NASA’s launch facilities will likely reach capacity by the end of the decade as the number of commercial launches continues to skyrocket, according to a report from the space agency’s inspector general released Monday.
You can beat the heat: The IG found extensive problems at the agency’s main launch center at KSC that are only expected to get worse as the launch cadence rises to reach 268 in 2030—up from 109 in 2025.
- The aging infrastructure that supplies power, gas, and transportation to launch pads is not adequate to support the growing number of liftoffs;
- The system to deliver nitrogen and helium to the launch pads can’t support multiple users at once, which could force launch delays;
- The center’s roads and bridges are more than 60 years old, and are not in good-enough condition to support the additional truck trips required to haul launch hardware. The 17 launches in 2019 required 1,956 truck trips, while the 109 launches in 2025 required 8,752.
The electrical system at NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia was updated in 2018, and construction began on the causeway bridge to reach the base in 2025, so it doesn’t face the same scale of issues—though the number of launches from the small facility is expected to grow by to 44 in 2030, up from 17 in 2025.
Splitting the bill: The report said it would cost at least $1B to update KSC’s launch infrastructure to support the coming wave of rockets. That’s a number that can’t be supported by NASA’s annual construction and maintenance budgets. The IG found that budgets for construction and maintenance of launch infrastructure have been cut between 11% and 47% during the past five years, accounting for inflation.
About 70% of the launches from NASA ranges are commercial—yet the space agency is prohibited from collecting fees from commercial users to update infrastructure under the rent agreements it previously set with launchers.
What’s next: The report made a series of recommendations, which NASA agreed with, including:
- Studying how increased vehicle traffic is hurting KSC’s roads—and coming up with a plan to address it;
- Prioritizing spending $250M, included in the reconciliation bill, for launch-infrastructure improvements for electrical, gas, and transportation fixes;
- Checking whether the agency is able to charge launchers for common infrastructure.
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