Rockets that can lift larger and heavier payloads to orbit are returning to the space industry, but demand may not make them commercially viable.
Simply put, if a company wanted to launch 1000 satellites that weight 45kg each, we now have some rockets that can do it one shot. And we have a lot more ‘shots’ coming, too. Between Starship, New Glenn, and others, lobbing heavy things into space will become more and more economical. However, other than governments, the market for heavy things in space still is miniscule. In fact, even constellations, regardless of size, are not dependent on heavy-lift vehicles. Without going into the business model of LEO satellite constellations and services, there aren’t many non-governmental customers that will be able to afford, nor require, repeated deployments using heavy lift vehicles.
Why not?
In short:
1. Demand Decrease: Improvements in satellite technology means they do more while getting smaller and lighter, meaning fewer needs for heavy-lift capabilities
2. Geopolitical Consequences: US launch vehicles will have fewer customers
Demand Decrease
Costs of Satellites Not Decreasing
Smaller is still cheaper, and doing more with less is still the name-of-the-game in the space industry. While there were technological limitations to using smallsats in the past, some of these have been resolved. For LEO operators, smaller, lightweight satellites that can get the job done are always going to be prized over heavier and/or bigger spacecraft that cost more to launch and replace. This simply means that while a launch vehicle may be able to launch more mass, satellite operators don’t necessarily see any cost savings to building a heavier satellite. This has been proven with most constellation operator having diminished the number of satellites in their operations over time, as technology has improved.
For satellite operators beyond LEO, their costs also haven’t shifted very much, over the long term, and the resilience and technological needs of spacecraft are what times their schedule to launch, which can be decades away.
Having enormous rockets that can get more mass into space is great, but as the industry continues to mature, satellites will be like our phones, computer, or most other high-tech tools in our world: they will get smaller and lighter with increased capabilities.
LEO Drives Repeated Launch Demand – GEO is Stagnant
There are dozens of other factors that also determine how long a satellite can last in orbit, including material degradation, atmospheric drag, component failures, and others. The average lifespan of a satellite in LEO is 5 to 7 years. While satellites need to constantly be replenished to ensure continued service as some satellites fail, as technology improves, this will be less and less necessary (evolutions in propulsion etc.) which means demand to sustain constellations with hundreds or more satellites will also drop. This drop will reflect the current difficulties of the beyond-LEO market.
Most satellites beyond LEO are designed with double-digit lifespans that often stretch to 30 years. The main limiting factor for many operators is not the technological capabilities of their satellites, but the fuel remaining for propulsion systems that keep them in their proper orbits. For an operator that wants global coverage, four satellites are enough to cover most of the world in GEO; this means a company could conceivably concern themselves with procuring and launching 4 satellites once every 20 or 30 years, allowing the company to focus on their business services instead of the space operations concerns. It also means that they may opt for a giant, heavy satellite that may require a heavy lift vehicle. Unfortunately, a GEO company will purchase a heavy lift vehicle once, and then stop being a customer for the next 20 years, until it’s time to launch again. By then, the market may have changed (reminder, 20 years ago was 2005… iPhone’s were not a thing).
Everything to Constellations?
Going back to LEO, though, some would say that we are going to have thousands of new satellites that will need to be launched.
As space becomes a new domain of competition between major powers, the idea of shifting capabilities from single, vulnerable satellites to a distributed constellation seems appealing. However, it must be clear that this is not increasing mass in orbit, simply shifting it. For example, as the military decides where to put up its next communications satellite, the mass on orbit will most likely remain similar; the question will be if it’s a single 10 ton satellite, or 10,000 single kilogram satellites. For launch providers, the job of lifting 10 tons remains the same. If it’s LEO, that means it may happen more often, in order to replenish the constellation every five to seven years. This does create some demand in the short term, but as mentioned before, as innovation continues, it may decrease in the long term.
Unfortunately for Starship or New Glenn, even if some capabilities are shift to LEO and the constellations required to ensure global coverage, the physical challenges of deploying the proper coverage raises questions as to the need for a heavy-launch vehicle.
Physics: LEO Constellations Require Different Inclinations
A constellation is like a shell around the Earth, not a string. Because of our current technological limitations, our launch vehicles can only launch a string of satellites. To create the shell, we launch different rockets in different inclinations and over time, that creates a constellation. The amount of fuel needed to do what is colloquially called a plane change, and move from one inclination to another, is so high it almost always warrants just using a different launch rocket. Maybe the heavy lift vehicles can do a plane change, but in the end, the fuel cost is still there (SpaceX’s in-space refueling plan is a potential solution to this, but not yet operational by far, so not relevant right now, but you can read more about our analysis here).
As an example, Amazon.com’s Kuiper constellation is planned to have approximately 3,200 satellites spread over 98 planes of inclination. Using a single rocket to launch 66 satellites to two different inclinations, this would only account for 30% of Blue Origin's New Glenn rocket’s mass capabilities. Simply, a heavy launch vehicle is not currently the solution to deploy a commercially viable constellation in one shot, either because of the physics (massive fuel requirements to be able to go where you need to go), or the financials (massive financial investment to solve the physics problem of doing it in one shot).
Competition on Other Fronts
It’s important to note that competition does exist for access to LEO. SpaceX is still demonstrating its ability to deploy more and more Starlink satellite on its smaller Falcon 9 rocket, and Rocket Lab recently completed a small French constellation using its small Proton rocket. European, Indian and Chinese rockets are all in different stages of development, and most will fail because there won’t be enough demand. However, those that succeed will easily compete with the heavy launch vehicles. For a company that offers a smaller option (such as SpaceX), that’s not a problem. For others, that have a single, enormous size, but not much else to offer, it could mean less commercial success.
For Now, Tradition Continues to Guide Expectations
While New Glenn or Starship can disgorge thousands of small satellites in one launch, that is not their primary purpose, nor will it be a viable primary customer base for these launch vehicles.
The primary market buyers for the heavy lift vehicles will remain the traditional customers with familiar names. Legacy operators that use heavy, resilient satellite buses, generally located beyond LEO, and primarily in geostationary orbit. The advantage for these customers is now that instead of having to each buy a single rocket to get to GEO, a few of them can get together and agree to launch together on a single rocket that has the capability to launch them.
Unfortunately for the launch providers, that means fewer launches to go around; where 10 launches were needed for 10 satellites, now it may be just 5 launches needed.
Of course, governments with no profit concerns will certainly appreciate having a solution for bigger satellites or space stations.
This is the paradox of the heavy-lift vehicle: it is able to launch extremely heavy payloads for much cheaper, but it will only be needed once. That's because those heavy payloads are going to be extremely resilient and last a long time before needing to be replaced.
Geopolitics & Competition
Finally, Trump’s return to the White House can’t be discounted on the impact it will have on the course of alliances and partnerships. At a foundational level, launch vehicles are rockets. The main thing that distinguishes an intercontinental ballistic missile from a space rocket is that one is intentionally launched in a way to ensure it will stay in space. As the Trump administration continues to put pressure, tariffs or otherwise, on nations around the world to follow the US or else, many nations with the capabilities to go to space independently, are investing in that direction. This, despite the inherent inefficiency of building an entire launch capability for the small demand that may exist. Yet, we are already seeing examples of this.
Unsurprisingly, European and Russian relations are virtually non-existent now because of Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, but in the past, even the Russians partnered with Europe to launch their commercial Soyuz rockets from the European spaceports because it just made more economical sense than to compete on every level with other services. But even US relations are frayed with its traditional European and Asian allies and potential customers. As early as 2024, when Eumetsat pulled their satellite launch from the European Ariane to SpaceX, there was loud frustrations coming from various halls of power and the European space industry . The reaction made the message apparent. Launching European satellites from the US was still doable just a year ago, but tolerance is already being tested, and the political reaction is becoming more accentuated in Europe to redevelop access to space not dependent on an American oligarch. It’s being reinforced with the change in presidents in early 2025.
Because of the new administration’s continued desire to put into question its alliances, partnerships, and the resolve that goes with maintaining those, the market for American launch vehicles is actually shrinking. Originally an open competition based solely on price, satellites will soon become obligated to support the national system in place.
While many commercial operators may not feel it is necessary to pick sides, the payloads that demand large launch vehicles such as New Glenn or Starship are often funded in part by national institutions. Many space agencies have already started imposing launch vehicle conditions in exchange for funding. For example, ESA projects must launch on a European rocket. This result of Trump’s own protectionism means that inefficient and expensive access to space remains for many, and disincentivizes reaching the domain.
Of course, Europeans are not the only ones that are rethinking their partnerships with the US. India is a rising star in the space industry, with a large population that will most likely be a source of funding in the future. India should have no problem following the path China took, which is almost 100% domestic. And for the rest of Asia, Japan has a highly capable launch vehicle that fits multiple needs. Its neighbors will be forced to decide if they want to depend on the US and the strings attached by the current White House, or if they perhaps are comfortable with a more neutral Japan or India. The countries that play the middle ground are becoming more and more attractive. One can even imagine some democracies may elect leaders that look toward a reliable China instead of Trump threats and on-off-tariffs or actions.
In the near future, buying a lift to space will be like buying arms – very much a geopolitical choice on which power you want to back and depend upon. For others, there won’t be much of a choice: you will launch with the rocket your country provides, regardless of the cost.
The question of whether enormous vehicles from Blue Origin, SpaceX and others are needed still needs to be asked. Which segment of the world population are they able to serve?
Hope for the Future – Create Demand for Launch
Of course, these heavy lift rockets are highly prized for their ability to enable human deep-space exploration. Whether to the Moon or beyond, the primary customers for these companies will remain space agencies or themselves. As a result, these capabilities and missions should not be seen as money-makers from a business perspective. In fact, even as the SLS rocket is rumored to be on the Trump chopping block to allow SpaceX to provide the launch capabilities NASA requires, it still is an indication that there is no shortage of supply. In fact, it could be overdemand.
The primary hope for the future is that now that these heavy-lift vehicles exist, government contracts to launch heavy things will continue to develop, and an ‘in-space’ economy will be jump started. Whether or not this will be the case remains to be seen, however, and there currently remains limited interest for non-governmental missions in space. To be prepared though, SpaceX is the only company that is developing the ability to return to Earth with mass. This is a key factor that will support the development of the space economy, and it does bring hope that with all the pieces in place, commercial capabilities will come.