AMERICA’S LAUNCH CAPACITY CHALLENGE

A Strategic Report from the Commercial Space Federation

We are at a defining moment for American space competitiveness. U.S. orbital launch demand has surged past 180 launches per year, and the pipeline ahead is staggering—tens of thousands of satellites already in the regulatory queue, with proposed space-based data centers alone representing a potential step-change of over one million additional spacecraft. The implications are profound: without coordinated action, capacity constraints at the nation’s traditional launch sites could drive up costs, delay deployments, and cede strategic ground to international competitors at precisely the moment when commercial, civil, and national security missions are converging in low-Earth orbit. Scrubbed lays out what’s at stake and the pressure points that policymakers, operators, and investors must weigh now to ensure U.S. launch capacity keeps pace with the ambitions it is meant to serve.