SpaceX stops booking Falcon 9 rideshare missions past late 2028

what happened

SpaceX has stopped accepting new Transporter and Bandwagon rideshare reservations for missions after late 2028, according to SpaceNews, SatNews and Bloomberg reporting on industry operators and integrators; SpaceX has not issued its own statement. Bloomberg additionally reported SpaceX halted production of some expendable Falcon 9 hardware, including upper-stage components, as it shifts capacity toward Starship. Per SpaceNews, SEOPS said its Waymaker rideshare manifest filled within three weeks of opening with roughly 30 customers still on a waitlist, and now advises operators to plan launches 36 months ahead rather than 12. Elon Musk said August 22 on X that once Starship is flying reliably several times a week, "it makes sense to shift super scarce SpaceX engineering and production resources to Starship to get launch rate to several times per day, which means winding down Falcon," the clearest statement yet of the condition under which SpaceX would retire Falcon 9, per Teslarati's report on the post.

why it matters

The freeze squeezes smallsat operators who built plans around SpaceX's low-cost, predictable Transporter cadence, priced at roughly $7,000 per kilogram versus $15,000 to $25,000 for competing rideshare providers, per SpaceQ Media; Quilty Space's Chris Quilty said Starship capacity is unlikely to open to commercial rideshare customers for at least a couple of years after it starts flying. Canadian operators including GHGSat and Kepler Communications, which have flown on past Transporter missions, now face the same capacity squeeze as the rest of the market, and the gap is an opening for competing launch and rideshare-integration providers.

SpaceX stops booking Falcon 9 rideshare missions past late 2028

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