US Spaceports Need More Funding to Prevent a Launch Bottleneck

Satellites underpin multiple global sectors such as finance, navigation, and communications, and they are at risk of experiencing major delays in reaching orbit. The U.S. space industry is rapidly approaching a point where satellite operators and launch providers run out of available spaceports to launch from. According to two recent government reports, the main cause of this emerging bottleneck is insufficient and outdated launch infrastructure, such as launch pads and payload integration facilities.

NASA’s Office of the Inspector General (OIG) recently released a report warning that the Kennedy Space Center in Florida and the Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia lack the capacity to support the increasing number of government and commercial launches. Much of this infrastructure dates to the 1960s and is “becoming increasingly dated.” NASA is working to upgrade and expand necessary launch infrastructure, but the report highlights that “the Agency struggles with declining construction and maintenance budgets and statutory funding barriers.”

The findings of the OIG investigation are strikingly similar to those of a 2025 Government Accountability Office (GAO) audit of Space Force launch infrastructure. The GAO found that the Space Force, like NASA, needs to expand and modernize its spaceports, and that it undercharges commercial launch companies that rely on its facilities at Cape Canaveral and Vandenberg. As a result, the government absorbs costs that should be recovered from commercial users and reinvested into infrastructure upgrades. Thus, the U.S. government’s principal spaceport operators face the same challenge: they are not recovering sufficient costs from commercial users to modernize and expand the infrastructure on which those users rely, leaving spaceports short of the resources needed to meet growing launch demand.

To address this issue, America’s principal spaceport operators, NASA and the Space Force, should increase the fees charged to commercial users of government launch infrastructure to fund upgrades. More importantly, Congress can help by providing additional resources for spaceport operators to expand and modernize infrastructure and by reforming environmental regulations that unnecessarily delay infrastructure deployment.

Fortunately, since the publication of the GAO report, the Space Force has begun implementing reforms to revise its cost recovery methodology for commercial users of its launch facilities. NASA should follow that example and leverage the findings of its OIG report to overhaul its cost recovery practices at Wallops and the Kennedy Space Center. Better cost recovery would allow NASA to reinvest user fees directly into infrastructure improvements.

Some may worry that higher user fees will push commercial launch providers to other countries, but this concern overestimates the risk. Foreign spaceport operators also charge users, and unlike its competitors, the United States already offers commercial launch providers an unmatched combination of launch cadence, orbital access, and a mature supply chain, even with its aging infrastructure. The most comparable alternatives are in Europe and China, but the European spaceport at Kourou, French Guiana lacks launch capacity, and launching from China carries economic and security risks that deter most non-Chinese operators. A modest fee increase is unlikely to change that calculus.

Cost recovery reform alone is only one step toward closing the funding gap for NASA or the Space Force. As the OIG report highlights, declining construction and maintenance budgets and statutory funding barriers are compounding the problem. Thus, in addition to spaceport operators improving internal cost recovery, Congress should provide sufficient funding for spaceport modernization and reform environmental regulations that slow down infrastructure buildout.

Congress should provide NASA with additional funding in its annual budget to modernize and expand its spaceport infrastructure so it can better accommodate government and commercial launch needs. Congress should do the same for the Space Force through the annual appropriations process or the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA).

Congress should also reform environmental regulations, such as the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), that unnecessarily delay spaceport infrastructure expansion. Project opponents frequently use the NEPA review process as a litigation tool to block government infrastructure projects. The resulting delays and high legal costs often cause agencies to abandon projects altogether. While the Executive Branch has made some progress in modernizing NEPA rules, Congress should reform the NEPA process through legislation that prevents the review process from being used to delay critical infrastructure projects. This reform would allow NASA and the Space Force to improve spaceports more quickly and help prevent a launch bottleneck.

The NASA OIG and GAO investigations independently reach the same conclusion: American spaceports cannot sustain the launch needs of government missions and the rapidly growing commercial space industry. Unless Congress and federal agencies modernize and expand these facilities soon, launch infrastructure will become the principal constraint on continued U.S. leadership in space.