Operators and government agencies in the United States have become virtually dependent on one company in the space launch market – Elon Musk’s SpaceX. The newspaper writes about it The Wall Street Gazette.
“The reality is that competitors can no longer oppose Musk, and that makes SpaceX a de facto monopoly,” astrophysicist John Holst, who watched the launches, said in a conversation with the broadcast.
According to him, SpaceX rockets accounted for 66% of all companies and organizations launches from US launch pads in 2022, and 88% in the first six months of this year.
WSJ journalists believe this dominance of SpaceX will continue because, due to the military operation in Ukraine, launches with the help of the Russian Soyuz have become unusable for many Western companies.
At the same time, the newspaper reported that SpaceX’s rivals, Blue Origin, represented by Jeff Bezos, and French Arianespace, have not yet achieved significant success in regular launches.
SpaceX is also the only company to fly NASA astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS) and return them to Earth.
The WSJ concluded that it could strengthen SpaceX’s leadership as it embarks on test launches of the massive reusable Starship spacecraft designed for large-scale orbital missions and manned flights into deep space, including to Mars.
Formerly SpaceX was hired 14 year old programmer.