Are launch prices up, or is the demand continuing to be high?
According to a Space News yesterday, high demand and inflation have resulted in an overall increase in launch prices in recent months.
At the recent Satellite 2023 conference, industry officials said they saw evidence of growing prices in the last year. Growing demand along with a constrained near-term supply that some have dubbed a “global shortage” is a factor, they say, along with inflation that has remained historically high for more than a year.
The only evidence of this increase that the article presents however is a 10% increase in SpaceX’s launch price, which the company claims is almost entirely due to inflation, not demand. Furthermore, this increase still leaves SpaceX’s launch prices well below the lowest prices that other launch companies can yet offer, which means the competition can’t really raise its prices significantly.
The important take-away from the article is not that the cost of rockets has gone up, but that the demand remains very high, which bodes well for the new startups trying to enter the market. For example, the article notes that the next SpaceX smallsat launch opportunity is 2025. There thus remains plenty of business for the many new rocket companies trying to enter the market in the next two years.
According to a Space News yesterday, high demand and inflation have resulted in an overall increase in launch prices in recent months.
At the recent Satellite 2023 conference, industry officials said they saw evidence of growing prices in the last year. Growing demand along with a constrained near-term supply that some have dubbed a “global shortage” is a factor, they say, along with inflation that has remained historically high for more than a year.
The only evidence of this increase that the article presents however is a 10% increase in SpaceX’s launch price, which the company claims is almost entirely due to inflation, not demand. Furthermore, this increase still leaves SpaceX’s launch prices well below the lowest prices that other launch companies can yet offer, which means the competition can’t really raise its prices significantly.
The important take-away from the article is not that the cost of rockets has gone up, but that the demand remains very high, which bodes well for the new startups trying to enter the market. For example, the article notes that the next SpaceX smallsat launch opportunity is 2025. There thus remains plenty of business for the many new rocket companies trying to enter the market in the next two years.