Musk: SpaceX to Shift Fully to Starship, Phase Out Falcon Rockets After Weekly Stable Flights
Elon Musk said SpaceX will redirect all engineering and production resources to Starship once it achieves reliable weekly flights, increasing launch cadence to multiple times daily and gradually retiring the Falcon family. Currently, Falcon 9 remains the workhorse, completing 78 launches in the first half of 2026, according to SpaceX's second-quarter earnings. The fully reusable Starship, with over 100 tons of low Earth orbit capacity, is still in test flights, while Falcon 9's semi-reusable design serves existing commercial and government missions. Falcon retirement depends on Starship's maturity.
Musk stated that once Starship achieves reliable and stable flight several times a week, SpaceX will fully shift its engineering and production resources to Starship, increasing launch frequency to multiple times per day, with the Falcon rocket family gradually being phased out. This statement was made in response to related discussions.
At present, Falcon 9 remains in high-density service, handling commercial satellite constellation deployment, NASA crewed cargo missions, and defense-related launches. In its second-quarter 2026 earnings report, SpaceX disclosed that it completed 78 launch missions in the first half of the year, the vast majority conducted by Falcon 9. Falcon 9 is SpaceX's current primary launch vehicle, having completed its first flight in 2010. It uses liquid oxygen and kerosene propellants with Merlin engines and features a two-stage design. The current Block 5 version stands 70 meters tall, with a diameter of 3.7 meters, capable of delivering 22.8 tons to low Earth orbit and 8.3 tons to geostationary transfer orbit in reusable mode. Only the first-stage booster is recoverable and reusable; the second stage is expendable. With its high reliability and high launch cadence, it has become the most-launched and most commercially mature orbital rocket globally.
Starship is SpaceX's next-generation super-heavy, fully reusable space system, comprising the Super Heavy booster and the Starship spacecraft. The entire stack measures 124 meters in height with a diameter of 9 meters, powered by Raptor engines burning liquid oxygen and methane, enabling full recovery and reuse of both stages. In its fully reusable configuration, it offers more than 100 tons of payload capacity to low Earth orbit, targeting ultra-high-frequency launches, lunar missions, and Mars deep-space exploration. Starship remains in the test-flight iteration phase and has not yet entered formal commercial operations. Falcon 9 is a semi-reusable, proven rocket suited to the current commercial space market, meeting existing routine launch needs; Starship is a future-oriented, fully reusable platform with enormous capacity. The pace of Falcon's retirement will depend on Starship's test-flight maturation. Until Starship achieves stable, high-frequency, and reliable operations, Falcon 9 will continue to serve as SpaceX's primary launch vehicle.