Space split Thursday — rad-hard and timing silicon rallied with the chip tape while the space-defense primes and Comtech fell on rotation and restructuring.

SiTime (SITM) rose 7.7% to $729.04 to lead the basket, with no single company headline — it tracked a broad semiconductor rally as money rotated out of defense and into chips on Thursday's interim US–Iran peace deal. SiTime sits at the timing-and-PNT chokepoint: its MEMS precision-timing devices are the on-board "clock" that keeps payloads and crosslinks synchronized, a constraint that tightens as constellations scale. The rad-hard silicon chokepoint moved with it — Texas Instruments (TXN +6.9%), STMicroelectronics (STM +6.9%) and Microchip (MCHP +6.0%) all rallied, with Frequency Electronics (FEIM +3.7%) firmer on the atomic-clock read.

Comtech (CMTL) fell 6.2% to $2.40, the basket's worst, extending a post-earnings slide. Its FQ3 revenue missed at roughly $106M against ~$116M consensus despite an EPS beat, analysts cut FY2027 revenue expectations hard, and the company announced the sale of most of its Satellite and Space business for $157.5M to refocus on public-safety technology and pay down debt. For this vertical that is a structural read on the ground-segment chokepoint: a long-standing SATCOM supplier is, in effect, retreating from the space side of its franchise.

The space-defense primes were the other drag, caught in Thursday's rotation as oil and yields fell on the peace framework: L3Harris (LHX −5.9%), CACI (−5.8%) and Northrop Grumman (NOC −5.2%) all sold off — the launch-propulsion, optical-terminal and payload chokepoints where a de-escalation read compresses the threat premium. Separately, AST SpaceMobile (ASTS −5.6%) and the SpaceX tracking line (SPCX −3.6%) eased, a reminder that the basket's commercial names don't all move with the primes.

The catalyst calendar is earnings-heavy from late July. L3Harris reports Q2 on July 23 (before open) and CACI its FQ4 on August 7; Rocket Lab's Q2 (August 6) is the first full quarter owning Mynaric, the optical-terminal chokepoint. On the program side, SDA Tranche 2 Transport Layer launches are slated to begin around September, the SpaceX (SPCX) lock-up fully expires December 9, and the Golden Dome space-based-interceptor capability demonstration sits on a 2028 deadline — the policy pull behind the in-space-infrastructure names.