-added-to-membership-of-russell-3000-xae-index

[2] MarketLink "Watch List" interview with Tim Franta, CEO of Starfighters Space, hosted by Ricki Lee (June 23, 2026).

[3] Rocket Lab Corporation (NASDAQ:RKLB), Q1 2026 results and HASTE suborbital hypersonic-test disclosures, 2026.

[4] Kratos Defense & Security Solutions (NASDAQ:KTOS), MACH-TB 2.0 hypersonic-testing program disclosures, 2025–2026.

[5] Karman Holdings Inc. (NYSE:KRMN), corporate disclosures (hypersonics, missile-defense, space-launch systems), 2026.

[6] Joby Aviation, Inc. (NYSE:JOBY), corporate and defense-application disclosures, 2025–2026.

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FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS: This publication contains forward-looking statements, including statements regarding the advancement of the STARLAUNCH platform; the timing of anticipated first suborbital and subsequent orbital launches; expected hypersonic-testing and defense contract activity; potential customer and insurance-market interest; the benefits of Russell 3000® Index inclusion; and the Company’s long-term growth strategy. Index inclusion is determined by the third-party index provider under published, rules-based methodology and is not an endorsement or assurance of any outcome; membership and weightings may change at scheduled reconstitutions or otherwise. Statements attributed to the Company’s Chief Executive Officer reflect his characterizations of the Company’s plans and potential opportunities, including potential customer or insurance-market interest that does not constitute confirmed agreements. Forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties, including financing, regulatory and launch-licensing requirements, operational execution, development timelines, competitive conditions, government-contracting risks, and macroeconomic conditions, that could cause actual results to differ materially, as detailed in the Company’s filings with the SEC at www.sec.gov. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date made; the publisher undertakes no obligation to update or revise them except as required by applicable law.