By Nick David, Editorial Lead, SatNews
Launch got cheap. Now it’s getting tight.
Speaker after speaker at the opening of Silicon Valley Space Week’s Satellite Innovation track on Tuesday landed on the same warning. As SpaceX winds down Falcon 9 and bets its launch business on Starship, the rest of the industry should plan for less capacity and higher prices.
“I find it very difficult to imagine that launch costs will not be higher in a year,” said Mike Collett, managing partner at Promus Ventures, on the panel “After SPCX: The Public Market’s Verdict on Space,” moderated by Hogan Lovells partner Alexis Sáinz. The Falcon sunset, he said, “has tremendous ramifications on the entire space startup industry, which I still don’t think understands the weight of what that is.”
Promus has invested in Rocket Lab, one of the few other providers positioned to pick up demand.
Wall Street sees it too
Ron Epstein, a managing director at Bank of America Securities who covers aerospace and defense, made the same point in the morning keynote. “Launch prices went down, but now launch prices are starting to go back up because there’s a scarcity in launch,” he said.
Epstein said BofA’s bull case for SpaceX already assumes Falcon 9 goes away, which pushes customers onto Starship. How much Starship capacity will be available to the rest of the industry, he said, is “an open question.” He also said that, by his understanding, Falcon 9 rideshare is sold out almost to the end of the decade.
BofA was one of the lead banks on SpaceX’s initial public offering, and Epstein covers SpaceX with a Buy rating.
What the record shows
The wind-down is no secret. On July 20, SatNews reported that SpaceX had stopped taking commercial rideshare bookings past 2028. Four days later, Bloomberg reported that SpaceX was not taking future Falcon 9 rideshare reservations and had begun turning away some dedicated launch orders for after 2028. In August, Elon Musk said Falcon would be winding down once Starship is flying reliably several times a week. And on Sept. 28, NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman said SpaceX intends to “sunset” Falcon and Dragon as it concentrates on Starship.
Falcon 9 is still flying. In March, SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell told TIME the company expected roughly 140 to 145 Falcon launches this year, down from 165 in 2025. The question for everyone else is what happens to their manifests between Falcon’s last open slots and Starship’s first commercial ones.
The orbital data center problem
The squeeze hits hardest for companies betting on orbital data centers, which need launch to get far cheaper, not more expensive. On the afternoon’s orbital data center panel, Cowboy Space COO Joseph Yaffe said ride-along availability is “dwindling, if not gone, in the very short term.” Cowboy unveiled its own rocket, Big Iron, the night before.
In the technical brief before that panel, Dr. Paul Struhsaker, CEO of Arrasar Partners, put the dependency plainly: “If launch costs do not fall, then orbital data centers will not fly.”
Room for another launcher
Several speakers saw an opening in the squeeze. Epstein said there is “probably a pretty good market out there for another player who can do launch successfully,” naming Rocket Lab’s Neutron among the vehicles to watch. Collett was more cautious about how fast new supply arrives, noting there aren’t many launch companies and building one takes years and a lot of capital.
Stoke Space is another contender. The Pentagon’s Office of Strategic Capital this week conditionally committed a $150 million loan guarantee for a second Stoke launch pad in Florida. Devon Papandrew, Stoke’s vice president of business development, spoke later Tuesday on the conference’s launch panel, “Launch Isn’t Settled: Scarcity, Queues, and the 2029 Gap.” Stoke is a sponsor of Silicon Valley Space Week, which SatNews produces.
The next marker is Starship itself. Epstein said he is eager to see whether SpaceX catches both stages on the next flight, which would be one more step toward the reusability the whole transition depends on.
About the Author
A storyteller at heart, Nick David covers space policy, satellite markets, defense, and the technologies reshaping how humanity operates beyond Earth. With a background in creative direction, brand strategy, and editorial storytelling, he brings a modern lens to complex subjects and a relentless curiosity about what comes next.
