SpaceX Is Winding Down Falcon 9 as a Launch Crunch Looms: Can Rocket Lab's Neutron Fill the Gap?

SpaceX (NASDAQ:SPCX) is beginning to wind down Falcon 9, the rocket that transformed commercial spaceflight, as the company shifts its launch future toward Starship. The move potentially creates a major opening for Rocket Lab Corp. (NASDAQ:RKLB) and its yet-to-fly Neutron rocket. SpaceX Bets on Starship SpaceX has stopped selling new shared Falcon 9 missions, while some companies have been unable to secure flights beyond 2028, the Wall Street Journal reported. Industry and government officials expect launch demand to exceed supply through at least the end of the decade. Falcon 9 flew a record 165 missions last year, while its standard launch price has climbed 19% over five years to $74 million. The squeeze is already changing customer behavior. Portal Space Systems bought an entire Falcon 9 flight for 2028, a step it had not originally planned, because CEO Jeff Thornburg said the company could not afford a gap in access to orbit. SpaceX plans to stockpile Falcon rockets before ending production, with government missions potentially keeping the vehicle flying into the early 2030s. Starship will take over much of Falcon’s role. Commercial customers will likely compete for launches with SpaceX’s own Starlink satellites and plans to deploy computing infrastructure in orbit. Rocket Lab Gets Its Opening Neutron is designed to lift about 13 metric tons to low Earth orbit. That is enough for the constellation and national-security payloads that mostly ride on Falcon 9 today. Rocket Lab’s launch backlog stands at more than 90 missions, including five dedicated Neutron flights sold to a single customer. Rocket Lab is following SpaceX’s playbook beyond launch, too. Its planned $8 billion acquisition of Iridium Communications Inc. (NASDAQ:IRDM) would add a satellite network with 2.6 million subscribers to its rocket and spacecraft businesses. Iridium shareholders vote on the deal Thursday. Merger filings indicate Iridium would become a Neutron customer as well, giving the rocket a guaranteed stream of launches. Rocket Lab: The Window For a 2026 Neutron Launch is Narrowing Traders on Polymarket currently put the chance of Neutron launching by Dec. 31 at 9%, on $11,000 of volume. Even a successful Neutron debut would not come close to replacing Falcon 9’s capacity overnight. Falcon 9 flew 60 times in 2022, 91 times in 2023, 132 times in 2024 and 165 times last year. Blue Origin, Relativity Space, Stoke Space and Firefly Aerospace are all racing to add launch capacity of their own, but industry executives told the Journal that meaningful alternatives remain years away. SpaceX is betting Starship can eventually provide far more capacity than Falcon 9 ever did. Until then, the transition could leave an opening for Rocket Lab to establish Neutron as a major alternative launch vehicle. Read Also: Small AI Model Matches GPT-4.1 at Forecasting as Olas Founding Member Says Frontier Models Face ‘Increasing Economic Pressure’ Image: Shutterstock