Our world runs on satellites. What happens when we can’t launch more?

"Like riding a broomstick in a hurricane." This is reportedly how one SpaceX engineer described the intense atmospheric reentry of the first Falcon 9 rocket to go to space and then successfully land back here.

That moment, on December 21, 2015, marked the beginning of a dizzying decade-long spell for the space sector, as engineers no longer had to worry about getting their technology into space. Now, the industry's main challenges were building enough satellites, raising enough capital, finding enough customers.

It's important to remember how fundamental space is to ordinary life. It's no exaggeration to call it the backbone of the world economy.

Satellites:

• tell ships, aircraft, cars, and phones where they are;
• keep large parts of the financial system and communications networks on time;
• carry data across oceans and remote areas;
• forecast the weather; and
• watch crops, roads, fires, floods, and supply chains.

And that's to say nothing of defense. Satellites let armed forces communicate, navigate, track threats, guide weapons, and see what's happening far beyond what they can see.

With Falcon 9, SpaceX slashed the cost of reaching orbit. It increased the frequency of launch and, through reusability, it transformed launch from an infrequent, bespoke event into something closer to normal.

The satellite operator SES, where I spent three decades, including as CTO, had been SpaceX's first commercial customer to launch a satellite to geostationary transfer orbit in 2013. We became the first commercial customer to fly on a reused Falcon 9 booster.

A new landscape

But things change. And SpaceX is now moving into its Starship era. Falcon 9, expected to keep flying until around 2030, is no longer taking reservations.

The main manufacturing and engineering center for the Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rockets in Hawthorne, California, is being wound down, and SpaceX is redirecting people and resources to Louisiana, where its $100 billion spaceport is being built.

In September, Starship reached orbit for the first time, despite an engine failure, and deployed a fleet of Starlink satellites. If it works as intended, its capacity will dwarf Falcon 9's.

But commercial satellite operators shouldn't assume that all this capacity will be theirs to buy. First of all, SpaceX has its own voracious appetite for launch. Starlink is the world's largest satellite constellation by far, and the new V3 satellites, deployed by Starship, are crucial to its expansion. NASA depends on Starship for its lunar ambitions, while demand for SpaceX from the U.S. Department of Defense keeps growing.

Starship may create vast capacity but with it may come vast internal and government demand for it.

The next frontier

What, then, for the commercial companies? There is no simple answer. Yes, there are alternative companies, and they are getting better and better, but they are years behind SpaceX.

Europe's Ariane 6 is flying regularly, but not operating at anything like the rate of Falcon 9. New Glenn and Vulcan are important additions to the market, as is Neutron. Relativity Space's Terran R is also promising, though it remains a few years from commercial service. None, however, combine the frequency, reliability, and cost of launch that Falcon 9 achieved.

Amazon Leo, a nascent satellite constellation-based internet provider, has booked more than 100 launches across several space companies, including Ariane 6, recently increasing its order from 18 to 24 missions.

Defense customers want larger, more widely distributed constellations. There's no doubt that if the launch bottleneck I've described isn't addressed, the price of launch will increase significantly. But cost may ultimately matter less than availability.

This will undoubtedly change the nature of competition in the space sector. The companies with the strongest balance sheets will be able to book launches years in advance, diversify across providers, and potentially absorb the cost of any delays or mishaps. Smaller businesses, on the other hand, might have outstanding technology but no reliable, timely route to orbit.

Unable to get to orbit, achieving flight heritage - proof that your technology has actually worked in space - becomes impossible, deterring investors; innovation necessarily stalls.

That's to say that launch provision, and diversity of launch provision, is a strategic matter. It has downstream effects on competitiveness, innovation, and crucial fields like defense, which is about speed of innovation, not the production of great platforms that take years to build.

If there's a lesson in all of this, it's that the space industry must not forget that everything in the industry, even the most impressive technology - ground stations for laser communications, phased-array antennas, megasatellites, very high-resolution satellite cameras - depends on our ability to get to space. The task now is to make sure that we act accordingly.

SpaceX and Falcon 9 illuminated the path forward and revolutionized access to space. Who can now pick up the baton and continue the drive towards affordable, reliable, and available launch capability?