The SpaceX advantage that rivals are trying to emulate

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Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. SpaceX catching its huge Starship booster shortly after liftoff was a major achievement. It was also a shot across the bow for competitors.

Developing reusable boosters for its Falcon vehicles has been key to SpaceX’s efforts to cut the cost of space flight. Advancing the technology with Starship—the bigger and more powerful rocket it is developing—could extend the Elon Musk-led company’s cost advantage versus rivals, especially in launches to low-Earth orbit, where SpaceX and others operate satellites. Spurred by SpaceX’s efforts, competing launch companies are pushing to develop their own reusable boosters, reclaim rocket engines after flights to use them again or create other hardware on their vehicles that can endure more than one mission.

Rivals face tough hurdles ramping up those systems and trying to catch up to SpaceX’s lead with reusability. “We need reusability for rockets, just like we have reusability for cars, for airplanes, for bicycles, for horses," Musk said in a video that SpaceX posted online earlier this year. For decades, almost all rockets have relied on expendable boosters, a proven technology that has underpinned thousands of launches.

Single-use boosters, which are jettisoned after propelling a vehicle to orbit, remain critical in flights like deep-space missions that require more power and fuel, rocket executives who use them say. Reuse has its own challenges too, including the time and resources needed to refurbish boosters after they land for other missions. In SpaceX’s case, reusable Falcon boosters have enabled more frequent flights for customers, and especially for Starlink, the company’s satellite network.