The Complete Guide to Space ETFs: ARKX, UFO, ITA and Beyond

The World Economic Forum and McKinsey projected in April 2024 that the space economy, broadly defined, could reach $1.8 trillion by 2035. Exchange-traded funds are one way the public can hold baskets of space-related stocks, and they differ a lot: some focus on companies whose revenue comes mainly from space, others blend aerospace and defense.

This guide sets out the facts for five funds (issuer, inception, costs, assets, holdings and index method), taken from the issuers' own pages in October 2026. It describes the funds; it is not a recommendation to buy or sell any of them.

Why Space ETFs Matter

Updated October 2026: When this guide was first published, SpaceX was private and held by none of these funds. It listed on Nasdaq as SPCX in June 2026, and by October 9, 2026 it was the largest holding of both UFO (16.69%) and ARKX (11.48%), per the issuers' holdings files. See SPCX Since the IPO.

Many publicly traded space companies are small-caps or mid-caps with volatile earnings, and several companies that listed through SPACs in 2021 later lost most of their value. An ETF holds dozens of stocks in one fund and follows a stated method for choosing and weighting them.

ARKX: ARK Space & Defense Innovation ETF

Issuer: ARK Invest
Inception: March 30, 2021
Expense Ratio: 0.75% (after fee waiver, per the summary prospectus)
Holdings: 34 positions worth about $753 million (ARK holdings file, October 9, 2026)
Strategy: Actively managed, thematic

ARKX was called the ARK Space Exploration & Innovation ETF until November 23, 2025, when ARK renamed it and widened its policy to invest at least 80% of assets in companies in its "space & defense innovation" theme. As an actively managed fund, ARK's team selects holdings rather than tracking an index, and its holdings have included space-adjacent companies such as drone makers.

Largest Holdings (October 9, 2026)

• SpaceX (SPCX): 11.48%
• L3Harris Technologies (LHX): 6.15%
• Rocket Lab (RKLB): 5.87%
• Deere & Co (DE): 5.42%
• NVIDIA (NVDA): 5.39%

UFO: Procure Space ETF

Issuer: Procure ETFs
Inception: April 11, 2019
Expense Ratio: 0.75%
Net Assets: about $519 million, 67 holdings (October 9, 2026)
Strategy: Index-based (VettaFi index, ticker SPACE)

UFO has an 80% policy to invest in companies that receive at least 50% of their revenue or profits from one or more segments of the space industry, so it holds fewer defense conglomerates than the aerospace and defense funds below.

Largest Holdings (October 2026)

• SpaceX (SPCX): 16.69%
• Rocket Lab (RKLB): 5.36%
• Trimble (TRMB): 5.15%
• EchoStar: 5.03%
• Garmin (GRMN): 4.80%

ITA: iShares U.S. Aerospace & Defense ETF

Issuer: BlackRock (iShares)
Inception: May 1, 2006
Expense Ratio: 0.37%
Net Assets: about $11.99 billion, 50 holdings (October 9, 2026)
Strategy: Index-based, U.S. aerospace and defense sector

ITA is not a pure space ETF; it is an aerospace and defense fund. Its space exposure comes through defense primes and aerospace manufacturers that also hold government space contracts, alongside their aviation and weapons businesses.

ROKT: SPDR S&P Kensho Final Frontiers ETF

Issuer: State Street (SPDR)
Inception: October 22, 2018
Expense Ratio: 0.45%
Assets Under Management: about $169 million, 37 holdings (October 8, 2026)
Strategy: Index-based (S&P Kensho Final Frontiers Index), space and deep-sea exploration

ROKT's index combines the components of the S&P Kensho Space Index with the deep-sea exploration components of a Kensho drones index, so some holdings have nothing to do with space.

Largest Holdings (October 8, 2026)

• Forum Energy Technologies: 4.72%
• Oceaneering International: 4.02%
• Ducommun: 3.88%
• Iridium Communications (IRDM): 3.70%
• RTX (RTX): 3.68%

XAR: SPDR S&P Aerospace & Defense ETF

Issuer: State Street (SPDR)
Inception: September 28, 2011
Expense Ratio: 0.35%
Assets Under Management: about $5.49 billion, 50 holdings (October 8, 2026)
Strategy: Modified equal-weight index (S&P Aerospace & Defense Select Industry Index)

Where ITA weights by company size, XAR's index is modified equal weighted, so smaller companies carry roughly the same weight as the largest primes.

Largest Holdings (October 8, 2026)

Rocket Lab (3.33%), Honeywell Aerospace (3.12%), Moog (3.03%), Lockheed Martin (2.97%) and TransDigm (2.97%); no holding is far above the others.

Space ETF Comparison Table

How the Funds Differ

• What counts as space: UFO applies a revenue test (at least 50% from space segments, under an 80% policy); ARKX is an actively managed space-and-defense theme fund; ROKT adds deep-sea exploration; ITA and XAR are broad U.S. aerospace and defense funds.
• Weighting: ITA weights by company size; XAR uses modified equal weights; UFO and ARKX had SpaceX as their largest holding in October 2026.
• Cost: expense ratios run from 0.35% (XAR) to 0.75% (ARKX and UFO).

Risks to Consider

Space ETFs carry sector-specific risks that broad market funds do not:

• Launch failures: A single anomaly can move multiple holdings simultaneously.
• Government budget dependency: Many space companies rely on NASA, Space Force, and NRO contracts. Budget sequestration or political shifts can affect the entire sector.
• SpaceX concentration. Now that SpaceX trades publicly as SPCX, a fund that holds it at a large weight is heavily exposed to a single company: it was 16.69% of UFO and 11.48% of ARKX on October 9, 2026.
• Regulatory risk: Changes to debris mitigation rules, spectrum allocation, or export controls can affect satellite operators and manufacturers.
• Concentration: The publicly traded space universe is still relatively small. Several of these funds hold overlapping positions, for example Rocket Lab (a top holding of ARKX, UFO and XAR in October 2026).

The Bottom Line

The five funds take different routes to the same sector: a revenue test (UFO), active selection (ARKX), a space and deep-sea theme (ROKT), and broad aerospace and defense indexes weighted by size (ITA) or roughly equally (XAR). Holdings and weights change; the issuers publish them daily.

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