Elon Musk's SpaceX
Michael Reilly, chief strategy officer of Varda Space Industries, a $1.6 billion startup that makes drugs in orbit and brings them back to Earth in its own reentry capsules, said stronger competition may be needed to bring prices down.
"Just because the new SpaceX system is bigger doesn't mean it's going to be cheaper for any of the customers flying on it," Reilly said in an exclusive interview, citing what he had heard.
Why SpaceX Might Keep the Savings"SpaceX has a natural interest in capturing that value," Reilly said. "Until there's competition, I don't see why they would suddenly drop the price."
Cheaper launches could improve SpaceX's margins, while its Starlink satellite network gives the company a ready use for additional capacity.
SpaceX's latest quarterly filing shows 81 internal Falcon launches against just 29 customer launches in the first nine months of 2026. Nearly three-quarters primarily served SpaceX itself.
"SpaceX seems to be using a lot of [those] flights for their own use," Reilly said.
As Benzinga reported earlier this month, Reuters found that at least seven spacecraft companies had been told Falcon 9 was booked through 2028 or 2029.
With SpaceX consuming most of its launch capacity internally and outside customers struggling to secure flights, the company may have little incentive to offer steep discounts.
Varda itself is covered for now. Reilly said it has secured Falcon 9 reservations for the next couple of years.
As its volume grows, Varda could eventually buy an entire rocket and sublet space on it to other companies, Reilly said, calling it a possible "intermediate step."
Starship has yet to establish a regular commercial launch schedule. On Polymarket, traders recently assigned a 58% probability to fewer than five Starship launches reaching space in 2026, with approximately $526,000 traded.
On SpaceX's third-quarter earnings call last week, Musk said he expects Starship to reach about one launch per week in the first half of 2027 and two per week in the second half.
Falcon 9 Offers a Precedent
A July working paper by economist Akhil Rao suggests Falcon 9's launch costs could have fallen roughly 70% between 2012 and 2026 as SpaceX gained experience.
Yet advertised launch prices declined less than 6% after inflation. The cost estimate comes from a learning-curve model, not SpaceX's financial disclosures.
Starship's greater capacity could still lower prices per kilogram, while rivals such as Blue Origin and Rocket Lab Corp.
Reilly acknowledged that competition could bring launch prices down somewhat, but his remarks suggest that cheaper rockets alone may not be enough.
For SpaceX shareholders, Starship could deliver higher launch margins and cheaper Starlink deployments, even if outside customers continue paying much the same prices.
