SpaceX has a scheduling problem that is really a strategy. As it launches ever more of its own Starlink satellites, the company is crowding rivals off the very rockets those rivals depend on.

The squeeze is visible in the manifest. Starlink’s share of Falcon 9 missions has climbed from 54% in 2020 to roughly 79% this year, leaving less and less room for anyone else.

At least seven spacecraft companies have been told Falcon 9 is fully booked until 2028 or 2029, a delay that can be fatal for a startup with hardware built and no way to orbit.

The conflict is structural. SpaceX is both the dominant launch provider and, through Starlink, a competitor to many of the satellite firms queuing for its rockets, and Starlink is where the money is.

The maths favours Starlink every time. The network brought in $11.4bn in 2025, around 60% of SpaceX’s revenue, against $4.1bn from the launch business, so a seat handed to an outside payload is profit forgone.

SpaceX has said the quiet part plainly. In filings it noted it ‘may prioritize our own launch payloads over additional US government contracts or third-party customers’, a line its competitors have read closely.

‘If they were to use the same launch capacity for an external customer, then they are giving up the profits from flying their own satellites,’ said Akhil Rao of Rational Futures, describing an incentive that only sharpens as Starlink grows.

The knock-on effects are wide. More than 500 US companies have built spacecraft and poured some $50bn into the sector since 2000, and many now depend on a single supplier that is also their rival.

The pressure eases only if capacity grows, and that hinges on Starship. SpaceX’s giant next-generation rocket is meant to add enormous launch capacity, but until it flies regularly, Falcon 9 is the bottleneck everyone shares.

For a satellite startup, the bind is total. Building a spacecraft is hard enough; discovering the only affordable ride belongs to your competitor, and is booked for years, can end a company before it launches anything.

The biggest names are not immune. Amazon’s satellite network has faced delays with United Launch Alliance’s Vulcan grounded since February, a bottleneck that pushes even a trillion-dollar company toward its arch-rival’s rockets.

Some are buying their way out. Rocket Lab is acquiring the satellite operator Iridium for $8bn, partly to control its own path rather than wait in SpaceX’s queue.

For smaller players, the timing is brutal. ‘The valley of death is going to get a hell of a lot deeper for space companies in general,’ one satellite executive warned, describing the gap between building a satellite and getting it to orbit.

The gap is also an opening for others. European efforts to build a rival, including a $3.1bn satellite merger, have struggled to match Starlink’s scale, and alternatives such as Eutelsat remain far smaller.

Starlink’s dominance carries costs beyond the manifest. Its swelling satellite fleet has drawn complaints from astronomers and regulators, a reminder that one company’s ambition is reshaping low Earth orbit for everyone.

The concentration is drawing scrutiny. When one company controls both the road and the destination, regulators start asking whether rivals get fair access, and SpaceX’s dual role invites exactly that question.

Starlink’s lead is also self-reinforcing. Every launch it prioritises adds satellites, subscribers, and cash, which funds more launches, a flywheel its grounded rivals cannot match from the back of the queue.

None of this is against the rules. A company is free to fly its own satellites first, which is precisely what makes the situation so hard for rivals to fight.

Launch prices, meanwhile, keep climbing, from about $54m for a Falcon 9 in 2013 to roughly $74m today. SpaceX built the cheapest ride to space and, in dominating it, has made getting there harder for almost everyone but itself.

Get the TNW newsletter

Get the most important tech news in your inbox each week.