SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell welcomed competition from Starlink, rockets.

SpaceX’s second-in-command blasted rivals in comments Friday, calling competition healthy for Elon Musk’s space company.

“I hope other people will take control of it, right? Competition is good for industries. … It keeps us tight; it keeps us very focused.”

“It’s going to be hard to catch us, but I’m sure people will try,” added Shotwell.

SpaceX has risen to a dominant position in the global launch industry as its semi-reusable Falcon rockets have launched more than 100 times this year and counting. The next closest American rocket company, Rocket Labhas launched into orbit 12 times this year, with others in the single digits.

Additionally, the 15,000-person company has won multibillion-dollar government contracts from the Department of Defense and NASA, the latter the sole U.S. authority to ferry crews to and from the International Space Station with its Dragon capsule.

And SpaceX’s Starlink satellite Internet network now serves about 5 million users, Shotwell said.

Starlink has become disruptive to existing satellite telecommunications companies. With nearly 7,000 Starlink satellites in orbit, SpaceX has expanded Starlink’s product offerings from consumer to enterprise markets such as aviation and maritime.

But the satellite broadband market is “huge,” Shotwell said. Several companies are working on Starlink competitors, such as Eutelsat’s OneWeb, Amazon’s Project Kuiper, the speed-of-light telesat and AST Space Mobile.

Billionaire investor Ron Barron, who said his eponymous firm owns more than $2 billion in privately held SpaceX stock, noted that roughly 30% of the world’s 8 billion people lack broadband access. Not available.

“I would love to say … SpaceX is going to serve them all,” Shotwell told Barron’s, but “there will be competition — I think there’s plenty of room in the industry, plenty of room for competition.”

Shotwell noted that SpaceX is also steadily advancing development of its behemoth Starship rocket, most recently holding the vehicle’s booster on its first try during its fifth test flight last month.

“Starship is really an alternative. It made the Falcon 9 and the Dragon capsule obsolete. Now, we’re not shutting down the Falcon, we’re not shutting down the Dragon — let’s fly it for another six to eight years. Will,” he said.

“But ultimately, people want to fly on a starship: it’s bigger, it’s more comfortable, it’ll be less expensive,” added Shotwell.

SpaceX is aiming for Starship’s sixth flight test on Tuesday, Shotwell said, as the company aims to push the rocket’s capabilities with additional demonstrations during the mission. The Starship system is designed to be fully reusable and is intended to be a new way to fly cargo and people off Earth, unlike Falcon rockets, which only have reusable boosters and nose cones. The way is to be.

“We just passed 400. [total] Launched on the Falcon and I wouldn’t be surprised if we fly 400 Starship launches over the next four years,” Shotwell said.