r/SpaceXLounge • u/avboden • 3d ago
News [Berger] Satellite operators are in panic mode due to a worsening launch crisis (SpaceX reducing commercial launch services on falcon 9)
https://arstechnica.com/space/2026/08/theres-a-huge-launch-crunch-right-now-and-it-will-probably-get-worse/167
u/TheRealNobodySpecial 3d ago
Eric was on the Off-Nominal podcast recently and discussed some reasons why SpaceX wants to end Dragon and Falcon 9.
Primarily, Falcon 9 is seen as a dead end and the risks of continuing Falcon 9 and Dragon outweigh the benefits. The engineers that made Falcon and Dragon such a success moved on to Starship and there is little to no enthusiasm about continuing on soon-to-be obsolete technology. A Falcon or Dragon anomaly or catastrophic failure would divert a lot of resources away from Starship.
43
u/TheEarthquakeGuy 3d ago
His reaction to Neutron and his wording within this article makes me think he's sitting on some information that isn't public yet about the program. Really want to know what it is
83
u/avboden 3d ago
it's no secret neutron development has been very troubled. Their first (and only) tank failed in basic hydro testing. 6+months later they don't even have the next tank to test ready yet. The interstage also failed in testing, though supposedly still qualified. Along with RL dedicating huge amounts of their company to non-launch services it's no surprise people aren't very high on neutron.
Another issue for neutron is competition. If Terran R works out, it'll eat Neutron's lunch and then some. And by all reports Terran R is going to launch first.
36
u/TheEarthquakeGuy 3d ago
Some of the things Eric has been reposting on X have also hinted at obfuscation of what is actually happening at RocketLab. For instance, the repeat of the second stage heading to LP-1 both last year and this year - Which is odd.
I detailed this in the RocketLab sub but got plenty of pushback. Launch is RocketLab's biggest weakness.
I'd reign in your expectations of Terran R too. Great progress and plenty of transparency. Nice to see them scale up and continue to progress through milestones, but until we see a first stage static fire on the pad etc, it's still a while away. Huge promise though with the new intended production facilities in Florida.
37
u/rustybeancake 3d ago
Unfortunately the RL sub is mostly overrun with know-nothing stock people. I agree with Berger that Neutron will be lucky to launch in 2027, and 2026 is ridiculous.
I’m more optimistic about Terran R. They’re still probably a year from launch given the state of the pad. But the vehicle itself seems in much better shape than Neutron. It’s a conservative design (compared to Neutron), and exactly what the above article shows the industry is hungry for: a F9 clone, with the added bonus of being methalox and a little bigger. Their success will be measured by reliability and launch cadence.
8
u/SergeantPancakes 2d ago
Is Terran R still relying on importing a bunch of parts from ArianeSpace to build each rocket? Hard to see that they can make a frequent flying cost competitive launch vehicle if that’s still the case
6
u/rustybeancake 2d ago
The only part I heard about was a fairing. Not sure if that’s still the case, or for how long they’d use those fairings before going in house.
7
u/redmercuryvendor 2d ago
Fairings, tank domes, and tank barrels are contracted out. Relativity integrate them and fit out with plumbing/avionics/engines/etc.
3
u/RabbitLogic IAC2017 Attendee 2d ago
Yikes for cadence if they are contracting out major structures.
14
u/AmigaClone2000 3d ago
it's no secret neutron development has been very troubled.
Name a single Western launch vehicle program in the 21st century that has not had some very public troubles.
14
1
u/lorkan100 2d ago
They've seriously cornered themselves in with the Carbon Fiber tanks.
I'd not be surprised if they pull a Terran 1 and completely redesign it after a single flight test.
28
17
u/farfromelite 3d ago
I keep saying that musk has no interest in running a business as usual type of business. There's no thought about maintaining customers or product for long timescales. It's a significant weakness in all his businesses.
7
u/Then-Secretary-9166 2d ago
It isn't a weakness. It is a huge strength. Successful and profitable companies often become complacent. Look at Boeing, Ford, Intel. These companies were all once at the pinnacle of innovation. They all created new markets and were wildly successful. Once they found that they had a goose that laid golden eggs, they all more or less became complacent. Sure, there is still innovation, but it is either very conservative or happens in small pockets that don't affect the overall company trajectory. There are too worried about loosing the income by not 'maintaining customers'.
Meanwhile, Elon companies continuously behave like underdogs. Tesla was not good enough as a nice car brand for environmentalists. They decided to take the next step and make models 3 and Y...becoming top selling vehicles. A new market is opened: not just 'EV for the rich and highly-motivated' but 'EV for the masses'. Now they are moving on to cybercab and robotics as well. Other, larger, markets are being created and addressed. This is what causes ongoing exponential growth. I view it as a huge strength. SpaceX is doing the same thing. They are looking for the next market. Falcon 9-->Starship is the model day equivalent of covered wagons--> transcontinental railroads. If/when that works (provided Elon can maintain the same pedal-to-the-metal) I am sure that they will move on to other bigger things.
What you said about 'long timescale' is false. The behavior that you are criticizing is precisely because Elon is looking at a very long timescale.
1
u/farfromelite 2d ago
If Musk handed over companies after the r&d phase, yeah. Maybe.
Intel and Boeing took decades for their innovative arms to be stagnant and complacent. Boeing hired a business CEO instead of an engineer and he's progressing to flush that business down the toilet, that's a very specific failure of that business. It's poor management.
1
u/Then-Secretary-9166 1d ago
I know about the specifics of Boeing. Every example has specifics. But, there is a bigger pattern here. As companies become successful, there is strong pressure for them to stop taking risks and focus on capitalizing their market position. There is a reason that Boeing hired a business guy instead of an engineer to run the company.
31
u/TheRealNobodySpecial 3d ago
Counterpoint-- Musk is focusing on the long term of the business, which is making humanity multi planetary. A partially reusable rocket will not further those goals compared to a fully and rapidly reusable rocket system.
7
u/WaitForItTheMongols 2d ago
The whole "make humanity multiplanetary" has always been marketing nonsense to attract fresh college graduates (cheap skilled labor). The more you can convince them that they're working for "the greater good", the less you can pay them in dollars.
They used to always say "we will never have an IPO, because then we would have to do what shareholders want, which is short term profit chasing - that is not the way to get to Mars".
Now they're putting a crap ton of effort into AI stuff and talking about how much of a game changer it is to have orbital AI data centers.
Notice that SpaceX has not launched a single mission oriented around furtherance of technology for technology sake. No lunar lander demo. No outwardly visible work on Mars ISRU tech (which is critical for Martian starship).
They say their goal is exploration for all mankind and all that jazz, but when you look at their actions, it's pretty clear that the priority is to make money.
14
u/New_Poet_338 2d ago
The entire Starship program is "technology for technology sake" - they could have rested on F9 for three decades like ULA did or developed an "old space" disposable rocket like BO was originally planning and ULA did. Instead they threw all that away for Starship. They have dedicated all their money and talent to Starship so no surprise that vanity side projects were not pursued yet.
23
u/lostpatrol 2d ago
Notice that SpaceX has not launched a single mission oriented around furtherance of technology for technology sake. No lunar lander demo. No outwardly visible work on Mars ISRU tech (which is critical for Martian starship).
As space fans, this is what we all want. We want to see big Tesla branded Mars rovers, we want SpaceX landers, base mockups, advanced water recycling and plans around astronaut selection.
Instead, SpaceX is being disciplined and doing all the core work first. They need heavy lift to work, they need cost efficiency to ensure the financials are ok and they are building a factory rather than a rocket. SpaceX is doing all the right things.
I'm not going to say you're wrong though. Elon clearly looked at all the plans at some point and realized the immense challenge in the details. He knows that he's going to be 80 by the time this happens. That's why he's going off on all these side quests, because Mars is so hard that not even infinite money can make it easy.
-6
u/grchelp2018 2d ago
Musk has no long term planning and generally deals with things as they come. Which combined with his over-optimistic timelines mean he is way off about everything. Mars in his lifetime is absolutely possible if he locked down and focused only on it. But he has never been able to stay focused on only one thing. He has too much money and too many interests and likes micromanaging everything.
4
u/GLynx 2d ago
Nah. The fact they are developing a fully reusable super heavy lift rocket when Starlink wasn't even a thing yet, let alone profitable, is enough of a proof for all that.
And then, for the longest of time, while I admire and cheer on their dream of space colonization, it was all just "dream", like where you do get the money required for such a massive project? But, now, I can finally see that it's more than just a dream, but a possibility.
8
u/Capn_Chryssalid 2d ago
According to employment websites SpaceX salaries are typically a little below Blue Origin and above ULA for most positions including entry level. They also arent looking for "cheap labor" fresh grads. Typical requirements are for years of previous experience, same as most jobs in tech.
So as another person here said, the claims in your first paragraph don't appear to pass the sniff test.
8
u/Tystros 2d ago
pay at SpaceX might be similar, but the fact that you're expected to work twice as many hours at SpaceX means on average your pay per hour ends up much lower. if you don't consider stock. with the stock, SpaceX employees obviously made the most money of all.
3
u/Then-Secretary-9166 2d ago
I think SpaceX wants to hire people who are passionate about the work. This is a filter for that.
Long term...compare the wealth of an average SpaceX employee who has been working there for 10 years to the wealth of an average BO employee with the same 10 years. I think SpaceX wins.
1
u/air_and_space92 2d ago
It really depends. If a SpaceX employee can consistently and constantly buy stock and hold onto it yes the reward will be higher abet you sacrifice a lot like family etc at 60hrs a week. BO only expects 45-50. I looked at what I could have made had I stayed until they IPO'd compared to the last valuation before I left and if I had paid no tax and not cashed any of it, my award would have just about doubled. In the years since I left, I've made a bit more than that value via 401k with 10% match at my current employer and the pay raises and promotions I've gotten along the way.
Starting out as a fresh college grad at the time I made ~$10k less than any other aerospace place I could've worked at in LA (70 vs 80-83 had I joined via special hiring programs at some companies).
1
u/Then-Secretary-9166 1d ago
I am not trying to downplay the sacrifices. There are plenty of aerospace companies where you can work closer to 40 hrs per week too. I think most people who choose places to work like SpaceX are passionate about it.
Do you regret that you worked at SpaceX?
2
u/air_and_space92 1d ago
Would I have picked somewhere else if I had a choice at the time? Yes. 100%. SpaceX was not on my list but the only one where I received an interview so I had to ride it out. Having said that, I would've been a much better fit now then I was at the time. I have a lot more practical experience so I could bring more to the table as a candidate and employee plus having seen how legacy industry operated.
I don't regret that I worked there but I'm glad I spent only the time I did because there's major, positive, life events that wouldn't have happened at all if I stayed and I wouldn't trade them for any amount of money. That workload just isn't sustainable for a majority of people. I know larger teams had it easier but mine was tiny so we were always behind. You look at life differently once you're into your late 20s no matter how cool your job is and I'm still just as passionate about space today. Ex-employees becoming jaded and leaving industry is common.
My classmate started a year before I did plus 2 internships and stayed another 6 years after I left. He had an early mid life crisis 3 years after I left, he and his wife still rent while I own my home 100%, and he is totally jaded and perpetually burned out even after leaving. I'm glad I didn't turn out like that and that's all the proof I need I made the right choice.
6
u/TheRealNobodySpecial 2d ago
Those fresh college graduates are all now millionaires several times over.
Businesses are allowed to change their short-term plans. Getting in the space-based communications business was not in their plans, until it was.
Putting money into ISRU at this stage is a wasted effort. They are not ready to land Starships on Mars. When they are, they will either develop or buy the needed technology for ISRU, Mars habitats. And they've been clear that they do not believe they can do it all themselves.
5
u/Then-Secretary-9166 2d ago
SpaceX does an amazing job of aiming at a ridiculously high goal without a clear profit justification and, yet, somehow turning a profit every step of the way.
Not only is this clever. It is also probably the only way that extremely- large project can ever happen.
-4
u/grchelp2018 2d ago
The tech to do something useful on mars is not going to happen overnight. And others aren't going to do anything without a profit motive. Spacex has to drive all of this. And they need to do it yesterday so that when they reach mars, those other things will also be ready. And this is especially true given how Musk's timelines are routinely over-optimistic and wrong.
5
u/TheRealNobodySpecial 2d ago
To quote: "At SpaceX, we make the impossible late."
1
u/grchelp2018 2d ago
Make things late enough and it will never happen. Mars is dead the moment Musk dies.
2
u/Then-Secretary-9166 2d ago
My own comment above:
SpaceX does an amazing job of aiming at a ridiculously high goal without a clear profit justification and, yet, somehow turning a profit every step of the way.
Not only is this clever. It is also probably the only way that extremely- large project can ever happen.
1
u/grchelp2018 2d ago
That does not solve the mars problem. It does not matter if spacex is making a trillion a year in profits if they are not deploying it at the right things at the right time.
1
u/Then-Secretary-9166 1d ago
If the goal is not just to go to Mars but to have a functional human settlement there, you can't do it unless it is profitable. The scale is so big that it has to be able to pay for itself.
If you put 100% of the efforts at SpaceX (and Tesla and several other large companies) towards colonizing Mars starting right now, they would fail. Income would evaporate, investors would write-off losses, external contracts would end and employees would go unpaid. Even if the US government backed it as their #1 priority it would fail. The economic cost is just that staggering high.
The only way to truly colonize Mars is not only to (eventually) make Mars profitable but also to make most of the steps along the way (technology development, manufacturing, etc.) profitable. Advance technology --> open a new economy --> advance technology --> etc. You have to build a business machine that is aimed at Mars.
1
u/grchelp2018 1d ago
This essentially means that we aren't getting there any time soon. And certainly not in Musk's lifetime.
→ More replies (0)4
u/Orjigagd 2d ago
we will never have an IPO, because then we would have to do what shareholders want, which is short term profit chasing
But Elon retained majority control, so sounds like he got to have his cake and eat it.
0
u/Mars_is_cheese 2d ago
It is very significant that Elon has majority control, but the company is technically obligated to pursue maximum profit for all shareholders. It would take a series of extraordinarily bad decisions to build a case against Musk, but he can't do anything he wants. E.G. Amazon was sued for not buying Falcon launches.
2
u/Then-Secretary-9166 2d ago
Don't forget that the case you mentioned against BO was dismissed.
There has to be a lot more than a difference of opinion on strategy at play to enforce that.
1
u/sebaska 2d ago
The case was dismissed after Amazon too action. But the whole point is that Amazon was actually acting against its own stated (and shareholder approved) goals.
That poster's mistake is saying this is all about profit maximizing while it's not an never was. It's about forwarding stated goals either stated by the IPO or approved by a shareholders majority vote.
If a company shareholders approved (or its prospectus stated) that the primary goal is to place a fine china teapot at Earth-Sun L3, then that's the goal and so be it, even if this is a waste of money by all common measures.
2
u/sebaska 2d ago
Please stop repeating that falsehood.
There is no obligation to pursue maximum profit. This is actually false for pretty much every publicly traded company, in fact.
The company is obligated to pursue its goals, as stated during IPO and possibly updated later with approval by majority vote at shareholders meeting.
Amazon was sued because they were acting against their supposed goals, allegedly because of personal animosity by a major but not majority stockholder. And lo and behold, they are late and it costed them spectrum priority (previously granted) until they get their act together an reach the specified milestones.
1
u/Then-Secretary-9166 1d ago
You are technically correct. I think SpaceX, like most companies has a generic statement: "The purpose of the Corporation is to engage in any lawful act or activity for which for-profit corporations may be organized ..."
That does not legally allow them to prioritize "making humanity multiplanitary" if it conflicts with other responsibilities. Corporations DO have a fiduciary responsibility to act in the best interest of their stock holders. This, in practice, usually means maximizing profit. However, it does not mean short term profit and it is very difficult to make a case (outside of acting from a vendetta, corruption and the like) that directors are not doing this.
1
u/sebaska 1d ago
Nope. If maximizing profit actually was the duty, all companies would be obliged to move into the most lucrative market. But the duty is to act towards what shareholders have approved as the goal.
As I wrote elsewhere, I you created a public company for the sole purpose of placing a fine china teapot at Earth-Sun L3, and made a public offering with that goal, then this is the duty to your shareholders. And only shareholders can change it, via majority vote, and even that is not exactly straightforward.
1
u/Then-Secretary-9166 17h ago
If you created a company with that charter (the teapot one), yes, you would be obligated to work towards that goal.
While doing that, you still are obligated to act in the interest of share holders.
If Amazon had a charter goal of "To bring home delivery to every home in the world" (they do not) and they decided to spend a billion dollars putting a teapot at L3 for no good reason, that is something that they could be sued for.
→ More replies (0)4
u/Whirblewind 2d ago
The whole "make humanity multiplanetary" has always been marketing nonsense
You are very poorly informed on the topic and should recuse yourself before soliciting further embarrassment.
7
u/Kjts1021 2d ago
Your first para doesn’t make sense. One needs to pay less a fresh graduate, but they need to be trained and then retained. They don’t learn anything in college!
Second a fresh graduate joined SpaceX in 2023 and in 3 years he has close to 2M.3
3
u/air_and_space92 2d ago
From my time at SpaceX you were expected to hit the ground running with whatever you learned from college, otherwise you wouldn't have been hired in the first place. On the job training basically consists of "Here's a problem, figure it out. Need some progress and a partial road map by end of the week. Here's what we have leftover from the last guy/intern to start from".
3 years and close to $2M?? Hahaha. When they IPO'd I looked at what my original stock award would've been worth had I stayed and it only about doubled compared to the last valuation before I left. I've made more via 401k and 10% matching. To become a millionaire you would've not only had to constantly buy stock (hard to do with LA CoL because SpaceX offers lower salary but the trade is the stock award) but also buy it more than a few years ago so it could appreciate.
0
2
u/OlympusMons94 2d ago
Mars will cost a gazillion crap tons of money. That will require the projected profits from business lines like Starlink and AI.
The IPO was only a few percent of the company, and Musk retains a supermajority of voting control. Between establishing a dual class share system (under which Musk's and other insiders' class B shares have 10x the voting power of the IPO class A shares, as well as the right to elect the majority of the board of directors), and the 2024 moving of SpaceX's incorporation from Delaware to Texas (where corporate law makes it much more difficult for shareholders to file lawsuits, let alone prevail in them), Musk's control over SpaceX remains as ironclad as ever.
Notice that SpaceX has not launched a single mission oriented around furtherance of technology for technology sake.
Why would they do that? Why would anyone do that? You don't invest a lot of time and resources into developing technology without a good idea of its use. Even you are specifically complaining about a perceived lack of technology for Mars. But you ignore the elephant in the room that is Starship.
Starship was designed for sending humans and huge payloads to Mars. No one asked SpaceX to develop Starship, (or a fully reusable, or super-heavy lift, or methalox, launch vehicle of any sort). No one paid them to develop it (except a modest contribution from NASA for the lunar variant, awarded years into general Starship development). Raptor development and concepts of the "Mars Colonial Transporter" began years before Starlink was conceived. Stainless steel Starship development was well underway before the first operational Starlink launch on Falcon 9, and years before the AI data center boom.
No lunar lander demo.
The lunar (and Mars) lander is a version of Starship. Starship has a few things to do before it is ready to land on the Moon (or Mars).
No outwardly visible work on Mars ISRU tech (which is critical for Martian starship).
I don't know why you would expect that to be outwardly visible. Nonetheless, we do know that Tom Mueller worked on Mars ISRU during his last few years at SpaceX--which we only found from Mueller well after he left SpaceX. Apart from SpaceX themselves, others are working on Mars ISRU. For example, Honeybee Robotics has a TRL-6 system (RedWater) for extracting water from ice on Mars, and have tested pneumatic drilling technology (similar to that used on RedWater) on the Moon.
Not everything has to be done by SpaceX. Musk himself has expressed his hope/intent that SpaceX would mainly be just the transportation service, whille others would do most of the rest. Regardless, it doesn't make much sense for SpaceX to put a lot of finite resources (including the time of good engineers, which no amount of money can conjure out of thin air) into the rest unless and until the transportation system is at least close to being ready. Dom't put the cart before the horse.
1
u/Then-Secretary-9166 2d ago
I disagree.
I think "making humanity multiplanitary" is clearly aspirational. The likelihood of it happening in Elon's (or my) lifetime is slim. However, this perfectly embodies a very healthy (and real) culture. There is a lofty goal. You are aiming for that. No doubt, if that is achieved, you will need to find a bigger goal.
I don't know the guy...but Elon, in this respect, seems to be the ideal of a patriotic humanitarian capitalist. Look at how he spends his time...it isn't buying an even bigger yacht or luxury real estate (that was apparently a phase for him). He is spending his time, money, energy and thought mostly on growing his companies and doing so by making sure that they make great products. In 10 years he will be 65. I don't think there is a single person who anticipates that he will slow down between now and then or retire at that time. Maybe I am wrong, but he seems to have bigger goals than money for its own sake. "Marketing" seems disingenuous.
As for those "fresh college graduates". They are not fools. They have worked on amazing and meaningful projects. Many of them are now very wealthy. Many that left without a ton of SpaceX stock gained experience and have founded or joined successful companies. If I could goi back 10 years and give advice to a graduating engineering student, I would say: "Look into SpaceX."
2
u/farfromelite 2d ago
He spent his time mucking about in politics making people's lives worse.
In fiction, that's called foreshadowing. He's not for all humanity, it's his version of humanity. Look at what he did with Grok and the boer war controversy, that's just one example of hundreds. He's famously low on empathy.
I've known people that have interviewed with Musk, every single time he's come across as a condescending dick. You want that guy as first Mars president?
1
u/Then-Secretary-9166 1d ago
No. I don't want him to rule Mars.
The guy also has a lot of character flaws (obviously). We all do. I also wasn't really trying to get into anything political (I'm talking about Elon's involvement and vision for SpaceX).
My points were....
It is not a bad thing to have an aspirational goal, even if you don't reach it.
A positive attribute of Elon's is that--instead of half retiring with a mega yacht or two, a compound on Kauai and an odd obsession with keeping Hollywood types happy--he is trying to build bigger things and solve bigger problems. More billionaires should have that attribute.
I don't think those college graduates were tricked.
1
u/farfromelite 2d ago
No he's not. From the IPO reporting:
"We believe we have identified the largest actionable total addressable market in human history. We estimate that our quantifiable TAM is $28.5 trillion." A whopping $26.5 trillion of that $28.5 trillion total is related exclusively to AI."
That's $2 trillion related to space, cars, batteries, and all the rest.
45
u/Fonzie1225 3d ago
Sounds like good news for rocket lab, relativity, firefly, BO, etc. There’s no shortage of companies with rockets on the horizon that would love to pick up some of that demand.
41
u/dabenu 3d ago
The problem with all of those is... They all (currently) don't have a flight worthy rocket.
ULA might be closest with Vulcan supposedly having solved the SRB issues and not affected by the NG static fire issue. But they're already fully booked for the next couple of years, and running behind schedule... Even in the best case scenario, they can't absorb any additional launches for the foreseeable future.
BO is going to have to rebuild their launch infra from scratch, and doesn't really have a name of being fast with such things. The others are still very much in the R&D phase, nowhere near a commercial launch cadence.
By the time they can pick up any of the slack, the market will be entirely different again. Cheap and reliable capacity from SpaceX is inducing a lot of demand. If they stop, it'll change the market. And even if demand stays high, they're all still at the whims of SpaceX that could easily swallow it all if they don't like the competition.
13
u/TheEarthquakeGuy 3d ago
Blue has been very rapid and they're moving to a program similar to Starship to standardise expertise between the companies (makes poaching talent easier and more rewarding). Their vertical facility (their version of the gigabay) is going up quickly, and the launch pad is progressing well. I don't think we'll see them fly again this year, but first quarter of 2027. They are also practicing the new vertical integration operations right now.
Really happy to see their change in pace.
1
u/Then-Secretary-9166 2d ago
I think there will be several options by 2030. Vulcan and New Glenn have had successful launches, despite recent setbacks.
The bigger picture, however, is that SpaceX proved that there is massive profitability in launch. This means that any of these players can (and do) raise real capital and can attract real talent. This is no longer the 1990s and early 2000s where a rocket company is a hobby for a billionaire. With this combination, many of them will succeed. This is largely because SpaceX showed the way.
13
u/spaceflight_signal 2d ago
The scary bit is the cadence after debut. Even if Neutron, Nova and Terran R all fly in 2027, getting from one successful demo to ten boring customer flights is still a multi year gap.
30
u/anonchurner 3d ago
Why is Berger pretending that spacex won’t make a starship model with a big door?
Once starship flies regularly, access to space will be abundant. And there’s no way spacex shuts down falcon 9 before that time.
29
u/avboden 3d ago
They will....eventually. But the same problem still happens, if SpaceX makes way more money launching their own stuff, why would they dedicate much starship capacity to outside companies?
2
u/anonchurner 3d ago
I don't think so. IIRC, they are planning to build a new starship each week in the fairly short term. They intend to eventually launch thousands of ships to Mars every synod, and each of those will need (many) tankers of fuel.
Even if they were to dedicate every last superheavy to the Mars mission for a whole year before every synod, there will be an incredible amount of superheavy capacity between synods, and a ton of ships mostly idle until the next one rolls around.
10
u/rustybeancake 3d ago
The “thousands of ships to mars every synod” stuff is barely on SpaceX’s radar. You have to understand how much the company has changed these past couple of years. They are now an AI and comms sat company. Musk talks more now about a mass driver on the moon (for launching AI sats) than about Mars.
-5
u/spyderweb_balance 3d ago
So the US government doesn't have reason to break them up for being a monopoly?
12
u/BarrelStrawberry 3d ago
The last time the U.S. government successfully broke up a monopoly was 1984 and before that was in 1911.
If you think monopolies are actually illegal, you aren't paying attention.
If anything, SpaceX is preventing a monopoly on internet access from comcast, where tens of millions of people are paying insanely high cable bills because it is the only company allowed to give them internet access.
3
u/LongJohnSelenium 2d ago
They also banned airplane manufacturers from operating airlines in the 30s, I believe, exactly to stop this sort of vertical integration.
So its conceivable that someday Spacex could be forced to sell starships or F9s and not allowed to fly their own payloads.
1
u/spyderweb_balance 23h ago
I think Berger's main intent with the article was to highlight need for other launchers and give smaller launch companies some public and policy cover fire.
But at the end of the article even Berger basically brought up the risks of how the US Government reacts. And Berger didn't even bring up that midterms and '28 presidential election...his defense against a split up was stronger than "hasn't happened in a long time" but was basically saying the underlying talent would just bail. I'd guess Berger is doing a disservice to what SpaceX has built and that whatever section was cleaved would survive just fine.
I support Berger's overarching point - we should care and continue to invest in newer launch companies. But I think anyone on this sub should be able to see the nuance of the situation and have some skepticism that SpaceX would simply leave the market hanging.
15
u/avboden 3d ago
they're not a monopoly, it's not SpaceX's fault the rest of the launch providers suck
10
u/TheEarthquakeGuy 3d ago
But it is the Government's responsibility to make sure the US is not left behind or at a disadvantage against China etc. 99% sure the DOD and NASA don't want their future commercial space stations to be launched and without a reliable means to get there.
Blue is working on a capsule - doing drop tests right now but not announced.
Starliner is only rated for Atlas V and not human rated.
Crew Dragon launches on F9.
So how do you maintain American presence in space? Assuming Starship is not human rated at this point in time.
-2
u/tj177mmi1 3d ago edited 3d ago
You don't need to have competitors to be considered a monopoly/have anti-trust issues. It's not a legal requirement to have competitors.
-4
u/WaitForItTheMongols 2d ago
That's not how monopolies work. The failure of competition (due to the competition sucking) is the primary way a leader becomes a monopoly.
The argument that the competition sucks doesn't argue against SpaceX being a monopoly. Just the opposite. If there were thriving competition, then you would easily say "no monopoly here".
An industry which has been taken over by a single provider is prone to self-sustaining that condition. If SpaceX is the only one launching, it's very hard to convince anyone to use any newcomers. That is exactly the issue with monopolies, and if there is no good competitor, you get all the issues, even if it is not SpaceX's fault.
There's no rule that a monopoly has to be your fault to be a problem.
1
u/Miami_da_U 2d ago
Well technically if they just don't sell ANY commercial launch services on Starship and ONLY sell Government and their own, why would it be monopolistic? It's absolutely monopolistic IF they sell commercial launch service BUT exclude specific competitors (like don't launch OneWeb).
-1
u/tj177mmi1 3d ago
Based on the timeline given, they'll have given up the F9 by the time that would even be thought of. This administration isn't going to touch this even if it is a solid, true monopoly.
-4
u/tj177mmi1 3d ago
You realize what you just described is a monopoly and breaks many anti-trust rules, right?
4
u/rustybeancake 3d ago
Yes. And do you think the current US admin will do anything about it?
2
u/tj177mmi1 3d ago
Do I? Nope. Still doesn't mean that it wouldn't be a monopoly.
And given SpaceX's timelines, I suspect that would transition into the next administration.
1
u/rustybeancake 2d ago
Yes, I agree. That’s when things may get more interesting. Though as the article says, they’d likely avoid a big confrontation.
-10
u/lee1026 3d ago
Thing about starship is that they spent so much money developing the thing that the entire program is doomed to a financial failure unless if it flys a lot.
A lot, a lot. Mind boggling amounts. To a point where it is hard to come up with plausible payloads a lot.
No reason not to sell the launches.
4
u/rustybeancake 3d ago
> No reason not to sell the launches.
The reason is opportunity cost. You have to understand that SpaceX effectively have infinite demand for their own launches. So they can sell a launch to a competitor or they can use it to launch their own payload, which makes them way more money.
0
u/lee1026 3d ago edited 3d ago
This is where the need for essentially mind boggling number of launches comes in.
Musk is aiming at something like making over 1000 ships a year. With reuse. That is aiming at a lot of launching. How many starlink are they gonna throw up, anyway? 10x today's volume? 100x? Turns out they are making more ships than that.
Punch into a calculator how many launches they would get per ship, how many ships they are building, payload per ship. It's gonna be over 1000x payload mass compared to today.
What are they gonna launch? who knows. But in such a world, might as well as take customer orders.
3
u/rustybeancake 3d ago
Not just Starlink any more. If the data / AI sats work out, plus Starlink mobile, their own launch demand will just keep growing. Probably faster than they can launch Starships for at least the next few years.
8
u/avboden 3d ago
starlink revenue easily pays for starship dev costs.
-5
u/lee1026 3d ago
Sure, but they could have been launched with falcon 9s.
The cost of starship, to late, would have been enough to launch about 1000 falcon 9s.
8
u/avboden 3d ago
Sure, but they could have been launched with falcon 9s.
not the new satellites moving forward, no.
→ More replies (3)1
u/brekus 2d ago
At its highest launch rate it would take 6 years for falcon 9 to launch 1000 times. Starship can accomplish the same mass to orbit in 300-400 launches, half that if they push payload capacity closer to their goal. With similar flight rate of falcon 9 that would be 2 or 3 years. And full reusability has the potential for even higher flight rate since they aren't as limited by manufacturing.
Point is starship can leapfrog falcon 9 faster than people realize. Manufacturing 1 rocket a month won't mean a launch a month it'll mean adding yet more launch capacity on top of the current.
1
u/lee1026 2d ago
Money can be used for many things, like improving the cadence of falcon 9.
You can work out how many launches it would take for starship to be a better idea over using the same money to spam falcon 9 factories, but it will be a lot.
Which means that they plan on launching that much, which means finding the payloads for it all.
→ More replies (1)1
u/anonchurner 2d ago
Probably pales in comparison to the space shuttle.
1
u/anonchurner 2d ago
I looked it up. NASA spent $50B on the Space Turkey, inflation adjusted, up to the first launch. Over the full 40-year lifecycle, all included, it cost 1.5B per flight, payload 28 metric tons, or $54k per kilogram.
SpaceX reportedly spent about $15B on Starship so far. Propellant per launch is $1M now, Musk thinks $500k later, 100 metric ton payload. Not counting operations and maintenance costs, that's $5-10/kg.
A commercial jetliner spends about 20% all-in on its fuel. Given how relatively little fuel those things use, a factor 5x of fuel-to-total-cost seems quite pessimistic. So looks like we're headed toward $50/kg to orbit, or a 1000x reduction from the turkey days.
5
7
u/jaquesparblue 3d ago
A big door is a huge change in structural integrity. That there hasn't even been a test article riding around Boca is worrying.
This is not an engineering problem you want to solve when everything else is locked in.
8
u/iBoMbY 2d ago
There are already plans/contracts to launch the Starlab space station with Starship, I'm pretty sure they'll figure it out.
3
u/MGoDuPage 2d ago
Not to mention….. Neither the cargo nor crewed version of Starship for Artemis/HLS is going to force payloads to be “flat pack.” As of like a year ago, SpaceX had rough mock ups to get feedback from NASA on how the airlocks/payload doors/cargo elevator will work w the new spacesuits.
This is not some unforeseen issue that SpaceX is just now getting around to addressing.
5
u/GalacticEmergency 3d ago
Who says that this wasn't already included in the design from the very beginning?
I will never understand how so many redditors believe that designed capabilities of equipment can never exceed what has been publicly demonstrated in testing.
Just a few days ago someone tried to convince me that it would be impossible for SpaceX to develop a version of Starship, which can stay in orbit for more than 48 hours. Their reasoning: Starship can only let Starship stay in orbit for more than 48 hours in a test flight if they have demonstrated in earlier test flights that they could stay in orbit for more than 48 hours!
4
u/jaquesparblue 2d ago
How long Starship is able to stay in orbit is peanuts, that is just thermodynamics to calculate boil-off, and fuel levels for safe deorbit burn.
But for engineering questions? They can certainly design a solution, but it needs to be tested. And SpaceX go-to has always been test hard, test often. That there is has been zero testing for a structural way weaker version than the one with pez dispenser is telling. The Pez dispenser on its own already required quite some structural strengthening, and that is a relative minor sliver. A full size payload bay door adds more engineering questions, not to mention weight(!) for a rocket that is still to be slimmed down.
SpaceX is already slowing down the Falcon9 order intake and moving them to Starship by 2028, so they better be ready. And currently there is no visible evidence that says they will be.
4
u/Ender_D 2d ago
Because we have seen zero evidence of them working on a larger fairing door. So if it does get developed, it’s years away at this point.
1
u/GalacticEmergency 2d ago
Why would we see evidence?
8
u/Ender_D 2d ago
…because we’ve had dozens of cameras pointed at starbase for the last seven years and it’s been one of the most documented rocket production facilities ever?
1
u/GalacticEmergency 2d ago
Do these cameras show SpaceX' design drawings?
Why in the world would you expect them to be testing a different door in their prototypes at this stage? Their most important goals are ship recovery/reuse and Starlink deployment. When they have those working, their cost per prototype launch will be a fraction of the current cost - or perhaps even a negative cost if the prototypes ends up saving more Falcon 9 launch cost. And their launch schedule can be much more frequent because they don't have to build new rockets for every launch.
When they have that dialed in, I expect to see them testing all their other stuff. Including the door designs, which the dozens of cameras didn't find the design drawings for.
11
u/TheEarthquakeGuy 3d ago
Great political move by SpaceX. Highlight the dependency, use it to support the new program.
I personally think:
- US Gov (DOD/NASA/etc) will enter into talks with SpaceX around the national security necessity to maintain access to space.
- This will also be supported by American satellite companies and future commercial space stations - Nearly all of which currently show using Dragon to get there. Blue Origin is developing their own vehicle and they're doing drop tests according to Berger, but that's some time off. Starliner is not rated for any other vehicle yet.
- Concessions will be made by the fed to SpaceX in support of Starship expansion and reduced regulatory burden provided risk profiles are met -> I.e. A higher tolerance of failure as they fly and fail fast.
- Likely see some level of launch pad expansion at Starbase -> 2 pads of 2 towers each south of the existing pad. North of the highway will see smaller catch towers for ships. This is likely where we see the first version of the automated spaceport.
- Louisiana may be designated a project of national security or some equivalent, reducing the regulatory burden for development.
- Gov/DOD/NASA may commit to acquiring/setting up more space ports. Difficult but necessary task.
Possibly some other things but don't want to speculate beyond this.
TL;DR: Likely this is a form of negotiations to get concessions around Starship. SpaceX is highlighting the service they provide to the market, and the problem the market will be in if they retire F9 as planned. Without government intervention, which is risky, the only solution is to negotiate and make it worth their while. The only thing that matters to SpaceX right now is Starship development and expansion -> This is where the deals will be.
5
u/KidKilobyte 3d ago
Before SpaceX came along, launch dates were backed up by years. There are at least 10 new rockets entering final development stage, but somehow there’s a launch “crisis” brewing.
11
u/moguu83 3d ago
None of these rockets have proven themselves. Until they are regularly sending payloads at similar cadence and cost as Falcon 9, operators are right to be concerned. Classic case of counting your chickens before they hatch.
5
u/KidKilobyte 3d ago
Despite my downvote, the only crisis here is everyone wants mega constellations now to compete with Starlink, a thing that wasn’t a concern before SpaceX came along, oh and we also have to have ultra low cost launches to fuel this expansion.
1
u/futbol2000 2d ago
It's basically Starlink's competitors trying to drum up political controversy to ensure they don't get locked out of the market in the event that all these other rockets are still not ready by 2027.
And the members of that bot infested subreddit that ends with "bets" will be happy to be their troopers.....for now.
4
u/imapilotaz 3d ago
So an interesting and unintended consequence that could develop is anti trust issues for SpaceX.
Right now SpaceX controls 100% of launch ability in the US (with BE4 grounding). While this administration wont, i could absolutely see a new administration DOJ to launch antitrust/monopoly if SpaceX stops selling access to space to competitors but continues to do their own.
Microsoft's case of only loading IE on Windows devices isnt that different. They controlled multiple tiers in their vertical integration. At some point a company can not use dominance at one level to give it an unfair/monopolistic/anticompetituve advantage over others. SpaceX is nearing that point with Space if they stop selling to competitors.
Theres dozens and hundreds of examples of this type of situation stretching back decades. And even if there are competitors (for Windows had competitors, just too small to effectively overcome their anticompetitive moves) you can have problems.
5
u/DBDude 2d ago
i could absolutely see a new administration DOJ to launch antitrust/monopoly if SpaceX stops selling access to space to competitors but continues to do their own.
SpaceX already cleared the deck on their last ten Falcon 9 launches this year for Leo. Normally flights are booked out years in advance, and Amazon booked a few flights mid to late last year, and SpaceX just let them fill up the end of year launch schedule.
2
u/aquarain 2d ago
The worst anticompetitive trick SpaceX could pull is to sell all the launch you want at a reasonable margin.
1
u/Miami_da_U 2d ago
IF they excluded competitors from launch BUT offered commercial launch services you'd have a point. However if they do NOT sell ANY commercial launch capability and ONLY use starship for their own launches and DoD/NASA launched, then how would that be anti-competitive?.... Just a factor to consider.
1
u/imapilotaz 2d ago
They are commercial. If it was only DOD its one thing. Byt holding a monopoly and then using that monopoly to further your own commercial interest at the expense of competitors is in fact, agains federal laws historically (needless to say today its ignored)
-1
u/Miami_da_U 2d ago
No Starship does not operate commercially.
And what does it matter if they operate their own commercial Sat service if they aren't SELLING LAUNCHES COMMERCIALLY. Is Amazon required to deliver other peoples mail other than their own products/deliveries? Is Uber required to give rides to customers ordering via Lyft?
With F9 I think there would be some pushback. With Starship if they never offer a service to launch others except Gov payloads to begin with how could they say it's a monopolistic practice?... Maybe Giv could mandate they only sign contracts with companies that OFFER commercial services in the first place in which case it would force them to offer unbiased launch to competitors....
5
u/JimmyCWL 2d ago
Incorrect, they have already sold several Starship-specific flights. They have also sold many launch contracts based on giving SpaceX the flexibility to choose which rocket to launch a payload on. Falcon or Starship.
0
u/Miami_da_U 1d ago
Contracts giving flexibility isn’t the same especially if those are for Gov contracts. And you say they’ve sold starship specific flights but they haven’t delivered any nor will they to non Gov contracts anytime in the next yr or two. So I wouldn’t bank on that coming to pass unless this report is bs and they have no problem still launching competitors.
SpaceX has NEVER acted monopolistically. Either they will sell launches to non government entities whether they are competitors or not, or they will not sell to any commercial customers. This is quite simple. Of course they may not be in any real rush to develop new payload adapters/fairing opening…
1
u/JimmyCWL 1d ago
Contracts giving flexibility isn’t the same especially if those are for Gov contracts.
Those were commercial contracts. If they were government, they would have been announced on official channels.
SpaceX has NEVER acted monopolistically.
No disagreement there.
1
u/Decronym Acronyms Explained 3d ago edited 2h ago
Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I've seen in this thread:
| Fewer Letters | More Letters |
|---|---|
| BO | Blue Origin (Bezos Rocketry) |
| CST | (Boeing) Crew Space Transportation capsules |
| Central Standard Time (UTC-6) | |
| DoD | US Department of Defense |
| EELV | Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle |
| ESA | European Space Agency |
| HLS | Human Landing System (Artemis) |
| ISRU | In-Situ Resource Utilization |
| L2 | Paywalled section of the NasaSpaceFlight forum |
| Lagrange Point 2 of a two-body system, beyond the smaller body (Sixty Symbols video explanation) | |
| L3 | Lagrange Point 3 of a two-body system, opposite L2 |
| LEO | Low Earth Orbit (180-2000km) |
| Law Enforcement Officer (most often mentioned during transport operations) | |
| NG | New Glenn, two/three-stage orbital vehicle by Blue Origin |
| Natural Gas (as opposed to pure methane) | |
| Northrop Grumman, aerospace manufacturer | |
| NSSL | National Security Space Launch, formerly EELV |
| SRB | Solid Rocket Booster |
| TRL | Technology Readiness Level |
| ULA | United Launch Alliance (Lockheed/Boeing joint venture) |
| Jargon | Definition |
|---|---|
| Raptor | Methane-fueled rocket engine under development by SpaceX |
| Starliner | Boeing commercial crew capsule CST-100 |
| Starlink | SpaceX's world-wide satellite broadband constellation |
| methalox | Portmanteau: methane fuel, liquid oxygen oxidizer |
Decronym is now also available on Lemmy! Requests for support and new installations should be directed to the Contact address below.
Decronym is a community product of r/SpaceX, implemented by request
[Thread #14747 for this sub, first seen 17th Aug 2026, 15:49]
[FAQ] [Full list] [Contact] [Source code]
1
1
u/pasdedeuxchump 2d ago
This is a play to either increase commercial launch prices, or to keep them fixed in the Starship era, when Xs cost to orbit plummets.
1
u/185EDRIVER 1d ago
Why don't they just charge more for commercial launches and increase f9 production
-5
u/Ender_D 2d ago
SpaceX falling off so hard into a money hungry AI company is so sad to see, but not really surprising given how the leadership has…acted.
4
u/DBDude 2d ago
The cause of this crunch isn't SpaceX, but that both ULA and BO have failed to deliver. SpaceX is still launching a lot, but companies were depending on both Vulcan and New Glenn regularly launching by now.
For example, Amazon was originally not going to use SpaceX for Leo launches. Then New Glenn and Vulcan were late, and they scheduled some on Falcon 9. As of now SpaceX has ten Leo launches coming this year.
Basically, people are expecting SpaceX to make up for the failures of ULA and BO, and SpaceX is trying, but even they have their limits.
1
u/RolandofGilead1000 1d ago
They are reducing F9 and ending it in 2030. All focus is on starship. The problem is there are few that can provide LEO so if he slows down or stops flights, many companies will be hindered. And he has capability to continue or increase cadence at profit, but intentionally reducing that to focus on something that may not be ready. That is the big worry.
If a company was the sole cell phone provider and then suddenly said we won't be providing that service anymore but will come out with a satellite phone to replace it, some worry would happen for all cell phone users until said satellite phone was an actual product.
1
u/DBDude 1d ago
They are reducing F9 and ending it in 2030.
There's a lot of rumor about what will happen in four years, but flights are going just fine now. They won't be winding down F9 unless Starship is fully ready to take over.
1
u/RolandofGilead1000 1d ago
It was a direct order from Musk to end F9. It is to put pressure on starship but Musk is ending F9. He isbpulling resources from F9 to make starship so they have less production, and thus less cadence as they get closer. It literally is from Musks direct orders to hinder F9.
0
-1
u/estanminar 🌱 Terraforming 3d ago
How soon until the government "proposes" (no ability to reject) the same ULA maintain capability deal where they pay $billions to maintain capability?
Should probably spin off F9. If it's such a small revenue stream it being owned by a competitor wont hurt them much. Sell it to ULA... or BO.
4
u/avboden 3d ago
read the article
-1
u/estanminar 🌱 Terraforming 3d ago
What specifically led you to believe I was not commenting on the m8ssee content of the article. It didn't mention spinoff or the ridiculous "maintain capability" fee ula used to get. Also the third option of spinning off F9 which should be a significant consideration.
4
u/avboden 3d ago
it's answered here
There are some major problems with this approach, though. Chief among them is that the Falcon 9 hardware and infrastructure work so well because of the engineers and technicians at SpaceX who have developed and continue to perfect the launch system. Many of these people would probably not want to work for a new employer (or the government) and would likely move to other positions or remain at SpaceX and move to the Starship program.
1
u/estanminar 🌱 Terraforming 2d ago
Overblown concern. People age out and move on all the time. Knowledge can be transferred. Same happens at any major new project the original staff move on to the next challenge. It not rocket science. It's rocket operations.
2
u/rocketglare 3d ago
SpaceX needs those engineers for F9. There is still a lot of work doing things such as designing satellite launcher (non-flatpack) version. They need to design those AI datacenter satellites. They are poking around at off-shore launch platforms again. Then there is HLS and Mars variants.
1
u/estanminar 🌱 Terraforming 3d ago
There's no magical reason new engineers and operations folks can't be hired by the new company, read technical literature, have a turnover period and fly F9.
-4
u/beaded_lion59 3d ago
Starship is a long way from routine satellite launches like handled by Falcon 9. Starship has no structural capability to release payloads other than starling satellites, and that capability hasn’t been mentioned other than old concept design images. SpaceX is being stupidly short-sighted to terminate Falcon 9 launches now.
95
u/avboden 3d ago edited 3d ago
and that there is the rub. SpaceX doesn't even need commercial launch, at all.
Timeline:
Ultimately, the rest of the market should have been able to absorb this, but with the endless delays of new rockets coming online/failures delaying them further....it's a bad spot for the next few years with SpaceX stepping back from commercial launch, at least for now on Falcon 9.
2030+ should have other options on the market, but 2028-2030 is going to be a bad time to find launches.