SpaceX stopped selling flights on its Falcon 9 rocket beyond 2028, as Starship enters commercial service, leaving European institutions without a guaranteed launch option.

European demand is set to rise sharply by 2030, including for the sovereign IRIS² telecommunications constellation, and Christophe Bruneau, ArianeGroup’s executive chairman, acknowledged that if the launches all come in 2029, Europe will not have enough capacity. The European Space Agency’s director general, Josef Aschbacher, proposed investing about €10 billion over 10 years in a European system able to send astronauts to space and bring them back.