Space Launcher Shortages Are Poised To Persist

A raft of rocket setbacks amid booming demand is driving home an uncomfortable reality for launch providers’ commercial and military customers: The era of launcher scarcity may be in Washington to stay.

A nozzle problem—for a second time—with United Launch Alliance’s (ULA) Vulcan has prompted a halt in the heavy-lift rocket’s operations. The U.S. Space Force expects an investigation into the solid rocket motor anomaly to last for months. Development failures also have pushed back the first flight of Rocket Lab’s Neutron by more than a year. And Japan’s Mitsubishi Heavy Industries’ (MHI) H3 has been offline for months after a launch failure in December. Firefly Aerospace’s Alpha returned to flight in March, but only after a failure-induced hiatus (page 44).

• Arianespace considers increasing launch cadence
• Mitsubishi eyes the H3’s return to flight

Companies that are flying have been slow to ramp up operations. Ariane-space last year fell short of its Ariane 6 mission target, while Blue Origin’s New Glenn is looking to conduct its first flight of this year no earlier than April 10.

Lofting satellites as quickly as possible is the industry’s No. 1 challenge, Lynk CEO Ramu Potarazu said March 24. The company plans to deploy more than 320 satellites in the first phase and double that later, flying 5-6 times per year, he said at SATShow here.

Amazon, which uses launchers from Arianespace, Blue Origin and ULA, is rushing to deploy its low-Earth-orbit constellation. “We are doing everything we can with the launch providers to accelerate,” Chris Weber, vice president of Amazon Leo for consumer and enterprise business, said at the gathering. The company is exploring a faster Atlas V launch cadence, at least in part to compensate for the Vulcan’s operational suspension.

Launch delays have already put Amazon Leo deployment plans behind schedule, prompting the company to seek a two-year extension to an interim satellite deployment milestone. Under the current plan, Amazon should deploy about 1,618 satellites by August. Just over 200 are in orbit, and 200 more are built and ready, awaiting shipment for launch.

Amazon is accelerating its launch pace and satellite production, too. The company conducted 11 launches in the first 12 months of deploying its constellation, and the tempo should double over the next 12 months, Weber said. The coming launches are to include 40 satellites on the Vulcan and 48 on the New Glenn.

Even if some of the near-term pain points ease as existing launch service providers address their technical and capacity issues and newcomers join the field, industry officials warn that the launcher shortage is likely to persist, given the huge growth in demand.

Launcher scarcity “will be the case for years and years,” Arianespace CEO David Cavaillolès said at SATShow. The European launch service provider, which two years ago pushed back against the idea of boosting its launch cadence beyond 10 Ariane 6s per year two, is now reconsidering.

“Depending on how things go with big constellations, we might consider going up beyond 10,” Cavaillolès said. The company expects to loft 7-8 Ariane 6s this year and 9-10 in 2027, most of them the higher-payload-capacity Ariane 64 version because of lift demand.

MHI also is looking to accelerate its launch cadence once it returns the H3 rocket to the pad. The company says a manufacturing defect contributed to the loss of the Mitsubishi Electric QZS-5 navigation satellite after a second-stage failure in December, Deputy Manager Nobuyuki Shiina said March 24 at SATShow.

MHI still needs to complete the failure assessment and the optimal fix. But the issue appears to be manageable and not require major redesigns, Shiina said. The H3 should return to flight in a few months, and then the annual launch pace should increase to eight missions in about 2.5 years, he said.

Ambition is slowing some launch providers, too. Blue Origin announced plans in January to start launching its 5,408-satellite, high-throughput Tera-Wave communications network in late 2027. On March 20, the company signaled an even bigger bet, asking the Federal Communications Commission for approval to launch and operate a 51,600-satellite network of space-based data centers.

In part driven by that internal demand, Blue Origin is looking to introduce a super-heavy New Glenn variant able to carry 70 metric tons to low Earth orbit. The vehicle is planned to sport nine BE-4 booster engines and four BE-3Us in the upper stage—in both cases, two more than on the baseline New Glenn.

The Vulcan operational hiatus, after one of four Graphite-Epoxy Motor 63XL solid rocket boosters experienced what appeared to be a burn-through, will affect multiple near-term National Security Space Launch (NSSL) missions, U.S. Space Force Lt. Gen. Douglas Schiess, deputy chief of space operations for operations, told lawmakers March 25. The Space Force has shifted four GPS III launches from Vulcan rockets to the SpaceX Falcon fleet since December 2024.

This time, potentially affected missions include the service’s first next-generation geosynchronous-orbit missile warning satellite; the next Silent Barker spacecraft, codeveloped by the Space Force and the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO); a Boeing Wideband Global Satcom spacecraft; several space domain awareness systems; and a number of NRO satellites, Schiess said.

Northrop Grumman is planning a static-fire of a new nozzle for the Graphite-Epoxy Motors in mid-April, says Gary Wentz, ULA vice president of Atlas and Vulcan programs. The rocket’s guidance system compensates for the nozzle issue to deliver the payload to orbit.

With the Vulcan grounded and the New Glenn’s launch cadence unclear, the Pentagon must continue to rely on SpaceX to carry NSSL missions into orbit. The company still expects its Falcon 9 launch pace to plateau this year, in large part because of plans to transition its more capable Starship heavy launch system to routine service. SpaceX expects to perform the first flight in April of the latest Starship iteration, which would be the configuration for commercial operations.

Rocket Lab is eyeing a first launch for its Neutron rocket, but not before October after a Stage 1 tank failure in January. “We’ll be bringing a robust and thoroughly tested vehicle to the pad,” CEO Peter Beck said on an earnings call Feb. 26, adding that the company is also adapting production processes.

Rocket Lab is building more Neutrons already, he added, and follow-on flights are not all being delayed as much as the inaugural mission.

Several newcomers are trying to break into the market, although their progress has been slow and varied. UK startup Orbex has folded; European aspirants Rocket Factory Augsburg, MaiaSpace and PLD Space have yet to fly. Even if they succeed, their payload capacity is limited. The European Space Agency, which is backing these companies, is earmarking funds to make those rockets more capable.

For customers, the situation can turn into an exercise in patience. Most launch service providers say they are sold out this year and next and have only limited launchers available in 2028. Even 2029 is starting to fill up, said Stephanie Bednarek, vice president of commercial sales at SpaceX. Arianespace, ULA and others have echoed that message.

Isar Aerospace, another European startup, has booked missions using its Spectrum rocket for 2032, Chief Commercial Officer Stella Guillen said at SATShow. The first Spectrum launch in March 2025 ended in failure after 30 sec. of flight. An attempt last month was aborted because of a range violation.

Guillen said booking launches six years ahead is “kind of crazy,” but it speaks to industry concerns over lack of capacity.

—With Irene Klotz in Cape Canaveral