SpaceX buoyed by launch dominance, but Starlink Mobile's future unclear, analysts say

WASHINGTON, July 7, 2026 - SpaceX may have included fanciful projections in its IPO filing, but the company's rocket launch capability is truly second to none, analysts say.

"SpaceX is primarily a rocket manufacturing and launch company," MoffettNathanson analysts wrote in an investor report released Tuesday. "And the company has created a near-monopoly in the rocket segment."

The 165 orbital launches carried out by the company last year represented 53 percent of all such launches worldwide, the report notes, and almost 70 percent of the mass put into orbit. SpaceX is still controlled by Elon Muskwhich controls a large part of its voting rights after its record IPO.

"Facing SpaceX, there are no competing companies, but entire sovereign nations," write the analysts, "and always SpaceX surpasses them all. Combined."

That's largely thanks to SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket's reusable booster, they wrote, which makes repeat launches much cheaper. The company plans to make its Starship rocket fully reusable, which would further reduce costs.

MoffettNathanson estimated that this would come to fruition "no sooner than mid-2027," contrary to the company's projections for the end of this year. The report was written by Craig Moffettco-founder of the research firm, and analysts Julie Zhu And Nick Del Deo.

The company operates a massive constellation of 10,000 satellites to support its Starlink broadband service. This both aided the development of the Falcon 9 and benefited from internal launch capability, the analysts wrote.

They compared SpaceX to satellite broadband provider Amazon Leo and rocket launcher Blue Origin. The former needed a waiver from the Federal Communications Commission because it was unable to ensure launch capability for its nascent constellation, and the latter is "by most estimates a decade or more behind" reusable rockets.

SpaceX "is, in short, a bet on everything made possible by a virtual lockdown on rocket manufacturing and launch," the analysts wrote.

Directly on the device

SpaceX has big plans for its direct-to-device mobile service. It is buying $19.6 billion worth of spectrum from EchoStar to support the service and has asked the FCC for permission to launch an additional 15,000 satellites directly to devices.

It also treated mobile as a source of future growth during its IPO.

"For this to happen, Starlink cannot remain a complement to terrestrial wireless targeting remote rural areas; this opportunity is not large enough. Instead, it will need to replace terrestrial wireless," the analysts wrote. "We are skeptical."

Satellite service alone is extremely unlikely to be competitive with land mobile service, they write, due to the considerable distances involved.

The only way for SpaceX to gain market share would be to partner with a carrier through a mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) agreement, they argued.

However, each of the mobile carrier CEOs has rejected this idea; The companies also announced earlier this year that they were forming a joint venture focused directly on devices, which analysts saw as a united front against a SpaceX MVNO.

Verizon provided MVNOs to Comcast and Charter, and the cable giants became legitimate competitors for mobile customers. Carriers are unlikely to be convinced to let another competitor into the fold, analysts write.

There have been reports recently that SpaceX is developing a mobile phone and talking with Charter about a mobile partnership, both interpreted as further signs of the satellite operator's mobile ambitions.

According to MoffettNathanson, the most realistic way to convince an operator to grant an MVNO might be to gather valuable spectrum assets that SpaceX could offer as part of the deal. The company's purchase of national spectrum from EchoStar is the most logical bargaining chip for this purpose, they argued, since the airwaves can only really be used in rural areas without superior terrestrial coverage.

SpaceX "will continue to negotiate, cajole and, if necessary, coerce, with the goal of reaching an MVNO agreement with one of the Big Three," they wrote. "It is clear, however, that the Big Three fully understand the clear and present danger that would be posed by Starlink's entry into the market as another cable-style hybrid MNO/MVNO."

Analysts at LightShed Partners speculated last week that SpaceX could buy EchoStar's now-defunct mobile network as part of its wireless subsidiary's bankruptcy proceedings. This would avoid the hundreds of billions in costs and decades of permitting and construction that would be required to build a mobile network.

"It might be difficult for SpaceX to pass up cheap radio assets with which it could negotiate favorable leases," LightShed analysts Walter Piecyk And Joe Gallone wrote.