# Falcon 9's phaseout leaves a launch gap before Starship scales

Markdown copy of https://realalpha.app/s/falcon-9s-phaseout-leaves-a-launch-gap-before-starship/ on Real Alpha, the best minutes from long interviews with the people building AI. Cite and link the page, not this copy.

- With: [Philip Johnston](https://realalpha.app/builders/philip-johnston/), [Ezra Feilden](https://realalpha.app/people/ezra-feilden/), [Adi Oltean](https://realalpha.app/builders/adi-oltean/)
- Host: [Molly O'Shea](https://realalpha.app/people/molly-oshea/) · Founder, Sourcery · Ex-Upfront Ventures investor; has interviewed Alex Karp and Palmer Luckey.
- Show: Sourcery
- Episode: [Nvidia GPUs in Orbit: Inside Starcloud’s $2B Factory](https://realalpha.app/v/mdq6urSx-f8/), Oct 31, 2026
- Moment: 26:35 to 30:15 of the episode (4 min), playing on https://realalpha.app/s/falcon-9s-phaseout-leaves-a-launch-gap-before-starship/; the episode from there: https://realalpha.app/v/mdq6urSx-f8/?t=1595

## Takeaways

1. They booked the first Falcon 9 rideshare 21 months ahead.
2. Insurance can cover a launch failure, but not lost schedule.
3. The shift from Falcon 9 to Starship creates a capacity crunch.

## About this segment

Starcloud booked its first rideshare 21 months ahead, and launch insurance was relatively inexpensive. But Falcon 9 is winding down before Starship is ready, and insurance cannot recover lost time.

From “Nvidia GPUs in Orbit: Inside Starcloud’s $2B Factory”, Oct 31, 2026. [Watch the full episode](https://realalpha.app/v/mdq6urSx-f8/)

## Transcript

Transcribed by machine (Whisper) from the episode’s audio, so a word may be off here and there.

[26:44](https://realalpha.app/v/mdq6urSx-f8/?t=1604) coming up as well so our first launch was with falcon 9 so yeah falcon 9 rideshare mission um our upcoming launches uh all with falcon um and um yeah it's really it's really hard to beat the the the benefits and the economics of rideshare when you're when you're producing single missions like we are at the moment um the future is definitely starship um and that's what we're we're gearing up for here what's the process like for booking a ride for so booking ride share is um unbelievably easy so it was actually the basically the first thing we did as a company was we booked the launch for star cloud one do you have to book it really far in advance like how do you how do you i mean you're like gunning for getting on the vehicle but like how does that work yeah so we we booked about um yeah 21 months in advance um and

[27:38](https://realalpha.app/v/mdq6urSx-f8/?t=1658) the process is the the initial booking is um you can pay for it with a credit card you can get a confirmation uh straight away you could you could yeah ride share is uh falcon 9 ride show is going away though so um these were the rosy days when um it was much easier to get a single um payload launched um so we're in a It's a transitionary period at the moment where Falcon 9 is being wound down and Starship has yet to be wound up.

[28:07](https://realalpha.app/v/mdq6urSx-f8/?t=1687) So we're definitely in a crunch time at the moment when it comes to launch. What is the process for that though? Do you need insurance? What happens if it doesn't go to plan? Insurance is relatively inexpensive for Falcon 9 because it has such a strong track record, 300 launches, consecutive launches without a failure. um but um so you can ensure the uh a failure on launch you know the rocket explodes the payload doesn't separate that kind of thing um it's much more difficult to ensure things going wrong with the spacecraft as it's you know this is the first first spacecraft of its type to be built um so we got insurance for the for the launch um and um you know that can if something goes wrong then that can give you a bit of a financial payout but what we what it can't compensate you for is the lost time which is really the most valuable resource for like a

[29:03](https://realalpha.app/v/mdq6urSx-f8/?t=1743) fast-moving startup so yeah i'm slightly on the fence of the value of ensuring payloads but um yeah we'll take it case by case we were just at rocket lab and we did a tour we did a series there and the one topic that keeps on getting delayed is neutron how do you think that will or will not affect the market if and when it starts to be serviceable yeah it's um yeah they i think yes just yesterday they probably announced the um the first flight will be 2027 um you know Composite manufacturing is really hard.

[29:44](https://realalpha.app/v/mdq6urSx-f8/?t=1784) I know from personal experience, very large composite structures often take a bit longer than you expect, especially when you're producing them for the first time and you're running the tooling for the first time. I have a lot of faith that Rocket Lab can get Neutron flying regularly. They've proven that they, you know, 100 launches of Electron, so they can do scale.