Understanding the launch market from 2027—2030
The global launch market faces a growing imbalance between demand and available capacity. The looming retirement of SpaceX’s Falcon 9 is exacerbating a multiyear supply constraint that has troubled the industry since 2022. Rising demand for launch while supply shrinks further compounds the problem.
Quilty Space estimates a shortfall of approximately 150 medium- and heavy-lift launches through 2030, including 113 launches from established providers, 12 from emerging providers, and 25 additional rideshare missions.
Quilty Space quantified the launch shortage by assessing publicly disclosed launch backlogs across the world's 10 leading medium-, heavy-, and super-heavy-lift rockets, mapping scheduled missions through 2030, and forecasting annual launch capacity based on historical precedent and industry intelligence. The resulting forecast quantifies the gap between launch demand and available capacity, including the additional demand for rideshare missions created by Falcon 9's anticipated commercial retirement (note: we expect Falcon to continue flying for U.S. government missions)
The analysis points to 2028 as the most acute year of the shortage, with implications for launch pricing, satellite deployment schedules, and the ability of providers to meet growing demand through the end of the decade.
