SpaceX stops taking new commercial Falcon 9 orders, and Italian rival Avio is fielding the overflow

The commercial launch market, the business of booking rides to orbit for a paying customer's satellite, is shifting. SpaceX has told multiple prospective customers in recent months that it is no longer accepting new orders for commercial Falcon 9 launches. Italian launch services provider Avio says those buyers are now calling.

Avio chief executive Giulio Ranzo confirmed the shift on the company's September 10 earnings call. "I can tell you SpaceX has already gone captive because we have a whole bunch of customers coming to us and saying, 'Oh my God, can you fly us?'" he said. European Spaceflight reported the remarks.

Here is what "gone captive" means. In launch services, a provider is considered captive when its manifest is committed entirely to existing or internal customers, leaving no room for outside bids. A manifest is a schedule of booked launches and their dates. SpaceX's Falcon 9 appears to have reached that point. New commercial buyers cannot get onto the schedule.

ULA and the weight of an older model

The other major story in US launch this period involves United Launch Alliance. ULA is a joint venture co-owned by Boeing and Lockheed Martin. As recently as a decade ago, the company dominated US launch services. Reporter Stephen Clark published a detailed analysis this week examining where ULA stands now. The framing is one of fading fortunes.

Clark's piece centers on a structural problem: ULA is tied to an expendable rocket. Expendable means the vehicle is not recovered or reused after flight. Clark frames this as the defining challenge for a company whose previous dominance came in a different competitive era. His analysis does not project a specific future flight rate or revenue figure for ULA, and the question of what comes next for a company built around an expendable rocket is left open.

For Avio, the picture runs the other direction. New customers being turned away by SpaceX represent direct incoming business. Ranzo's September 10 earnings call is the most recent public statement on the demand shift, and the company says the inquiries are already arriving.