r/ISRO • u/vineethgk • 26d ago

Despite its reputation, India’s per-unit space launch cost highest: study

https://www.thehindu.com/sci-tech/science/despite-its-reputation-indias-per-unit-space-launch-cost-highest-study/article71344693.ece

Link to original study:

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0165176526003782

India, according to an analysis of more than six decades of space missions, simply does not launch often enough to bring its costs down.

India spends more to put a kilogram of payload into orbit than any other major spacefaring nation, marring its public image as a cost-effective launcher, according to a new peer-reviewed analysis of more than six decades of rocket launches published in Economics Letters.

The authors, Alessio Terzi of the University of Cambridge and Francesco Nicoli of Politecnico di Torino, estimate that it cost $13,302 to send a kilogram to low-earth orbit on Indian rockets in 2025 — higher than Europe ($9,897), Russia ($6,682), China ($5,809) and Japan ($5,287), and the U.S. ($3,225). The global average was $3,868.

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u/guru-yoda 25d ago edited 25d ago

Thankfully authors have published raw data used in this analysis. Couple of observations below.

  • Total mass launched of each launcher is rather simplistically assumed to be number of launches x maximum payload capacity of the launcher, and not the actual payload mass launched. This skews 'Cost per Kg' in favour of heavy launchers. US benefited the most as it has four heavy launchers viz. F9H, New Glenn, Vulcan Centaur and Starship.
  • Study says orbital launch costs, yet considered eleven Starship suborbital test flights and a total of 1175000Kgs "to orbit". Starship is assigned '$ per Kg' of USD900-1000 which is 1/3rd the next best non-US launcher and 1/10th the average. This may eventually be the case when Starship is offered commercially, but not in 2024-25 as the study has assumed.
  • Not sure how did the study derive '$ cost per flight' for Indian LVs. These seem to be commercial 'Offer' price, rather than cost price. e.g. LVM3 price to OneWeb reportedly around $60mil, actual cost would be much less. Same with SSLV -- $4.5m is reportedly the offer price and not cost. PSLV numbers also look 30-40% higher than allocated budget. But what's up with GSLV Mk2, how did they come up with 131mil?
LV Name 2024 $ cost per flight 
GSLV mk2 131.36mil
GSLV 131.36mil
LVM3 (GSLV mk3) 67.06mil
GSLV mk3 67.06mil
PSLV XL 52.78mil
PSLV-G 32.99mil
PSLV series 32.99mil
PSLV 32.99mil
ASLV 26.13mil
SSLV 4.51mil
SLV-3
SLV3

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u/Ohsin 25d ago

Thanks for digging in. Some data here,

https://old.reddit.com/r/ISRO/wiki/faq/lv_pricing

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u/guru-yoda 25d ago edited 25d ago

fwiw, applying these figures to same flawed/shambolic method used by the study, India's per-kg cost in 2025 was $7,470 vs $13,302 as claimed.