DistantNews
Support us
🇰🇷 South Korea /Technology

Space delivery costs plummeting under 'Wright's Law,' could reach $450,000 per kg by 2040

From Hankyoreh · () Korean

Translated from Korean, summarized and contextualized by DistantNews.

At a glance

News Sources not specified Context piece
  • The cost of launching 1 kilogram of payload into low Earth orbit has decreased by a factor of 22, from over $87,000 in 1960 to $3,868 recently.
  • This cost reduction aligns with Wright's Law, where launch costs decrease by an average of 21.2% each time cumulative payload doubles, a trend more pronounced in the era of private sector involvement.
  • Projections suggest launch costs could fall to $300 per kilogram by 2040, but potential threats like space debris and geopolitical fragmentation could hinder this trend.

The cost of sending payloads into space has plummeted dramatically over the past six decades. A new analysis of launch data from 16 countries between 1960 and 2025 reveals that the expense of lifting one kilogram to low Earth orbit has fallen from over $87,000 to approximately $3,868. This represents a 22-fold decrease, making space more accessible than ever.

The scale of the 'space economy' is estimated to exceed $600 billion, equivalent to Sweden's GDP in 2024, but there has been a lack of quantitative research on the decrease in the cost of access to space that has made this possible.

— Alessio Terzi and Francesco NicoliResearchers explaining the motivation behind their study on space launch costs.

The study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), highlights that this cost reduction follows Wright's Law, a principle suggesting that production costs decrease as cumulative output increases. For space launches, the cost per kilogram drops by an average of 21.2% each time the cumulative payload capacity doubles. This rate of decrease is even steeper than that observed in the solar panel industry.

Interestingly, the trend accelerated after the Cold War, moving from a 17% cost reduction per payload doubling during the era of state-led competition to a 44% reduction in the post-Cold War period. Researchers attribute this to the increasing role of private companies, which prioritize profitability and cost minimization.

The cumulative payload doubles, the launch cost per kilogram decreases by an average of 21.2%.

— Alessio Terzi and Francesco NicoliDescribing the findings related to Wright's Law in space launch technology.

Looking ahead, the researchers project that the cost per kilogram could reach as low as $300 by 2040. This could enable humanity to send 9,100 tons of cargo to low Earth orbit annually by the end of the 2020s. However, the study also warns of potential challenges, including the worsening problem of space debris, geopolitical divisions in the launch market, and over-reliance on single suppliers, all of which could slow or reverse this cost-reduction trend.

There is a possibility that it could fall much faster than we predicted.

— ResearchersCommenting on the potential for even faster cost reductions with technologies like Starship.
DistantNews Editorial

Originally published by Hankyoreh in Korean. Translated, summarized, and contextualized by our editorial team with added local perspective. Read our editorial standards.

More Stories

From Our Blog