I booked the first used Falcon 9 booster. Where will satellite operators go when SpaceX retires it?
At SES, we agreed to fly our satellite on a Falcon 9 booster that SpaceX had already used.
Key points
- For a shared flight around Earth that passes near both poles, SpaceX advertises $350,000 for the first 50 kg and $7,000 for each additional kg.
- In March 2017, they used the booster to launch our satellite.
- You could try booking a flight with Blue Origin, provided its team can offer you a place on New Glenn in time; but even after engineers fly a new rocket for the first time, they may need years to build enough of them to fly regularly.
SpaceX is setting aside the Falcon 9 and turning its attention to Starship, a much larger rocket; and from my conversations with people working at SpaceX, I can see why the company wants its engineers to change their focus.
In October 2025, the team at K2 Space, one of our portfolio companies, announced that they had booked a 2027 Falcon 9 flight for three satellites, having secured their place more than a year in advance.
Additional details
- Most satellite operators will struggle to offset higher launch costs with savings of that kind.
- No commercial customer had ever done such a thing before, but as chief technology officer at SES, I had overseen the work our engineers had carried out with SpaceX.
- You could work out the fee to the dollar and still have no real idea when you might start earning money from whatever it is that you have put into orbit.
- Most of the remaining Falcon 9 slots up to around 2030 are already booked up.
- In March, K2 Space launched its two-tonne Gravitas satellite on Falcon 9.
How this summary was made: extractive summary — built from the sources' own reporting. It is drawn only from the reporting of the sources listed below — read the originals for full detail. How we summarize →
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