Elon Musk dominates space launch. Rivals are calling foul.

In an undated image provided by the company, workers at Rocket Lab, now the third most successful commercial launch company behind SpaceX and a joint venture of Lockheed and Boeing, building their Capstone lunar orbiter. At a time when the US government is concerned about its reliance on a mercurial billionaire for access to space, new competitors say Elon Musk’s SpaceX is using tactics intended to squash them. — Rocket Lab via The New York Times

WASHINGTON: Elon Musk aggressively elbowed his way into the space launch business over the past two decades, combining engineering genius and an entrepreneurial drive with a demand that the US government stop favouring the big, slow-moving contractors that had long dominated the industry.

Today, it is Musk who is dominant. His company, SpaceX, is the primary provider of launch services to NASA and to the Pentagon. His rockets carry far more commercial satellites into orbit than anyone else’s, including those for his own Starlink communications network. He has set new standards for reaching space cheaply and reliably.