Astronomy Prints 🌌: Editor's Choice: Tackling the launch capability bottleneck

06/17/2026

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By Mike Gruss

One theme that’s already emerging for the second half of the year? Launch capability.

That term doesn’t simply mean finding rockets to take satellites to orbit but also for the United States to have the infrastructure needed to get tens of thousands of new satellites to orbit.

Consider a report last month from the Commercial Space Federation and Rational Futures called “Scrubbed: America’s Launch Capacity Challenge.” The group threw out a giant figure: that as many 7,000 launches per year could be needed.

Two stories from the past week speak to the broader problem.

The first is that the U.S. Space Force is seeking potential users of a new launch site at Vandenberg Space Force Base reserved for smaller rockets.

The Space Force released a request for information June 8 seeking interest from launch vehicle operators in Space Launch Complex (SLC) 9, a proposed launch site at Vandenberg that would be used for small- and medium-class launch vehicles. Responses to the RFI are due July 8.

But as SpaceNews’ Jeff Foust wrote at the end of the story: The request “comes amid concerns about launch demand straining capacity at both Vandenberg and Cape Canaveral.”

The second is that sea-based launch — remember that? — is getting another look from the industry. From Sandra Erwin’s story in this month’s SpaceNews magazine:

Concerns that America’s launch infrastructure may not keep pace with rising demand are reviving interest in an unconventional workaround: sea-based rocket launch.

Long viewed as a technically difficult niche with a history of commercial failure, companies and defense officials are giving offshore launch a second look as they search for ways to expand United States launch capacity.

The story notes that policymakers could be forced to consider “non-traditional” launch sites, including inland and sea-based spaceports, to relieve pressure on Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida and Vandenberg Space Force Base in California.

Sandra interviews leaders at Seagate Space, a Florida startup founded in early 2025 by former maritime industry executives Michael Anderson and Sean Fortener, who previously worked at transportation and logistics company Crowley Maritime.

They’re eyeing an initial demonstration launch in 2028.

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SIGNIFICANT DIGIT

$514 million

The amount of money the U.S. Space Force awarded Lockheed Martin to build two additional GPS 3F satellites.

The 70-meter antenna, designated DSS-14, at the Deep Space Network site in Goldstone, California. Credit: NASA

DEEP SPACE NETWORK DAMAGE

A NASA investigation blamed millions of dollars in damage to one of its largest Deep Space Network (DSN) antennas on poor training and procedures.

NASA released this month a redacted version of the final report investigating an incident at its DSS-14 antenna, a 70-meter DSN antenna in Goldstone, California. That antenna has been offline since the Sept. 16 incident.

The antenna suffered damage when it over-rotated, stressing and breaking cables and hoses, including those carrying water for a fire-suppression system. That flooded the base of the antenna with more than 750,000 liters of water that also contained glycol.

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