Space cargo launches get much cheaper

“The cost of launching cargo into space is falling rapidly. Recent research from Cambridge University found that, since 1960, the cost of sending a kilogram into orbit fell by an average of 21 percent for every cumulative doubling of the amount of cargo launched to space. By that measure, launch costs are falling even faster than the cost of solar photovoltaic panels. The researchers project that, if total payload to orbit continues to grow 13.3 percent per year—the rate observed between 2010 and 2025—the average launch cost could fall to less than $300 per kilogram by 2040 in 2024 dollars,” reports The Doomslayer.

Cambridge University explains:

“The expense of launching cargo into space will plummet over the next few years, with the cost of reaching orbit forecast to more than halve between now and the end of the decade, and fall around 93% by 2040, according to new Cambridge-led research.

The cost of sending a kilogram of payload into low Earth orbit, an average of $3,868 last year, is set to fall more than 58% to just $1,569 by 2030, and could reach as little as 273 US dollars per kilo by 2040.

Researchers analysed the economics of the space industry using the largest global dataset of rocket launches yet assembled, covering more than 4,400 launches between 1960 and 2025, to project future trends.”

Last year, a NASA spacecraft made the closest-ever approach to the sun to gather images of the sun’s outer layers. And a British spacecraft captured close-up images of Mercury.

In 2024, an Indian mission to the sun gathered information about the sun’s outer layers, using an array of instruments to measure and collect images of those layers. And a Chinese space probe to the far side of the moon returned to Earth with rare moon rocks.

In 2023, India and Japan became the fourth and fifth countries to achieve a soft landing on the moon.