SpaceX’s megarocket is on the verge of paradigm-shifting success. It’s spurring a ‘crisis’

The most powerful rocket ever made, SpaceX’s Starship, reached orbit for the first time on Monday, deploying operational Starlink satellites in an unprecedented step forward. The mission marked the beginning of a new era — and possibly the beginning of the end of another.

As Starship flights ramp up, SpaceX has made clear that the company will phase out the use of two of its most iconic creations: the Dragon spacecraft, which ferries astronauts and cargo to and from the International Space Station, and the Falcon 9 rocket, which for a decade has dominated the global launch market.

These vehicles not only revolutionized the space industry in their own way, they’re also still very much essential to ongoing work in Earth orbit, without clear backup options in place. The prospect of this loss is already spurring panic among some satellite operators, said Caleb Henry, director of research at analytics firm Quilty Space.

“For small satellite operators, which tend to be more entrepreneurial, this crisis has been percolating for about six months at least,” Henry said. “In order to raise money, startups need to show they have a viable path to orbit. They have to move quickly.”

SpaceX’s Falcon 9 has for years offered a crucial route for getting satellites to space. Losing the rocket could slow down development of new technologies, such as direct-to-cellular connectivity — which promises to eliminate dead zones — and space-based data centers for AI computing, Henry said.

It could also drive up the price of getting certain spacecraft to orbit as well as worsen a looming launch bottleneck. That might make it more difficult for some companies to get their ideas — quite literally — off the ground.

Commercial satellite operators are already clambering to claim space on Falcon 9s as the final sales are made. Henry said he expects that most of the remaining space on board Falcon 9 rockets has already been sold and — beyond early 2029 — such flights may be reserved solely for the US government.

Even NASA, which currently counts the Dragon capsule as the only US-made spacecraft capable of getting its astronauts to and from the ISS, has also acknowledged the looming retirement of SpaceX’s workhorse vehicles.

“I do not think it’s a secret that SpaceX intends to sunset older platforms like Falcon and Dragon as they concentrate on their next generation capability, Starship,” Isaacman said Monday.

Despite the success of Falcon and Dragon, a peek at SpaceX’s business book may hint at financial reasons for retiring the vehicles. In its first quarterly earnings report , SpaceX revealed its space segment — which includes Falcon, Dragon and Starship — lost $542 million. By comparison, its Starlink internet and connectivity business made nearly $1.7 billion.

Starship is expected to continue to cost SpaceX untold millions as it moves out of the prototyping phase. But one reason SpaceX is willing to bet big on Starship is that it’s simply “much better” for achieving the company’s own long-term goals, said SpaceX president Gwynne Shotwell at a recent conference . So it makes sense to shift resources toward the megarocket’s future.

Focusing on Starship is also about ensuring SpaceX stays on the bleeding edge of rocket development, she added: “If we don’t obsolete our own products and services, someone’s going to find a way to obsolete them for us.”

For the rest of the industry, that could put the onus on an array of nascent technologies, from unproven launch vehicles to a troubled astronaut spacecraft under development by Boeing that previously malfunctioned with two NASA astronauts aboard.

SpaceX has been a changemaker in the business of launching commercial satellites for a decade now.

But it’s a long-running myth in the industry that SpaceX and the Falcon 9 have driven down the price of launching satellites to orbit, according to a source familiar with customer negotiations, speaking anonymously to discuss sensitive industry developments.

It’s true that “SpaceX’s internal costs are dropping,” the source said. But “the market price of launch has been increasing for the past 10 years.”

Currently it costs about $7,500 to $10,000 per kilogram for a ride to orbit, the source said, which is slightly higher than it was a decade ago. (Robert Sproles, the CEO of launch broker and integration services company Exolaunch, said that figure may even be a bit low, depending on how one calculates launch costs.)

Still, the Falcon 9 has provided immense value to the commercial space industry, in part because it launches far more frequently than anything else.

SpaceX’s Falcon rockets launched 77 times in the first six months of 2026, according to regulatory filings — more than double the number of flights logged by China’s family of Long March rockets, which are the second-busiest launchers on the planet.

The vast majority of those Falcon flights have been dedicated to launching SpaceX’s own Starlink satellites. But 17 of them were for customers, including commercial satellite operators, research institutions and the US government.

One key pathway to orbit has been SpaceX’s rideshare, or “Transporter,” missions, which have allowed various satellite operators to pay to fill slots alongside other customers onboard a Falcon 9 flight.

When flights such as those disappear, it’s likely to worsen a launch bottleneck that has already been looming over the industry as demand for getting satellites to orbit has rapidly outpaced supply of available rides.

This rocket supply crunch has been looming since 2022, when Russia invaded Ukraine — which immediately removed Russia’s Soyuz and Proton rockets from the commercial market, Henry noted.

On top of that, Amazon — which is deploying a space-based internet constellation to rival SpaceX’s Starlink — stepped in to buy more than 100 launches from various rocket makers.

“That’s one company that vacuumed up a massive amount of available supply,” Henry said.

Now, losing the Falcon 9 as a way to orbit is expected to exacerbate the issue: “It’s been a rough ride for folks that are trying to get to orbit,” Henry said, “and it’s not like this is the first aftershock — but it is the most severe.”

Mario Tama/Getty Images

Though some satellite manufacturers are hopeful that space onboard future Starship launches will be offered to satellite operators, it’s not clear when or if that will happen.

The looming launch bottleneck could impact young startups disproportionately to older, more established satellite operators.

For example, US-based company Spire, which operates a constellation of more than 100 tiny satellites that can monitor weather and track supply chains, has been launching hardware for more than a decade.

The company’s CEO, Theresa Condor, told CNN that the company plans “years ahead to maintain a regular cadence, replenish and upgrade our constellation” and has its launch schedule locked down through at least 2028.

Condor said that Spire is not concerned about finding rides to orbit, and her confidence is indicative of Spire’s long history in the launch industry and past experience weathering a rapidly shifting market.

Sproles, the Exolaunch CEO, also told CNN that companies that have been in the space industry a while know that what’s coming is actually a return to the former status quo.

“If we rewind the clock 10 years ago, it was normal to book a launch two years, three years out in the future — and, unfortunately, it was also normal for that launch to be delayed by 18 months or so,” Sproles said.

That may be the future the satellite industry is headed toward.

It is possible that a launch supply crunch could be averted, noted Micah Walter-Range, a space analyst and contributor to the VettaFi Space Index. But satellite operators may be wary because newer rockets that have for years promised to step up to compete with the Falcon 9 have not yet begun flying with any regularity.

“The space industry hates uncertainty, particularly when it comes to planning of launches,” Walter-Range said.

While the US is home to a handful of rocket manufacturers — including Rocket Lab, Firefly Aerospace, the Jeff Bezos-founded company Blue Origin, and United Launch Alliance — those companies have not yet reached the scale or launch cadence that the industry is demanding.

And while a host of other rockets are under development in the US, by companies including Firefly, Relativity and Stoke Space, it’s not clear when those vehicles will actually start flying — or how successful they’ll be.

Newly developed rockets frequently suffer explosive setbacks. Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket, for example, recently exploded on the launchpad. And the new Vulcan Centaur rockets from United Launch Alliance have been grounded because of performance issues.

“If both of those rocket programs were going smoothly, I think the industry would be more relaxed,” Walter-Range said. “But they’re not.”

A longtime SpaceX customer, Finland-based Iceye — which has launched its radar imaging satellites aboard Falcon 9 rockets on more than a dozen occasions — may be turning to Europe for its launch needs. The company recently inked a tentative deal with France-based rocket maker Arianespace to consider future launch contracts.

Iceye chief operating officer Eric Jensen told CNN in a recent interview that the company has been planning for the Falcon 9’s retirement for some time.

“We’ve taken proactive steps long in advance of this conversation,” Jensen said, “and will continue to be in discussions with various launch providers.”

Condor, the Spire CEO, echoed that sentiment, saying Spire is constantly looking for launch opportunities in the US and abroad.

“We assess each option based on readiness, reliability, schedule, deployment capabilities and access to the orbits our satellites need,” she said.

Still, there’s a rocket-sized elephant in the room: “Prices are going up, and I expect they will continue to go up,” Sproles said.

As far as human spaceflight goes, SpaceX has been narrowly focused on retrofitting Starship for a multibillion-dollar NASA contact to ferry government astronauts to the moon amid a space race with China.

It’s not clear whether Starship could be used to take over any of the duties of SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft.

The vehicles are drastically different. While the Starship spacecraft is a 171-foot-tall colossus designed to transport people to deep space, Dragon is a 13-foot-wide capsule fit to carry about four astronauts at a time to low-Earth orbit, where the International Space Station resides.

The ISS is slated for retirement as soon as 2030. But even after it’s decommissioned, NASA intends to work with private companies to deploy new, commercially operated stations to ensure that the US still has laboratories in low-Earth orbit where crucial research can be carried out. (China also operates a state-of-the-art space station, spurring some industry experts to deem it a national security imperative that the US continues to operate a laboratory in this area of orbit.)

These future space stations will need spacecraft to ferry people to them. Shotwell has previously said that she expects Dragon will cease operations sometime in the 2030s.

Without SpaceX’s Dragon, the only option for getting people to and from those orbital outposts could be Boeing’s Starliner — a spacecraft that was developed under the same NASA program as Crew Dragon.

But Starliner famously malfunctioned on its debut crewed flight test. The ordeal left two NASA astronauts, Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore, living and working in space months longer than expected. The agency recently classified the event as a “ Type A mishap ,” in league with space shuttle disasters that cost astronauts their lives.

It’s a precarious situation given that it’s still unclear when, exactly, Starliner may fly with crew again. During a news conference Monday, NASA officials said that if an uncrewed test flight of the vehicle goes well in December, the earliest Starliner could fly with astronauts is mid-2028.

Spencer Platt/Getty Images

But when asked about the prospect of retiring SpaceX’s Dragon capsules, SpaceX president and chief operating officer Gwynne Shotwell was blunt: “Boeing has been paid — I think probably more than we have been paid — to develop their human capsule,” Shotwell said at the All-In Summit earlier this month.

SpaceX has been awarded $5.92 billion in NASA contracts for 17 flights, while Boeing was given $4.82 billion with a mandatory order for four flights. On Monday, NASA said it was giving Boeing additional funds for fixing Starliner.

“We’re just going to let them have some business,” Shotwell said of Boeing.

Her remark elicited laughter and an acknowledgement from the interviewer that she was being slightly snarky.

But Shotwell struck a serious tone when she laid out the reasons why SpaceX would want to shift resources away from its Dragon program and toward Starship.

Not only will Starship deploy upgraded internet satellites and SpaceX’s planned orbital data centers, Shotwell noted, the vehicle is also the cornerstone of SpaceX’s founding goal — as dictated by Musk over the course of two decades — which is to establish a self-sustaining colony on Mars.

“A Falcon 9 with a Dragon capsule on top is like a minivan,” Shotwell said. “The road trip to Mars is six months, so you don’t want to be in a minivan.”

周一，SpaceX公司的星舰火箭——有史以来最强大的火箭——首次成功入轨，部署了正在运行的星链卫星，这标志着太空探索向前迈出了前所未有的一步。此次任务标志着一个新时代的开始，也可能预示着另一个时代的终结。

随着星舰飞行次数的增加，SpaceX 已明确表示，该公司将逐步淘汰其两项最具标志性的产品：一是往返国际空间站运送宇航员和货物的龙飞船，二是十年来一直主导全球发射市场的猎鹰 9 号火箭。

这些航天器不仅以其独特的方式革新了航天工业，而且在目前尚无明确的备用方案的情况下，它们对于地球轨道上的持续运行仍然至关重要。分析公司Quilty Space的研究主管卡莱布·亨利表示，这种损失的可能性已经引发了一些卫星运营商的恐慌。

亨利说：“对于规模较小、更具创业精神的卫星运营商来说，这场危机至少已经酝酿了六个月之久。为了筹集资金，初创公司需要证明他们有切实可行的轨道发射方案。他们必须迅速行动。”

亨利表示，SpaceX的猎鹰9号火箭多年来一直是向太空发射卫星的关键途径。失去这枚火箭可能会减缓新技术的发展，例如有望消除信号盲区的直接蜂窝网络连接，以及用于人工智能计算的太空数据中心。

这也可能推高某些航天器入轨的成本，并加剧即将出现的发射瓶颈。这可能会使一些公司更难将其创意——字面意义上的——付诸实践。

随着猎鹰9号火箭最终售罄，商业卫星运营商已经开始争相预定运载空间。亨利表示，他预计猎鹰9号火箭剩余的大部分运载空间已被售出，而且从2029年初开始，此类飞行任务可能将仅供美国政府使用。

即使是目前将“龙”飞船视为唯一能够将宇航员送往国际空间站和从国际空间站送回的美国制造航天器的美国国家航空航天局（NASA），也承认了SpaceX的主力飞行器即将退役。

“SpaceX 打算逐步淘汰像猎鹰和龙飞船这样的老旧平台，转而专注于下一代能力——星舰，这应该不是什么秘密，”艾萨克曼周一表示。

尽管猎鹰和龙飞船取得了成功，但SpaceX的财务报表或许揭示了其退役这两款飞船的财务原因。在首份季度财报中，SpaceX披露其航天业务（包括猎鹰、龙飞船和星舰）亏损5.42亿美元。相比之下，其星链互联网和连接业务盈利近17亿美元。

星舰项目预计在走出原型阶段后，仍将耗费SpaceX数百万美元。但SpaceX总裁格温·肖特韦尔在最近的一次会议上表示，SpaceX愿意在星舰项目上投入巨资的原因之一是，它更有利于实现公司的长期目标。因此，将资源转移到这款巨型火箭的未来发展上是合情合理的。

她补充说，专注于星舰项目也是为了确保 SpaceX 始终处于火箭研发的最前沿：“如果我们不让自己的产品和服务过时，别人就会找到办法让我们的产品和服务过时。”

对于其他行业而言，这可能会将责任推给一系列新兴技术，从未经证实的运载火箭到波音公司正在开发的、此前曾发生故障并搭载两名美国宇航局宇航员的载人飞船。

十年来，SpaceX一直是商业卫星发射领域的变革者。

但据一位熟悉客户谈判的消息人士透露，业内长期以来一直存在一个误解，认为 SpaceX 和猎鹰 9 号火箭降低了卫星发射入轨的价格。这位消息人士匿名透露了这一信息，因为他涉及敏感的行业动态。

消息人士称，“SpaceX的内部成本确实在下降”，但“过去10年来，发射的市场价格一直在上涨”。

消息人士称，目前将物体送入轨道的成本约为每公斤7500至10000美元，略高于十年前。（发射经纪和集成服务公司Exolaunch的首席执行官罗伯特·斯普罗尔斯表示，这个数字可能还偏低，具体取决于发射成本的计算方式。）

尽管如此，猎鹰 9 号仍然为商业航天工业带来了巨大的价值，部分原因是它的发射频率远高于其他任何航天器。

根据监管文件显示，SpaceX 的猎鹰火箭在 2026 年上半年发射了 77 次，是中国长征系列火箭发射次数的两倍多，而长征系列火箭是地球上第二繁忙的运载火箭。

绝大多数猎鹰火箭的发射任务都用于发射SpaceX公司自己的星链卫星。但其中17次是为客户执行的任务，包括商业卫星运营商、研究机构和美国政府。

进入轨道的一个关键途径是 SpaceX 的拼车或“运输”任务，该任务允许各种卫星运营商付费与其他客户一起搭乘猎鹰 9 号火箭。

当这类航班消失时，可能会加剧本已笼罩该行业的发射瓶颈问题，因为将卫星送入轨道的需求已经迅速超过了可用运载能力的供应。

亨利指出，自 2022 年俄罗斯入侵乌克兰以来，火箭供应短缺的问题就一直存在——当时俄罗斯的联盟号和质子号火箭立即退出了商业市场。

除此之外，亚马逊——该公司正在部署一个基于太空的互联网星座来与 SpaceX 的星链竞争——也介入其中，从各个火箭制造商那里购买了 100 多次发射服务。

亨利说：“那家公司吸纳了大量的可用供应量。”

现在，失去猎鹰 9 号火箭作为进入轨道的途径，预计将加剧这个问题：“对于那些试图进入轨道的人来说，这真是一段艰难的旅程，”亨利说，“这不像是第一次余震——但却是最严重的一次。”

Mario Tama/Getty Images

虽然一些卫星制造商希望未来星舰发射的太空舱能够提供给卫星运营商，但目前还不清楚这种情况何时会发生，甚至是否会发生。

即将到来的发射瓶颈可能会对年轻的创业公司造成比老牌、更成熟的卫星运营商更大的影响。

例如，总部位于美国的 Spire 公司运营着一个由 100 多颗小型卫星组成的星座，这些卫星可以监测天气和跟踪供应链，该公司已经发射硬件超过十年了。

该公司首席执行官特蕾莎·康多尔告诉 CNN，该公司计划“在未来几年内保持规律的节奏，补充和升级我们的星座”，并且其发射计划至少已经锁定到 2028 年。

康多尔表示，Spire 并不担心找不到进入轨道的飞船，她的自信表明 Spire 在发射行业拥有悠久的历史和应对快速变化的市场的经验。

Exolaunch 首席执行官 Sproles 也告诉 CNN，在太空行业经营一段时间的公司都知道，即​​将发生的事情实际上是回归到以前的状态。

“如果我们把时间倒回到 10 年前，提前两三年预订发射是很正常的——但不幸的是，发射推迟 18 个月左右也是很正常的，”斯普罗尔斯说。

这或许是卫星行业未来的发展方向。

VettaFi太空指数撰稿人、太空分析师米卡·沃尔特-兰格指出，发射物资短缺的情况或许可以避免。但卫星运营商可能仍会保持谨慎，因为多年来一直承诺能够与猎鹰9号竞争的新型火箭尚未开始稳定发射。

“航天工业最讨厌不确定性，尤其是在发射计划方面，”沃尔特-兰奇说。

虽然美国拥有一些火箭制造商——包括 Rocket Lab、Firefly Aerospace、杰夫·贝佐斯创立的 Blue Origin 和 United Launch Alliance——但这些公司尚未达到行业所要求的规模或发射频率。

虽然美国还有许多其他火箭正在研发中，包括萤火虫火箭、相对论火箭和斯托克斯航天公司等，但目前还不清楚这些火箭何时才能真正开始飞行，也不清楚它们会取得多大的成功。

新研制的火箭经常遭遇爆炸事故。例如，蓝色起源公司的“新格伦”火箭最近就在发射台上爆炸。而联合发射联盟的新型“火神半人马座”火箭也因性能问题而被停飞。

“如果这两个火箭项目进展顺利，我认为业界会更放松一些，”沃尔特-兰奇说。“但事实并非如此。”

作为SpaceX的长期客户，总部位于芬兰的Iceye公司曾十余次使用猎鹰9号火箭发射其雷达成像卫星，如今该公司可能将目光转向欧洲，寻求发射服务。Iceye近期与法国火箭制造商阿丽亚娜航天公司签署了一项初步协议，商讨未来的发射合同。

Iceye 首席运营官埃里克·詹森在最近接受 CNN 采访时表示，该公司已经为猎鹰 9 号火箭的退役计划筹备了一段时间。

“早在这次对话之前，我们就采取了积极主动的措施，”詹森说，“并将继续与各种发射服务提供商进行讨论。”

Spire 首席执行官 Condor 也表达了同样的看法，称 Spire 一直在美国和海外寻找产品上市的机会。

“我们会根据准备情况、可靠性、进度安排、部署能力以及进入卫星所需轨道的便利性来评估每个方案，”她说。

不过，还有一个显而易见的问题摆在眼前：“价格正在上涨，而且我预计价格还会继续上涨，”斯普罗尔斯说。

就载人航天而言，SpaceX 一直专注于对星舰进行改装，以完成 NASA 价值数十亿美元的合同，在与中国的太空竞赛中将政府宇航员送上月球。

目前还不清楚星舰是否能够取代SpaceX的龙飞船承担任何任务。

这两种飞船截然不同。星舰飞船是一个高达 171 英尺的庞然大物，旨在将人类送往深空；而龙飞船则是一个宽 13 英尺的太空舱，一次可搭载约四名宇航员前往近地轨道，国际空间站就位于该轨道上。

国际空间站计划最早于2030年退役。但即便退役后，NASA仍打算与私营公司合作，部署新的商业运营空间站，以确保美国在近地轨道上仍然拥有实验室，开展关键研究。（中国也运营着一座先进的空间站，这促使一些业内专家认为，美国继续在该轨道区域运营实验室是国家安全的当务之急。）

未来的空间站需要飞船运送宇航员。肖特韦尔此前曾表示，她预计“龙”飞船将在2030年代的某个时候停止运营。

如果没有 SpaceX 的“龙”飞船，将人员送往和送回这些轨道前哨站的唯一选择可能是波音公司的“星际客机”——这是一款与“载人龙”飞船同属 NASA 项目的航天器。

但众所周知，星际航线飞船在首次载人飞行测试中发生故障。这次事故导致两名美国宇航局宇航员苏尼·威廉姆斯和布奇·威尔莫尔在太空生活和工作的时间比预期延长了数月。美国宇航局最近将此次事件归类为“A类事故”，与那些夺去宇航员生命的航天飞机灾难类似。

鉴于目前尚不清楚“星际航线”飞船何时才能再次载人飞行，情况十分不明朗。美国宇航局官员在周一的新闻发布会上表示，如果12月份的无人试飞进展顺利，“星际航线”最早也要到2028年中期才能载人飞行。

Spencer Platt/Getty Images

但当被问及SpaceX的龙飞船退役的可能性时，SpaceX总裁兼首席运营官格温·肖特韦尔直言不讳：“波音公司已经获得了报酬——我认为可能比我们获得的报酬还要多——来开发他们的载人飞船，”肖特韦尔在本月初的All-In峰会上说道。

SpaceX已获得NASA价值59.2亿美元的17次飞行任务合同，而波音公司则获得价值48.2亿美元的强制性订单，负责4次飞行任务。周一，NASA表示将向波音公司追加资金，用于修复“星际航线”（Starliner）飞船。

“我们就让他们做点生意吧，”肖特韦尔谈到波音公司时说道。

她的话引来一阵笑声，采访者也承认她有点讽刺。

但肖特韦尔在阐述SpaceX为何要将资源从“龙”飞船计划转移到“星舰”计划的原因时，语气十分严肃。

肖特韦尔指出，星舰不仅将部署升级后的互联网卫星和 SpaceX 计划中的轨道数据中心，而且该飞行器还是 SpaceX 创始目标的基石——这是马斯克在过去二十年中提出的目标——即在火星上建立一个自给自足的殖民地。

肖特韦尔说：“一枚搭载龙飞船的猎鹰9号火箭就像一辆小型货车。前往火星的旅程需要六个月，所以你肯定不想坐在一辆小型货车里。”