Commercial Launch Price/Performance Points

[DeimosDream]

I’m trying to make a list of operational price/performance points.
Note: due to limited availability of 2022-2023 price information this table still uses 2017-2021 pricing for consistency even though post-covid inflation has made those prices obsolete.

LEO

Price - Vehicle      Payload @ Inclination  [$/Kg]       Notes
$1.0M - SpaceX RS      200kg - SSO     [$5,000/kg] (Rideshare to SSO: $1M minimum, up to $4.2M for 830kg)
$2.5M - Astra Rocket 3 150kg @ Polar   [$16,700/kg] Cancelled after 2/5 record. To be replaced by rocket 4. 
$7.5M - Electron       300kg @ 45°     [$25,000/kg]
$12M  - Launcher One   500kg @ any?    [$24,000/kg]
$15M  - Firefly Alpha  1.2t  @ 29°     [$12,800/kg] (1x success to date)
$17M  - PSLV-CA        2.1t  @ 49.5°   [$8,100/kg]
$27M  - PSLV-XL        3.8t  @ 49.5°   [$7,100/kg]
$35M  - Soyuz 2.1a     7.0t  @ 51.6°   [$5,000/kg] No longer available for Western payloads.
$55M  - Falcon 9R      15.7t @ 28.5°   [$3,500/kg] (10% used discount)
$65M  - Proton M       21.6t @ 51.6°   [$3,000/kg] No longer available for Western payloads. 
$90M  - Falcon 9H      40t   @ 28.5°   [$2,250/kg] (full recovery: fairing volume limited in practice for LEO)
  $40M  - Vega-C       3.2t  @ 6°      [$12,500/kg] (1x successfully flights to date).
  $80M  - HII-A        10t   @ 30°     [$8,000/kg] (Final flight 12/2021. To be replaced by H3)
  $100M - GSLV-MKIII   10t   @ 45°     [$10,000/kg]
  $115M - Atlas V 411  12.1t @ 28.5°   [$9,500/kg] (To be replaced by Vulcan VC0: $82M for 10.6 tons: $7,750/kg)
  $153M - Atlas V 551  18.8t @ 28.5°   [$8,150/kg] (To be replaced by Vulcan VC6: $122M(?) for 27.2 tons)
  $175M - Ariane 5 ECA 21t   @ 5°      [$8,300/kg] (To be replaced by Ariane 64: $131M for 21.6 tons: $6,000/kg)

SSO

Price - Vehicle         Payload  [$/Kg]       Notes
$1.0M - SpaceX RS         200kg  [$5,000/kg]  (Rideshare to SSO: $1M minimum, up to $4.2M for 830kg)
$2.5M - Astra Rocket 3    50kg   [$50,000/kg] Cancelled after 2/5 record. To be replaced by rocket 4.
$7.5M - Electron          200kg  [$37,500/kg]
$12M  - Launcher One      300kg  [$40,000/kg]
$15M  - Firefly Alpha     745kg  [$20,100/kg] (1x success to date)
$17M  - PSLV-CA           1100kg [$15,450/kg]
$27M  - PSLV-XL           1750kg [$15,450/kg]
$49M  - Soyuz 2.1b/Fregat 4.9t   [$10,000/kg] No longer available for Western payloads. 
$55M  - Falcon 9R         11.5t? [$4,800/kg] (10% used discount)
$75M  - Falcon 9E         16.9t? [$4,450/kg] (10% used discount: estimated $20M expended penalty)
  $4.6M - SSLV            300kg  [15,350/kg]  (Still in development. First attempt expected 2022)
  $12M  - Terran 1        900kg  [$13,350/kg] (Still in development. First attempt expected 2022)      
  $12M  - ABL RS1         1000kg [$12,000/kg] (Still in development. First attempt expected 2022)
  $40M  - Vega-C          2.3t   [$17,400/kg] (1x successes to date)
  $80M  - HII-A           5.1t   [$15,700/kg] (Final flight 12/2021. To be replaced by H3)
  $100M - GSLV MkIII      5t     [$20,000/kg] 
  $115M - Atlas V 411     8.4t   [$13,700/kg] (To be replaced by Vulcan VC0: $82M for ?? tons)
  $153M - Atlas V 551     13.5   [$11,350/kg] (To be replaced by Vulcan VC6: $122M for ?? tons)

GTO -1800 m/s

$27M  - PSLV-XL             1.4t   [$19.3K/kg]
$55M  - Falcon 9R           5.5t   [$10.0K/kg] (10% used discount)
$75M  - Falcon 9E           8.3t   [$9.0K/kg] (10% used, plus estimated $20M expended penalty)
$110M - Falcon 9H-CE        21t    [$5.2K/kg] (estimated price/performance for only side booster recovery)
$150M - Falcon 9R-FE        26.7t  [$5.6K/kg] (Maximum performance, fully expended)
  $49M  - Soyuz-2.1b/Fregat 2.4t   [$20.4K/kg] (At Baikonur. 3.0tª) No longer available for Western payloads. 
  $80M  - HII-A             3.8t   [$21.5/kg] (final flight 12/2021. To be replaced by H3)
  $100M - GSLV MkIII        4.0t   [$25.0K/kg]
  $109M - Proton-M/Briz-M   6.9t   [$15.8K/kg] No longer available for Western payloads. 
  $115M - Atlas V 411       5.9t   [$19.5K/kg] (To be replaced by Vulcan VC2: $97M (?) for 7.6t $12.8K/kg?)
  $153M - Atlas V 551       8.9t   [$17.2K/kg] (To be replaced by Vulcan VC6: $122M(?) for 13.6t $9K/kg?)
  $175M - Ariane 5 ECA      10.2t* [$17.2K/kg] (To be replaced by Ariane 64: $131M for 12.9t $10.2K/kg)

ª Unclear if Soyuz-2.1b/Fregat (Kourou) performance is GTO -1500 m/s or GT -1800 m/s.
* Ariane 5 ECA performance could only be found for GTO -1500 m/s. Performance to -1800 is higher.

Omitted:
Long March series. They are competitively active, but the only pricing date I can find are outdated references to obsolete configurations.

Are there any launch vehicles that have I have missed which have flown at three times in the past 5 years, including at least one commercial or foreign payload?

Are any of the launch prices I've found outdated, in-name-only, or otherwise functionally incorrect?

---------------------------
1/15/2022 - Reordered table. Added GSLV-MkII and Vega. Removed incorrect F9-expendable pricing.
1/22/2022 - Added GTO table. Added optimal inclinations to LEO table. Switched to fixed-width font formatting.
1/25/2022 - Added SSO table. Added Proton-M/Briz-M to GTO table.
10/22/2022 - Grayed Russian rockets. Added Firefly Alpha, Vega-C, and GSLV-MKIII. Adjusted F9 pricing.

[tbellman]

I’m trying to make a list of operational price/performance points.
[ . . . ]
Are there any launch vehicles that have I have missed which have flown at three times in the past 5 years, including at least one commercial or foreign payload?

Are any of the launch prices I've found outdated, in-name-only, or otherwise functionally incorrect?

You are missing Falcon Heavy.

Reusable Falcon 9 has been sold for as low as $42M (the launch of NASA IXPE), but how common it is to get that price I don't know.

Since you mention "to be replaced by" for some vehicles, you may want to also add that HII is to be replaced by H3.

The Indian PSLV (Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle) has launched several commercial and foreign (i.e, non-Indian) satellites.

There are various Chinese rockets as well, but I don't off hand know how many commercial or foreign payloads they have had lately.

EDIT: Oh, and both the two latest launches of Virgin Orbit LauncherOne contained payloads from customers that weren't the US Government.

[trimeta]

For the smallsat launchers, are you considering payload to 500km SSO, or the minimum to any sort of orbit? Because the latter isn't actually as standard as you like: based on their respective payload users' guides, LauncherOne can theoretically get up to 600kg for example, but that's a circular orbit just under 200km with an inclination of 12 degrees, while Electron's max payload is 310kg but to a 180x300km orbit at 39 degrees.

For consistency, I'd go with a 500km SSO, which has the following values:

Rocket          Payload  Price  $/kg
Astra Rocket 3  100kg    $2.5M  $25,000
Electron        200kg    $7.5M  $37,500
LauncherOne     300kg    $12M   $40,000
Firefly Alpha   630kg    $15M   $23,810
Terran 1        900kg    $12M   $13,333
ABL RS1         970kg    $12M   $12,371

Of course, that includes three rockets which have yet to reach orbit, so whether you want to include them or not is a separate matter.

[XRZ.YZ]

Satellogic has launched on Chinese CZ-6 and as secondary payload on CZ-4B and CZ-2D before they transitioned to use F9 last year.

[gongora]

$62M is the list price for recoverable Falcon 9 mission.  ~$50M was the initial price point for flight proven vehicles (not sure if that's still the case?).  Those two prices are for the same performance level.  22 tons is expendable, which is much more expensive ($90M?).

[gongora]

You don't have Vega listed.  Also don't have any of the Northrop Grumman (formerly Orbital ATK) launchers, of which there are several.

[trimeta]

Also, two vehicles you didn't include are ESA's Vega and JAXA's Epsilon. Vega is in the process of being replaced by the Vega-C.

Rocket   Payload  Price  $/kg
Vega     1,435kg  $40M   $27,875
Vega-C   2,390kg  $40M   $16,736
Epsilon   600 kg  $25M   $41,667

Getting my info on 500km SSO payloads from the Vega, Vega-C, and Epsilon payload users manuals, and price for the Vegas from this article and Epsilon from this one (which gives a range from $25-30M, but I'm being generous).

[DeimosDream]

$62M is the list price for recoverable Falcon 9 mission.  ~$50M was the initial price point for flight proven vehicles (not sure if that's still the case?).  Those two prices are for the same performance level.  22 tons is expendable, which is much more expensive ($90M?).

Wow. Today I learned something new. No clue where my misunderstanding came from.

Intentionally not listed as non-competitive or non-competing:
Antares: Exclusively launches NASA ISS resupply and only NASA ISS resupply.
Epsilon: Exclusively launches Innovative Satellite Technology demonstrations for JAXA and only JAXA.
GSLV MkIII: Used exclusively by ISRO for ISRO missions.
Mintaur/Pegasus: only flies on rare and unique occasions (only 1-2 launches each in past 5 years)


I'll add Vega, GSLV-MkII, and a note on H3 to my first post.
As for Falcon Heavy, my understanding is it is too fairing volume limited to actually fly LEO missions, but I'll be sure to add it to GTO price/performance listing.

[imprezive]

For the smallsat launchers, are you considering payload to 500km SSO, or the minimum to any sort of orbit? Because the latter isn't actually as standard as you like: based on their respective payload users' guides, LauncherOne can theoretically get up to 600kg for example, but that's a circular orbit just under 200km with an inclination of 12 degrees, while Electron's max payload is 310kg but to a 180x300km orbit at 39 degrees.

For consistency, I'd go with a 500km SSO, which has the following values:

Rocket          Payload  Price  $/kg
Astra Rocket 3  100kg    $2.5M  $25,000
Electron        200kg    $7.5M  $37,500
LauncherOne     300kg    $12M   $40,000
Firefly Alpha   630kg    $15M   $23,810
Terran 1        900kg    $12M   $13,333
ABL RS1         970kg    $12M   $12,371

Of course, that includes three rockets which have yet to reach orbit, so whether you want to include them or not is a separate matter.

Thank you, all the comparisons of generic LEO irk me as they really aren’t useful.

[M.E.T.]

$62M is the list price for recoverable Falcon 9 mission.  ~$50M was the initial price point for flight proven vehicles (not sure if that's still the case?).  Those two prices are for the same performance level.  22 tons is expendable, which is much more expensive ($90M?).

First time I’ve heard that. You sure about this?

I was pretty sure $62M was the expendable F9 price - and has been for almost a decade, so taking inflation into account it has actually gotten cheaper over the years in real terms.

~$50M was the reusable F9 price as far as I was aware.

With $90M being the reusable FH price, and $150M the expendable FH price.

But I stand to be corrected if you have information to the contrary. I can understand that SpaceX may want to disincentivize expendable flights, though, so would not be entirely surprised if they had decided to push   up the price for that reason.

[DeimosDream]

$62M is the list price for recoverable Falcon 9 mission.  ~$50M was the initial price point for flight proven vehicles (not sure if that's still the case?).  Those two prices are for the same performance level.  22 tons is expendable, which is much more expensive ($90M?).

First time I’ve heard that. You sure about this?

I was pretty sure $62M was the expendable F9 price - and has been for almost a decade, so taking inflation into account it has actually gotten cheaper over the years in real terms.

~$50M was the reusable F9 price as far as I was aware.

With $90M being the reusable FH price, and $150M the expendable FH price.

But I stand to be corrected if you have information to the contrary. I can understand that SpaceX may want to disincentivize expendable flights, though, so would not be entirely surprised if they had decided to push   up the price for that reason.

That caught me by surprise too, but the capability guide now quietly lists $62M as for "5.5 tons GTO" AKA: drone ship recovery.

I can't find evidence of $90M for F9E, but further research suggests the difference between "new expended" and "used with recovery" is at least $26M (https://spacenews.com/spacexs-contract-to-launch-gps-satellites-modified-to-allow-reuse-of-falcon-9-boosters/). That puts a new expended F9 as now costing $76M+.

[GreenShrike]

Might want to consider Falcon 9's rideshare pricing.

From https://www.spacex.com/rideshare/, SSO flights are priced at $5k/kg for up to 830kg, which apparently is the max per port.

Not quite as cheap as buying the full launcher, but it should still provide contrast to the dedicated small sat launchers.

[Craftyatom]

Something that might be of help for calculations is this log-log plot from the now-defunct Aphelion Orbitals, which compares payload mass and cost (for individual actual launches rather than theoretical max performance, AFAIK).

It's outdated by a few years now (no idea what they would've made of Starlink and Transporter), but I assume they did due diligence in finding the numbers.  It unfortunately doesn't include Chinese LVs, so we're still mostly in the dark for those.

[DeimosDream]

Added inclinations to better distinguish all the LEO and cleaned table up with fixed-width predefined formatting instead of period spacing. Then after researching optimal inclinations I designed to go ahead and create a GTO table too.

GTO -1800 m/s
$27M  - PSLV-XL             1.4t   [$19.3K/kg]
$47M  - GSLV-MKII           2.5t   [$18.8K/kg]
$50M  - Falcon 9R           5.5t   [$9.1K/kg] (used discount)
$70M  - Falcon 9E           8.3t   [$8.4K/kg] (used, plus estimated $20M expended penalty)
$110M - Falcon 9H-CE        21t    [$5.2K/kg] (estimated price/performance for only side booster recovery)
$150M - Falcon 9R-FE        26.7t  [$5.6K/kg] (Maximum performance, fully expended)
  $49M  - Soyuz-2.1b/Fregat 2.4t   [$20.4K/kg] (At Baikonur. 3.0tª at $80M from Kourou French Guiana)
  $80M  - HII-A             3.8t   [$21.5/kg] (to be replaced by H3 series starting at $50M for ?? tons)
  $115M - Atlas V 411       5.9t   [$19.5K/kg] (To be replaced by Vulcan VC2: $97M (?) for 7.6t $12.8K/kg?)
  $153M - Atlas V 551       8.9t   [$17.2K/kg] (To be replaced by Vulcan VC6: $122M(?) for 13.6t $9K/kg?)
  $175M - Ariane 5 ECA      10.2t* [$17.2K/kg] (To be replaced by Ariane 64: $131M for 12.9t $10.2K/kg)

ª Unclear if Soyuz-2.1b/Fregat (Kourou) performance is GTO -1500 m/s or GT -1800 m/s.
* Ariane 5 ECA performance could only be found for GTO -1500 m/s Actual performance is higher.

[niwax]

I took the SSO and GTO numbers to make up some charts with the cost/kg over the whole payload range. The Falcons carve out a really wide GTO range around $10k/kg. Going to SSO on a small launcher is pretty expensive - up to five times as much as going to GTO, obviously F9 rideshare is much, much cheaper.

[DeimosDream]

Ok, I see there is strong interest in SSO numbers.

SSO

Price - Vehicle         Payload  [$/Kg]       Notes
$1.0M - SpaceX RS         200kg  [$5,000/kg]  (Rideshare to SSO: $1M minimum, up to $4.2M for 830kg)
$2.5M - Astra Rocket 3    50kg   [$50,000/kg] (Only 1x success to date. More launches expected 2022.)
$7.5M - Electron          200kg  [$37,500/kg]
$12M  - Launcher One      300kg  [$40,000/kg]
$15M  - Firefly Alpha     630kg  [$23,800/kg] (Currently 0/1. More launches epxected 2022)
$17M  - PSLV-CA           1100kg [$15,450/kg]
$27M  - PSLV-XL           1750kg [$15,450/kg]
$49M  - Soyuz 2.1b/Fregat 4.9t   [$10,000/kg]
$50M  - Falcon 9R         11.5t? [$4,350/kg] (used discount)
$70M  - Falcon 9E         16.9t? [$4,150/kg] (used discount: estimated $20M expended penalty)
  $4.6M - SSLV            300kg  [15,350/kg]  (Still in development. First attempt expected 2022)
  $12M  - Terran 1        900kg  [$13,350/kg] (Still in development. First attempt expected 2022)      
  $12M  - ABL RS1         1000kg [$12,000/kg] (Still in development. First attempt expected 2022)
  $40M  - Vega            1435kg [$27,900/kg] (to be replaced by Vega-C: $40m? for 2.4 tons)
  $80M  - HII-A           5.1t   [$15,700/kg] (to be replaced by H3 series starting at $50M for ?? tons)
  $115M - Atlas V 411     8.4t   [$13,700/kg] (To be replaced by Vulcan VC0: $82M for ?? tons)
  $153M - Atlas V 551     13.5   [$11,350/kg] (To be replaced by Vulcan VC6: $122M for ?? tons)

I'm using 50kg for Astra Rocket 3, and even that may be generous. While astra plans to do better with future launch vehicles reports say 50kg is the best it can do to 500km "mid inclination" https://spaceflightnow.com/2021/11/22/astra-reaches-orbit-for-first-time-clearing-way-for-commercial-launches/

Ariane 5 not listed since the user guide only lists "10+ tons" which is in line with the GTO performance.

Falcon 9 is an interpolation between v1.2 LEO/GTO performance relative to v1.1's LEO/SSO/GTO performance until I can find an updated performance point.

Also I finally found a price quote on Proton-M/Briz-M variant: $109M for Asiasat9, launched 2017. Borderline stale, but... why not. I'll add it to the GTO table.
https://spacenews.com/asiasat-books-ils-launch-hedge-against-spacex-delay/

[DeimosDream]

Congratulations:

To Avio, for a successfully maiden flight of the Vega-C.
To Firefly, for finally making orbit with Alpha.
To ISRO, for their first commercial payload with GSLV-MKIII.
To OneWeb, for finally getting back into orbit after getting the pointy end of the Soyuz cancellation.

Condolences to Astra on the Rocket 3.3. Better luck with Rocket 4.

While I'm making updates, Russian rockets have been grayed out because of Ukrane/OneWeb.

Updates not included at this time: SpaceX's 10% price hike, Firefly Alpha's apparent increase to $17M, or other 2022 post-covid adjustments. Some of the listed competition is using pricing date from as late as 2017, so I'm leaving things at pre-covid levels for now pending fresh price quotes across the board from other companies/agencies.

Pricing notes:
SpaceX's F9 Used price updated to $55M. As of 2016 SpaceX appears to have lowered their used discount to just 10%, and that discount is more likely to have grown even smaller as customers gained greater acceptece for flight-proven boosters.

GLSV MK-III Pricing:
Claims from ~2018 range from ₹367 crore (launch cost) to ₹434 crore (average production cost per rocket), but for commercial/international payloads it would appear those numbers need to be added together, for about ₹800 crore (~$100M) per launch. Since OneWeb is said to be paying “About ₹2,000 crore” for a two launch contract, there was either some generous whole-number rounding, OneWeb paid a premium to jump the scheduled queue, or costs have increased significantly since 2018.

Edit: One further research the number OneWeb actually quoted was "₹1,000 crore", but there appears to be confusion first on if that was "more than" or "about" and second if that was for a single 36-sat launch or total for 72-sats. Has anyone seen a clarification on this or know if the quote was captured on video for review?

[r8ix]

New minimum limits at https://rideshare.spacex.com/search

[su27k]

Some Chinese launch price information from @CNSpaceflight on twitter (this is the account to follow if you want up to date Chinese spaceflight info):

1. https://twitter.com/CNSpaceflight/status/1598910840643923969

CAS-SPACE says the cost (not price) of ZK-1A launch is around $10k per kilogram

2. https://twitter.com/CNSpaceflight/status/1575487502290341888

This public procurement notice gives better clue of how much the Long March launch costs.
The rideshare launch of ~20-kg Qimingxing-1 by Long March 8 in February costed Wuhan University ￥2.615 million, or $0.4M (~$20K/kg). That is ~1/3 of the price of Falcon 9 launch: $1.2M.

Note the comparison to Falcon 9 Rideshare program pricing is no longer correct (one could argue it's not correct to begin with). SpaceX's rideshare used to have a $1.1M for 200kg minimal price, so while the $/kg is $5.5K/kg which is quite a bit lower than the Chinese number here, you have to pay at least $1.1M if you contract with SpaceX directly. Presumably you could contract with a 3rd party aggregator for a lower overall price but higher $/kg.

However since October 2022 SpaceX has lowered the minimal price to $275K for 50kg, which is significantly better than the Chinese price listed here in every way.




3. https://twitter.com/CNSpaceflight/status/1560705241518993408

In a release of answering "press questions", the spokesperson of CASC says the launch price of Long March is significantly thatless than that of Atlas-5 or Delta-4, LEO launch price by CZ-2C/2D/5B is comparable to reusable Falcon 9, & high orbit launch price by CZ-3B/7A lower than Falcon9

4. https://twitter.com/CNSpaceflight/status/1570977027246915584

A recent paper reiterates Long March rockets are less expensive than any other rockets in the international market, with only one exception: LEO launch by SpaceX's Falcon 9. Ranking👇(price low to high)
LEO:
1. CZ-2C/D, Falcon-9, CZ-5B/7/8
2. Atlas V, Soyuz 2, Delta-IV Heavy


GTO:
1. CZ-3B/5
2. Proton-M, Falcon-9/Heavy, Ariane 5
3. Atlas V, Soyuz 2, Delta-IV Heavy

The paper, in conclusion section, acknowledges China still has a lot of work to do to realize reusability and calls on the administration to invest more, technically and financially.


The paper didn't give any specific numbers for the price of Long March, but we have the following range:
LEO:
Long March 2C/2D/5B/7/8 < $7.2k/kg
GTO:
Long March 3B/5 < $10k/kg


I know many have doubts on the low price of Long March, maybe they are comparing cost of Long March to price of others? For example, according to the above number, ~￥1 billion (~$150 million) per CZ5B and ~$50 million per CZ3B launch are exactly what I've heard of their costs

Note that the paper is using F9's web price of $67M which we know it's on the high end for actual commercial F9 prices.




5. Bonus China spacecraft costs: https://twitter.com/CNSpaceflight/status/1546552399636021250

Ever seen the price tag of a Chinese spacecraft? A recent paper published on SCIENTIA SINICA has the answer:
$127 million for Shenzhou crewed spacecraft
$52 million for Tianzhou cargo spacecraft
https://sciengine.com/SST/doi/10.1360/SST-2021-0057
Anyone has the numbers for spacecrafts to ISS?
(c)CAST

6. https://twitter.com/CNSpaceflight/status/1536007739922558976

GALACTIC ENERGY's CEO LIU Baiqi says in an interview that the price of one CERES-1 launch is ￥35 millions.

CERES-1's next mission is "White is the new black" and will happen soon, probably this month on June 21

￥35 millions is $5.1M at current exchange rate.

[DeimosDream]

Some Chinese launch price information from @CNSpaceflight on twitter (this is the account to follow if you want up to date Chinese spaceflight info):

Thanks for the tip and translations!

Note that the paper is using F9's web price of $67M which we know it's on the high end for actual commercial F9 prices.

Backing up to this point... do we actually still know $67M is currently on the high end? I know SpaceX was offering discounts up to 20% in the early days of reuse, but that was 2017-2019 era pricing. It seems to me that one reason SpaceX kept the $62M sticker price for so long was that they were steadily and quietly reducing the used discount rate as reuse became proven. The 2022 increase to $67M may have represented the point where they no longer offered any used discount and could only increase revenue by raising the price.

Also I can't find any evidence of SpaceX signing a contract to launch a Falcon 9 for less than $90M in 2022. Granted, those $90M+ contracts included optional extras, but I'm pretty sure that $67M is now the low-end for a no-frills dedicated launch.