The Price of Reaching Orbit Has Dropped 96 Percent Since 1960

Cambridge researchers chart launch costs falling from over $87,000 per kilogram to $3,868, with forecasts pointing much lower.

University of Cambridge researchers, in a study led by Alessio Terzi and published in PNAS Nexus, report that the cost to send a kilogram to orbit fell 96 percent between 1960 and 2025 — from more than $87,000 in 2024 dollars to $3,868. Their analysis covered over 4,400 launches across more than 330 rocket designs, estimating each launch's unit flyaway cost while excluding research and development spending.

The decline tracks Wright's Law, which holds that technologies get cheaper as cumulative production grows. Every doubling of payload sent to orbit cut the average cost per kilogram by 21.2 percent — a learning curve comparable to solar panels, which fell 99.8 percent between 1975 and 2023. The team forecasts launch costs dropping to $1,569 per kilogram by 2030 and $273 by 2040.

Cheaper access to orbit changes the economics of what can be built or gathered in space — orbital solar power, manufacturing, and resource extraction all become more plausible when the per-kilogram bill collapses. Lower costs also make satellite services underpinning connection and navigation more affordable to launch.

The caveats are real. The projections are modeling, not confirmed outcomes. SpaceX accounts for roughly 80 percent of payload reaching orbit, concentrating the industry's progress in one company that could exploit a monopoly position, and pushing some governments to avoid depending on it. Falling costs also risk cluttering low Earth orbit with debris. Watch whether competitors emerge to broaden the base of this curve.

Source: Singularity Hub