A study found that the average expense to send 1 kilogram of cargo into space fell from $87,000 in 1960 to below $4,000 last year. If launch volume grows at a pace similar to now, the expense per kilogram could drop to about $300 by 2040.
Researcher Alessio Terzi at the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom and Professor Francesco Nicoli at the Polytechnic University of Turin in Italy published an analysis of 4,405 rocket launches conducted from 1960 to last year in PNAS Nexus on the 14th (local time). The analysis included launch records of major spacefaring entities such as Korea, the United States, Russia, China, India, Japan, and Europe.
The researchers converted launch expenses, which varied by country and period, into 2024 dollars. Taking into account that each launch vehicle's target orbit and payload capacity differ, they standardized transport performance to low Earth orbit and calculated the average launch expense per kilogram of cargo.
As a result of the analysis, the average expense per kilogram of cargo decreased 95.6%, from $87,023 in 1960 to $3,868 last year. Each time the cumulative payload sent to space doubled, the average expense fell by 21.2%. The trend of unit expenses decreasing as production and operational experience accumulates was confirmed in the space launch industry as well.
The researchers said this drop in expenses was not simply the result of launching the same rocket multiple times. Over the past 30 years, the shift in launch volume to cheaper rockets had a greater effect than the expense savings from repeated operation of individual rockets.
The pace of expense reductions for space launch vehicles was also steep compared with other technologies. For solar modules, prices fell an average of 20.2% each time cumulative installations doubled from 1975 to 2019. Since the introduction of steamships in the 19th century, transatlantic freight rates decreased by 15.5% each time cumulative cargo volume doubled.
Assuming, as in 2010–2025, that the payload sent to orbit increases by an average of 13.3% per year, the researchers estimated the average launch expense would fall to $1,600 per kilogram in 2030 and to $300 in 2040.
In particular, if SpaceX's next-generation heavy launch vehicle Starship achieves full reusability and high launch frequency, initial expenses could be around $1,000 per kilogram and fall below $500 once production and operations are standardized. As SpaceX currently accounts for about 75% of global orbital payload insertion, future average launch expenses are expected to be heavily influenced by whether Starship operations expand.
Korea is also pursuing ways to lower space transport expenses through the development of reusable launch vehicles and repeated launches. The government plans to develop the next-generation launch vehicle as a reusable system and to build launch experience by linking repeated Nuri launches with demand for public satellites.
However, the researchers anticipated that if launch capability concentrates in specific corporations and competition weakens, customer prices may not fall sufficiently even if manufacturing expenses decline. They also cited situations that could slow expense reductions, such as countries maintaining more expensive domestic launch vehicles for security reasons or rising collision-avoidance and insurance expenses due to increasing space debris.
References
PNAS Nexus (2026), DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/pnasnexus/pgag217