IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ebl/ecbull/eb-22-00204.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

An analysis of launch cost reductions for low Earth orbit satellites

Author

Listed:
  • Nodir Adilov

    (Purdue University Fort Wayne)

  • Peter Alexander

    (Federal Communications Commission)

  • Brendan Cunningham

    (Eastern Connecticut State University)

  • Nikolas Albertson

    (Purdue University Fort Wayne)

Abstract

We explore launch-cost reductions for satellites in low-Earth orbit and find that from 2000 to 2020 per-kilogram launch costs decreased at an average annual rate of 5.5%, while altitude-adjusted average launch costs per kilogram decreased by 4.4% annually. The altitude-adjusted annual rate of decrease was 7.5% for commercial satellites and 3.6% for non-commercial satellites. Regression analysis reveals that declining satellite mass induced an annual 10.4% reduction in average per-satellite launch costs over the period under study. At these rates, average launch costs to low-Earth orbit will fall below $1000 per kilogram between 2045 and 2076 and $100 per kilogram by the next century.

Suggested Citation

  • Nodir Adilov & Peter Alexander & Brendan Cunningham & Nikolas Albertson, 2022. "An analysis of launch cost reductions for low Earth orbit satellites," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 42(3), pages 1561-1574.
    • Handle: RePEc:ebl:ecbull:eb-22-00204
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.accessecon.com/Pubs/EB/2022/Volume42/EB-22-V42-I3-P130.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    More about this item

    Keywords

    launch cost; satellites; economics of space; space commerce.;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • L9 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Transportation and Utilities
    • O3 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ebl:ecbull:eb-22-00204. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: John P. Conley (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.