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Launch capacity to low-Earth orbit is the binding constraint on commercial satellite deployment.
SpaceX's Falcon 9 has carried the bulk of those payloads in recent years, setting a launch cadence that looked, for a time, like adequate market supply.
SpaceX is pulling back its Falcon 9 program, and Starship, its reusable next-generation super-heavy-lift rocket, carries no confirmed timeline for delivering third-party payloads beyond the company's own Starlink constellation.
Into that gap, Germany's Isar Aerospace has reached orbit for the first time, its Spectrum rocket delivering a batch of CubeSats to low-Earth orbit from a spaceport in northern Norway.
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