Musk’s other unstated reasons for shutting down Falcon 9 in Florida
A Falcon 9 landing in 2025.
Earlier this week SpaceX announced that it was no longer going to do anymore Falcon 9 Starlink launches from Florida.
From here on, Starlink missions out of Florida will fly on Starship. The West Coast team will continue regularly launching Starlink from Vandenberg.
The decision did not end all Falcon 9 launches from Florida, as SpaceX still has several planned commercial launches there for other customers, such as two NASA Dragon missions, at least one Space Force launch, and at least two other commercial launches. However, the company has also apparently indicated to a wide range of small payload customers that it is no longer taking orders for its many-smallsat Transporter launches, and I suspect the same applies for its larger many-payload Bandwagon launches. In the space community these decisions have apparently caused panic (see here and here). We won’t be able to get our payloads in orbit! We don’t have enough rockets to make up the difference! How can SpaceX do this to us?
The decision to end Falcon 9 Starlink launches further underlines the panic. It appears SpaceX is starting the process to decommission Falcon 9 which will thus leave the burgeoning in-orbit payload business hanging.
I say poppycock! I also say that these decisions by SpaceX and Musk are not simple business decisions designed to help SpaceX. They are also designed to jump start the rest of the American rocket industry, which in turn will help the payload industry.
At the moment there are at least three American rocket companies — Relativity, Rocket Lab, Stoke Space — about to introduce new reusable rockets. In addition, we already have Blue Origin’s reusable New Glenn rocket, which though presently grounded is operational and will soon resume launches. In addition, Firefly is about to introduce one new rocket, Eclipse, and resume launches on a second, Alpha, while Northrop Grumman is about to do the same with its Antares rocket. There is also ULA’s Vulcan expendable rocket in the wings.
To say the U.S. rocket industry lacks rockets is absurd. While most of these rockets are not yet flying, they will be within a year, and by 2028 there will be a plethora of operatrional American launch companies to choose from.
Meanwhile, for years the main complaint about SpaceX has been its dominance, that its ability to undercut the price of everyone else meant startups with new reusable rockets were unable to get enough launch customers to make a go of it, while the more expensive expendables were cut out entirely.
Well, SpaceX’s decision to take the Falcon 9 mostly out of the East Coast launch business actually helps those new startups. It has cleared the field of their biggest competitor. All those small and large companies launching payloads of all kinds will now have to go to these new rockets. And since there are a bunch of these new rockets, the competition between them will be fierce, which not only demand they move fast to get operational, it will in turn continue the pressure to force launch prices down.
This in turn will help the payload industry. While there might be a gap before these new rockets begin regular launches, that gap will not be long, and afterward the benefits will be enormous, for everyone.
Elon Musk
I therefore honestly believe that SpaceX’s decision was not entirely based on its own internal needs. Those needs certainly were the main motive, but based on Elon Musk’s passionate dream of making the human race multi-planetary, as well as his repeated willingness to help his competitors when they needed SpaceX to launch their satellites, I believe he recognized that SpaceX’s dominance could be hurting the rest of the rocket industry, and that the instant it made business sense to clear the field for these competitors, he was quite willing to do so.
You see, he likes competition, and it has been obvious from day one that he wants other rocket companies to succeed. When faced with competition he won’t lie down and let other beat him, nor will he slow down to let others pass him by, but he has always appeared to believe that getting the human race to the stars can’t really be done by one company. It requires a host of new ideas and different approaches.
Musk I think welcomes this. And these recent Falcon 9 decisions underline this fact.
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Could this all be much ado about nothing?
As *I* read it, the announcement was the end of Falcon 9 launches for STARLINK from Florida, but not necessarily ALL Falcon 9 launches from Florida.
Given the information generally presented here at Behind the Black, the Starlink launches seem to be exclusively for Starlink payloads, without any non-Starlink payloads, so it’s not as if the loss of Starlink launches themselves represent an end to non-Starlink cargo being “along for the ride”.
Sometimes I think Musk is a time traveler from the future.
The headlong dive into the Generalized Artificial Intelligence black hole, led by Musk and other tech oligarchs does cause me increasing consternation.
Will biological humans with individual agency, individual freedom and prosperity, and individual souls have a future among the stars (or on Earth for that matter) ?
Or will AI and Humans 2.0 completely redefine the question?
There may be another reason to stop Falcon 9 Starlink flights out of the Cape: They are no longer needed.
Here’s how I get there. All numbers are order of magnitude. As of today, around 8,600 Starlink satellites have been launched out of the Cape via 260 F9 flights. The new V3 Starlink flat packs are about 20x the capacity of current Starlink. Starship can carry up to 60 of them/flight, or the equivalent of 1,200 older version Starlinks/launch. This means they can replace the current capacity with just over 7 Starship flights.
Boca Chica can replace the lower inclination satellites nicely, starting in a few weeks with IFT 14. Higher inclination Starlink launches will continue out of Vandy until they can figure out how to launch Starship to high inclination orbits, which may have to wait until they get a pad or two operational on Pecan Island. I have seen at least one place suggesting they can do sun synchronous orbits out of Louisiana out over the Gulf.
Of course, with Starship capability, they will quickly improve the capability of the entire constellation, so the numbers are not a 1:1 match.
Musk’s decision on Falcon 9 Starlink launches out of the Cape may be driven more by obsolecense than altruism. Happily, he gets both, as do the rest of us. Cheers –
Agimarc said
If that is so then Pecan Island in Louisiana makes utter sense. I wondered why spaceX would want more space than it had at Starbase and Cape Canaveral but this gives a good reason (in addition to the constant whining by environmental groups at Starbase). SpaceX’s orbiting data centers would really prefer constant power and as good as Tesla’s battery tech is they’re still heavy and I’m not sure that a power hungry data center can be fed with a combo of intermittent Solar Array and powerwall lite.
I understand that Elon/SpaceX REALLY want to move on to Starship and refine it further, but its not clear to me the reasons. Is flight 14 is enough to demonstrate that Starship is ready? It would be really nice to at least soft land the Starship in the Gulf and catch a Superheavy with the intention of reuse otherwise the #/Lb to orbit isn’t at the 2 orders of magnitude cost reduction SpaceX wants/ is banking on. And it seems they might be strapped for Starship Launches for a while as they march to testing on the lunar variant of Starship (Moonship?) particularly inflight refueling which is critical to the process. Perhaps Pecan Island becomes the commercial side of Starship and Starbase/Cape Canaveral focus on Moon/Mars? Elon Musk is nothing if not prone to look WAY out ahead in his plans.
I also wonder if Musk/SpaceX view the Falcon 9 as eating human and launch resources they really need to keep Starship/SuperHeavy from stalling?
If every Ship from now on is going to orbit, even if it’s not recovered, it might as well be used to deploy V3s. And if enough Ships are going to be launched (even prior to first re-use) that the number/capacity of V3s (vs. V2s) deployed is equal to or greater than would have been deployed by F9, then why bother launching V2s on F9? And once re-use *does* happen, F9 is obsolete for Starlink launch.
My big issue with this is the lack of launch availability on the new rockets. Most of the flights are booked up for years and the delays these companies are having getting to orbit is only making the list longer. Try buying a rideshare at the moment. It is pretty bleak for the smaller companies who need launches to prove out their systems. We need more launch capability than the companies can provide. Unfortunately the slowness of their launch cadence has investors wary of any startup that wants to get in the launch game (and therefore ease the bottleneck).
I suspect that SpaceX will offer ride shares on Starship eventually. They could launch most of the backlog in a single year.
Although I wholeheartedly agree with our host, Robert, that SpaceX is giving room for the small launchers and medium launchers to take this role, I am not yet convinced that the other companies will be up to speed by the end of 2028 or early 2029. I agree also with Joe that there is room for concern, but hopefully not panic. The demand for low-cost access to space is growing, especially for small satellites.
I suspect that if the other companies are not successful in ramping up service in time, then SpaceX will either relent for an occasional Transporter launch or will add one or two Transporter-like launches to its Starship manifest.
Alternatively, this may present an entrepreneurial opportunity for someone or some company to hire Falcons to create their own version of the Transporter missions. Would SpaceX be willing to sell rides that way?
And while we are almost on the topic, someone commenting here on BTB once compared Elon Musk with Henry Ford, and with this half-hour video, “The Lawsuit that accidentally Ruined Capitalism: Ford vs. Dodge,“ I get it. The video also explains why the SEC dictates to corporations that they are in business for the gains of the shareholders — shareholder supremacy (which has somehow morphed into an emphasis on short-term gains, not mentioned in the video) — not for the benefit of the customers or society or anyone or anything other than the shareholders, and this dictate is a problem that I have with Musk taking SpaceX public. The SEC has gone with the philosophy that greed (for lack of a better word) is good. Mars is not a short-term gain project. It may not even be able to be demonstrated as able to make a gain at all, but it should be able to make humanity more prosperous, and I say that prosperity is good. Not for lack of a better word, but prosperity itself is good. Prosperity is the real reason that we all invest in companies, whether through stock shares or partnerships, through our time and labor working for those companies, or through purchasing their products, all of which should make us more prosperous as individuals and as a society.
Ad astra pro prosperitate!
Edward
May I suggest two reads: Good to Great and Built to Last by Jim Collins
Before there were any Transporter or Bandwagon missions, there was at least one Falcon 9 rideshare mission based on a ride broker/aggregator buying an entire F9 mission and doing its own payload aggregation. There were, as I recall, some difficulties with that mission that impelled SpaceX to start doing their own. I believe there are at least two comparable missions that have recently been announced. Both, as I recall, were bought by European ride aggregators who are already major customers of the extant Transporter and Bandwagon missions. Rideshare has matured a great deal in terms of the bigger ride aggregators having climbed their learning curves. SpaceX may be ending rideshares under its own imprimatur, but F9 rideshares have not ended and won’t until the Falcons are completely retired – which won’t happen until at least 2030. That gives the new launch vehicles time to take over the provision of rideshares going forward even with low initial cadences. SpaceX only does four or five rideshare missions a year even now.
It’s important to remember that SpaceX has Transporter missions on the manifest right through 2028 right now (through Transporter-22)– all of them sold out, of course.
We don’t know for sure if the door is shut on any more beyond those on the manifest. But even if that is the case, the point is, SpaceX is officially flying more ride share missions for another two years, at least.
I suspect that door may be left ajar a little longer if Starship test flights and completion of other launch pads over the next several months don’t progress as quickly as Elon hopes. He’s clearly keen to move on to Starship and retain Falcon 9/Heavy only for so long as necessary to keep USSF and NASA happy on current programs, but he’s not stupid.
Legally this would seem a wise strategy to blunt any potential litigation accusing SpaceX of being a monopoly too. Not a trivial concern should a more adversarial administration happen to win the White House in 2028 which must be considered a non zero risk given the politics of today. So this is also a smart hedge thinking 3 steps ahead in this regard imho.
Yes, and consider the risk of Musk not getting additional funding from the taxpayers for his corporations. If he had to compete on his businesses unfunded by Uncle Sam, he’d never have had the success he’s had.
Musk’s businesses get government contracts for the good and sufficient reason that they are the low-cost providers in their respective industries. Your assertion otherwise is complete hooey. In any case, the vast majority of the revenues of his two largest companies do not come from governments at any level. You should quit reading – and believing – left-wing click-bait.
Bob wrote: “If he [Musk] had to compete on his businesses unfunded by Uncle Sam, he’d never have had the success he’s had.”
Really? Musk and his companies have demonstrated superior performance than his competition. Tesla is wildly successful and produces the quintessential electric automobile whereas the established auto companies lose money on theirs. Crew Dragon is a wild success whereas Boeing’s submission is an embarrassing disaster. Despite early heavy skepticism, Cargo Dragon and Cygnus have both been wildly successful, although Northrup Grumman had a mid-project delay with its own booster.
Speaking of boosters, Falcon brought down the cost of access to orbit to a level that the satellite operations industry had begged for, back in the 1990s, then went on to create a reusable-booster industry that many other companies are trying to match. Musk disrupted the launch industry and redefined it, and the low cost, easy access to low Earth orbit caused a whole new space-operations industry
Starlink is the envy of the communication industry. The development of a Mars ship is coming along and should be ready in time for the transit window a couple of years from now.
Uncle Sam’s contracts are a minuscule part of Musk’s business revenue, because so very, very many people and companies want to use his products and services.
People really need to pay attention to reality. “Reality betrays us all.” — Benjamin Hoffman, the movie Hoffman In this case, reality betrayed Bob.
This may also be a political bargaining chip in case Congress flips.
They limit Starship, he destroys Falcons.
I wanted R-7 and Thor/Delta II to fall to Falcon in terms of launch records
How this whole industry has evolved is indeed almost unbelievable. My first attempt to get my employer, TRW, into the commercial launch business failed supposedly because we couldn’t demonstrate enough of a business case to warrant the investment of company funds. That was when our anchor customer would have been IRIDIUM, the LEO telecom venture that failed primarily because of the cost of launch. My own startup, along with many others of the 1990s, couldn’t attract sufficient capital because of both the failure of IRIDIUM and the vanishing of the Potemkin “business” Teledesic, all while other space ventures couldn’t get into space because of launch cost and lack of availability (which NASA didn’t help with its pretense of having lots of Shuttle capability). Then along comes Elon, and bless his soul, manages to capitalize SpaceX and launch more satellites just for his own Starlink LEO telecom company than all of the other satellites launched in history. Not surprisingly, the sea change in launch cost and availability unleashed an explosion in launch demand – something all of us launch entrepreneurs predicted in the 1980s and 1990s, a prediction summarily dismissed without thought (or the capacity for thought) by the investment community. It is heartening that new launch startups have been able to find capital, particularly Rocket Labs (and I’m tickled that they are going to name their new vehicle Eclipse – at least someone will fly a vehicle of that name). But I’m a little discouraged because the only space startup I could manage at my advanced age isn’t launch, and requires the robust capacity SpaceX has established. I don’t know if SpaceX’s plans will give me enough time to pull it off; I can’t wait for the reemergence of a new SpaceX.
It’s always these bloody suits who get in the way…cost-cutting morons with no vision.