Fresh off last month’s successful catch of a rocket booster, SpaceX’s second-in-command voiced her support for regulatory reform Friday. At the same time, she called for more competition in the space industry.
SpaceX successfully caught the booster of its Starship megarocket on October 13 as it returned to the launch pad after a test flight.
Sergio Flores/AFP via Getty Images
“Regulation in the United States—and globally, with the exception of maybe China—is slowing technology down,” SpaceX President and COO Gwynne Shotwell said at the 2024 Baron Investment Conference at New York City’s Lincoln Center. “We’ve got to move faster.”
SpaceX and Tesla CEO Elon Musk, the richest person in the world with a net worth topping $300 billion, has been a longtime critic of what he contends is a sluggish approval process for commercial space operations and launches. He has often criticised the Federal Aviation Administration for not speeding up the process of space launch licenses—and in September even called on the head of the FAA to resign while joking that an approval takes longer than actually building the rocket.
“Everyone is starting to recognize in all industries that regulation really needs to be reinvented,” said Shotwell on Friday. “I spend more than half my time working regulatory issues…I certainly hope we can figure out together how we make the regulatory organizations more efficient and, frankly, better not just faster.”
With president-elect Donald Trump tapping SpaceX CEO Musk to lead the new Department of Government Efficiency, which aims to slash government spending, SpaceX investors are hoping that could help drive up the speed of launches. Musk’s rocket company, which is still private, was most recently valued at $210 billion during a secondary market share sale in June.
“The hope is that this administration can make regulations better and more efficient,” said Shotwell, adding, “We need to simplify and make it readable.” She points to thousands of pages of documents required for just one space launch license. For its part, the FAA said in a statement on Thursday that it has licensed a record 148 commercial space operations in the latest fiscal year, up 30% from 2023.
SpaceX has a dominant position within the industry, launching its semi-reusable Falcon rockets more than 100 times so far in 2024. (By comparison, its closest competitor, Rocket Lab, has had 12 launches to orbit this year.)
What’s more, the company continues to make good progress on its gigantic Starship rocket, which, at nearly 400 feet tall, towers above anything else ever launched. Last month, SpaceX reached a huge milestone towards its goal of fully reusable rockets, launching its fifth test flight of the Starship rocket and for the first time successfully catching the rocket’s booster upon reentry.
Shotwell said the next test flight launch is scheduled for this Tuesday and expects the number of launches to continue to increase. “I would not be surprised if we fly 400 Starship launches in the next four years,” she added.
“Starship is going to change the world,” said Shotwell. “It obsoletes Falcon 9 and the Dragon capsule. Now, we’re not shutting down Falcon, we are not shutting down Dragon—we’ll be flying that for six to eight more years,” she added. “But ultimately, people are going to want to fly on Starship: It’s bigger, it’s more comfortable, it will be less expensive.”
Beyond its success with Starship, SpaceX has also been making steady inroads with its Starlink internet broadband service. With over 7,000 satellites in orbit, Starlink is serving some 5 million customers—but the growth potential is endless, noted Shotwell.
The company has now started expanding its Starlink offerings from consumers to different industries such as aviation (better WiFi on planes) and maritime communication (faster than traditional GEO satellites). Several airlines, including United Airlines, Qatar Airways and Air France, have already signed up with SpaceX for Starlink internet services. Shotwell expects Starlink to be profitable in 2024: “We’re going to make some money on Starlink this year,” she said. “We’ve had quarters of making money on Starlink in the past.”
Even as SpaceX ramps up calls for regulatory reform, Shotwell is also calling for more competition in the rockets and satellite businesses: “I hope others can catch up, right? Competition is good for industries… It keeps us tight; it keeps us very focused,” she said. “It’s going to be hard to catch us, but I certainly hope people try.”
