Sending cargo into orbit is getting cheaper faster than shipping freight did during the steamship revolution of the 1800s, and the cost could fall by more than 90 per cent again by 2040, according to Cambridge-led research that suggests space is fast becoming a marketplace rather than a moonshot.
The study, published in PNAS Nexus by the University of Cambridge’s Bennett School of Public Policy and the Politecnico Institute of Turin, analysed more than 4,400 launches between 1960 and 2025, the largest global dataset of rocket launches yet assembled.
The average cost of putting a kilogram into orbit has already dropped from $87,023 in 1960 to $3,868 in 2025, a fall of more than 95 per cent. Every time the world’s total volume of space cargo has doubled, the cost per kilogram has fallen by 21.2 per cent, outpacing the 15.5 per cent decline recorded for transatlantic wheat and cotton freight after the SS Savannah’s pioneering steam crossing in 1819. It is also falling faster than the cost of solar panels, long the textbook example of a technology getting cheap at speed.
“The cost of space launch technology is now falling faster than during one of history’s greatest transport revolutions,” said Alessio Terzi, the assistant professor who led the research.
“Steamships cut costs through explosive growth in global trade. Space technology, by contrast, has achieved even steeper declines at a far smaller scale. This suggests there is plenty of scope for further cost reductions and the industry may now be on the cusp of a comparable economic boom,” he said.
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