Questions tagged [cost]
Questions regarding the amount of money required to perform or sustain space exploration.
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Mass Breakdown of Apollo CSM by Subsystems? (also Cost Breakdown)
I am looking for a mass breakdown of the Apollo Command and Service Module by subsystems, like this Lunar Module's chart from the NASA publication After LM. I am particularly interested in how much of ...
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Which 6 spacecraft had the biggest effect on pushing the “Final Frontier?”
I am planning a 6-lecture course on Space Exploration for our local Elder College. It is aimed at a motivated audience with general knowledge in science. The objective is to generate interest in Space ...
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How much did it cost to turnaround Rocketdyne F-1 test articles?
Despite being intended for an expendable vehicle, the F-1 was tested and rated for the equivalent of more than ten reflights.
How much did it cost to turnaround the test articles between the firings?
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How much does it cost to build terrestrial ground station capable of controlling satellites orbiting the moon?
I'm noobie in space exploration and I want to carry out market research to find out how much it costs to build a terrestrial groundstation to control satellite missions that are in lunar orbit.
Two ...
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What would be the least expensive technological solution (considering all costs) to put on Lagrange Point 1 to affect global warming?
For example, I did read about an exploding asteroid at Lagrange Point 1 to block some of the Sun's light. Just two degrees change in Earth's overall temperature can trigger an Ice Ages.
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6U , 12U Deployer / Dispenser, helpful criteria we might use for selection?
as a member of a group of students that builds 6U and 12U Cubesats for different projects I am interested in knowing the average cost of a 6U and a 12U deployer.
Also, beyond cost, what are some other ...
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Why does the more complex looking Starship launch tower cost so much less than SLS' tower?
On the surface, you would think that SpaceX launch tower would be more costly with its mechanical arms, but I doubt it touches the cost of the SLS'. Is this mainly due to the use of hydrogen, or are ...
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How much does it cost to return 1 kg from the ISS to the Earth? What are the parameters influencing this price?
I heard in a few places downmass is a limiting factor in the ISS national lab capacity. Is that true?
According to NASA's pricing plan, it actually costs more to get downmass than upmass. Why is that?
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Why wouldn't NASA save Orion if Artemis 1 failed
According to last night's NASA broadcast (and other sources), the launch abort system (LAS) system for Artemis 1 was inert (except for the apparently separate disposal motor). In the event of an ...
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Why did NASA use Falcon Heavy rather than SLS to launch Europa Clipper?
The SLS will only take about three years to get to Europa, the Falcon heavy will take 5. This means that there won’t be as much science return since the spacecraft is spending more of its operational ...
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Why weren't super heavy lift launch vehicles used for deep space missions?
According to this PDF Cassini-HuygensPDF, we would need to launch 70 tons if we wanted to do a Saturn transfer orbit from a low earth orbit. It says that there are no vehicles in NASA’s stable even ...
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Why was the Saturn V several times as expensive as falcon heavy despite only having twice its payload?
Saturn V could lift 140 tons to low earth orbit, Falcon Heavy can lift 64 (expendable configuration). But Saturn V cost several times more per launch. Why?
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Why do we launch similar payloads on different models of rocket?
Why don’t we just use one launch vehicle to carry different payloads? For example, to launch payloads in the size range of supplies for a Martian base or something made to destroy a Dimorphos size ...
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Why is so much money spent on launching government communications satellites?
A lot of money is spent on launching government communications satellites that aren’t useful to the public. What is the use for these satellites and why are they considered important enough to use ...
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How to find cost data for commercially available spacecraft components?
I'm trying to research how much it should cost to build a small spacecraft, but it's super hard to find good information on the cost of various components. Can anyone suggest any good resources? For ...
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How did the cost of delivery of cargo into orbit change with technology maturation?
I had an argument with my friend recently about the effect of technology maturation on spaceflight cost. In the process, I managed to find this infographic:
Image source
The trend for cost reduction ...
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How much would it cost to build Megaroc?
Megaroc was an idea of a modified V2 rocket by the British Interplanetary society to launch a human into space. If it were built there could have been a human in space in 1948/1949. The reason it was ...
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How feasible and cost effective is a superconductive electromagnetic orbital gun for cargo transportation between the orbits of different planets? [closed]
Space is cold enough for superconductivity without active cooling, as well as being a vacuum, thus not requiring an enclosure and pumping out gas for the accelerator.
Since an electromagnetic ...
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What makes aluminum aerospace grade?
So what is aerospace grade aluminum? Aerospace grade and regular aluminum are both aluminum. Do they have a different composition or strength? What makes one aerospace grade and the other one not?
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Why "quiet cruise" of a spacecraft would cost NASA 30 mln $ a year?
The 2022 Planetary Decadal Survey (Chapter 22) states that "quiet cruise" phase of an interplanetary spacecraft will cost about 30 million dollars a year for NASA. "Quiet cruise" ...
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Were SpaceX's early launches insured?
SpaceX's first three launches (of the Falcon 1) were failures, with the fourth launch being a success. Rockets are generally insured in order to protect the payload investment, but those three ...
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Who all has funded "Rocket Cargo" type projects in the last few years? What's the current state of funding for this type of research and development?
In Scott Manley's recent video Elon Musk Hates Flanges - Starship Update 2022 linked below, after 07:32:
Another thing that was left out of the presentation was... ...
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What is the cost breakdown of a Falcon Heavy launch?
I don't know if this was already asked, but I'm very curious about the cost breakdown of a Falcon Heavy launch and what the difference is from Falcon 9's cost per launch. Would it be more or less per ...
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What is the lowest the cost of launch can get to?
The cost of launch has been dramatically reduced by companies such as SpaceX building parts in house. Once that lowered the cost of launch as much as it could, they moved onto reusing the first stage, ...
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Cost breakdown of launch companies
One thing which I recently heard Peter Beck say in an interview with Tim Dodd was that the cost of running a launch company isn't primarily driven by the rocket itself, but the operations required to ...
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How much more does it cost to produce two identically designed probes/rovers/satellites compared to making only one?
There are a number of historical planetary missions that have produced 2 flying instances. Examples include Voyager, Viking, MERS, some of the Mariners missions. Other missions have only one ...
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Is it more expensive to send a chemical rocket from surface of Earth to an orbit or from this orbit to Mars?
I was trying to understand how cost-effective it would be to use an ion engine to power a mission. But since these propulsion systems cannot be used to leave Earth's gravitational field due to their ...
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Heatshield during re-entry of space vehicles
All the CMs for Apollo, as well as the space shuttles, basically used "Blunt body" technique for re-entry. While Apollo CMs used "ablative" type of heatshield, the space shuttles ...
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What are the primary business challenges for Firefly Aerospace to capturing a large enough market share of the 1-ton payload market to be successful?
The recent CNBC video How Ex-SpaceX Engineers Are Fueling The Space Race With Firefly (linked below) is worth a watch, and notes include the following:
a team comprised of industry veterans, Firefly ...
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Could the International Space Station (ISS) be refurbished to save money?
I was reading an old article about deorbiting ISS (Death Star: The ISS Doesn’t Have a Way to Crash Safely) and wondering if we could refurbish ISS instead of deorbiting it? I thought deorbiting it ...
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Cost of lunar rover - Apollo 15
The lunar rover, carried by Apollo 15 to moon, cost 60 million USD, in 1971. From a layman's view, it was basically a set of 4 motorized wheels, perhaps very lightweight and with longer battery life ...
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SpaceX Inspiration4 mission cost breakdown
It is believed that SpaceX Inspiration4 total mission cost was more than 100 million USD. https://twitter.com/DJSnM/status/1439470685064073219
What could be cost breakdown for this mission ?
After ...
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How much of the world's xenon has been used in spaceflight altogether? Is it a lot? Did it cost a lot?
This answer to Why will Starlink satellites use krypton instead of xenon for electric propulsion? says:
I expect they did the math, and found that overall cost was less, even with reduced thrust/watt ...
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Why is catapulting rockets still not a thing? [duplicate]
Recent 20 years have seen an explosion in computational capabilities and reusable space vehicles. It baffles me why do all rockets still burn from zero velocity instead of:
dropped from an airplane
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How much of NASA's annual budget goes to launch
I've been trying to figure out how much of NASA's budget goes to launch costs. I would also be interested in the same question for the global space market.
What I've tried
I started with a simple ...
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Does better satelite propulsion help selling secondary payloads?
Generally orbital inclination change is said to be (fuel) expensive so everyone is trying to reach their final orbit straight from the launch vehicle.
Small launch vehicles (Rocket Lab etc.) reach ...
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Why has a rocket system like Starship never been proposed before? It does not seem to use any new science, materials or fuels
I wonder why nobody ever proposed a space launch system like Starship. Methane as a fuel and all the theory behind are well known, so why?
Is it solely because of IT progress that made returning the ...
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Lunar sample return cost per kg - Apollo vs Luna vs Chang'e
Lunar samples (rocks, soil etc.) were returned by US Apollo program, Russian Luna and Chinese Chang'e. How does the cost per kg of the samples compare among these missions? Who got it the cheapest per ...
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How much does smallsat launch to LEO cost?
In early 2021, SpaceX, Rocket Lab, and Virgin Orbit list prices as follows:
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How much easier is it, to explore space from a low orbit satellite, than from Earth?
Note: in this question I'm considering cost in both money and fuel terms, and looking for answers that consider both.
So we know that using chemical rockets to reach the moon, or further into space, ...
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Rocket fuel cost to launch 1 kg to orbit
I have 2 questions about the cost of liquid rocket fuel to launch (anything) to LEO orbit. Let's assume we use fuels used in commercial spaceflight today (probably LOX+LH2 or LOX+RP-1 etc.).
What is ...
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Is there a widespread popular misconception of how expensive it is to launch a cubesat? [closed]
Sometimes one sees discussions about hypothetical CubeSats with impressive abilities that seem to be assume that CubeSats are cheaper to launch (not merely individually, but by mass) than larger ...
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What is the cost of production or sale of a Soyuz spacecraft?
Soyuz manned spacecraft have been operating for over fifty years and have made one hundred and forty five flights. There have been many upgrades and improvements and is still going strong. I imagine ...
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What are the economic parameters (market share, return of investment, etc.) of the private sector in the global space economy?
According to a recent statement by the Space Foundation, the global space economy reached a record $ 423.8 billion. It has expanded more than 70% in the last decade. Nowadays there are more than 80 ...
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Most expensive satellites of 2010s?
Which were the most expensive Earth satellites in the 2010s? Say first 3 or 5.
Zuma satellite (lost) was $3.5 billion, was any other satellite more expensive?
Excepting the Space Shuttle which is a ...
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Did NASA director Jim Bridenstine really make sure that Artemis gets done in a way different than how the US "House of Representatives put forward"?
update: Aviation Week November 8, 2020: NASA Chief Plans To Step Aside Under Biden
In the "Angry Astronaut" video NASA'S Lunar Gateway Announcement - This REALLY matters to Artemis, SpaceX ...
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Demonstrative examples of NASA "programs that go too long, that cost too much... end up getting cast out later"?
Spaceflight Now's NASA lays out $28 billion plan to return astronauts to the moon in 2024 quotes NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine, and includes the following:
Bridenstine acknowledged the challenge ...
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How much cheaper are pressure fed engines compared to other cycles (e.g. staged combustion, gas generator, electric pump-fed)?
It's well known that pressure fed engines are mechanically simpler, and therefore cheaper than pump-fed cycles (although pressure fed has worse performance). However, I haven't found any sources that ...
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How many US states receive large amounts of money due to SLS?
That NASA is spread out over so many locations across the US is history and discussed elsewhere in this site. Briefly, Congress approves funding and the funding ends up in many, many of congress' ...
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Why does the government still fund SLS while SpaceX is cheaper and has the same capabilities if not better?
Due to SpaceX's recent advancements in now proven rocket tech, why does the government still fund (what some would argue to be bloated) cost-plus contracts with Boeing and Lockheed? Am I missing ...
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