The Future of Falcons 9 and Heavy

Welcome to Eager Space. There is a common belief that Starship is going to become operational and execute a clean sweep, scaring both Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy off the launchpad. In fact, SpaceX President Gwen Shotwell said, "Starship is really a replacement. It obsoletes Falcon 9 and the Dragon capsule. Everything will be moved to Starship. That includes human space flight." That seems pretty straightforward. Except that's not exactly what she said. She actually said that Falcon 9 will fly for six or eight more years and then everything will be moved to Starship. SpaceX has put a lot of work into optimizing Falcon 9 and they flew 165 launches in 2025 from three different launch pads. The big driver for that launch rate is Starlink which had about 120 launches in 2025. That leaves about 45 launches to other payloads. We expect that as soon as Starship is flying regularly, it's going to take over all the Starlink launches, leaving SpaceX with the capability of launching over 100 more times a year than their non-S Starlink launch rate. How might they utilize that capability? Starting with Dragon, Falcon 9 launches Crew Dragon, Cargo Dragon, and is currently launching the Signis resupply craft as well. It is the only US launcher for ISS payloads. That might change in the future after one more Falcon 9 flight. Signis is scheduled to start flying on the new Antares 330 vehicle in 2026. An improved Starlininer is also scheduled for an uncrrewed cargo mission in April of 2026. and that might lead to future crude flights. Outside of the US, Japan's HTV resupply vehicle is grounded after a failure of the H3 rocket in December of 2025. And the Soyuse launch pad at Biconor was damaged in late November. So there are no Soyos or Progress vehicles flying to ISS right now. That leaf's crew dragon is the only way to carry astronauts and cosmonauts to the station and back home. The ISS is currently scheduled until 2030 and Dragon is its primary US vehicle. It is however a very pricey bird to fly and therefore likely won't see a big increase in demand to fly to ISS other than the fallout from whatever happens with soyos in progress. Could there be other business for Dragon? Will any of the proposed commercial space stations show up and will they be successful? I talk about the challenges in this video and I am skeptical. But if you want a station for humans, you need a way to get there and Crew Dragon has the market cornered.