---
type: claim
domain: space-development
description: "Projected $/kg ranges from $600 expendable to $13-20 at airline-like reuse rates, with analyst consensus at $30-100/kg by 2030-2035 — the central variable in all space economy projections, entirely determined by how many times each vehicle flies"
confidence: likely
source: "Astra synthesis from SpaceX Starship specifications, Falcon 9 reuse cadence trajectory (31→61→96→134→167 launches 2021-2025), Citi space economy analysis, propellant and ground ops cost estimates"
created: 2026-03-08
challenged_by: "No commercial Starship payload has flown yet as of early 2026. The cadence projections extrapolate from Falcon 9's trajectory, but Starship is a fundamentally different and more complex vehicle. Achieving airline-like turnaround requires solving upper-stage reuse, which no vehicle has demonstrated. The optimistic end ($10-20/kg) may require operational perfection that no complex system achieves."
---

# Starship economics depend on cadence and reuse rate not vehicle cost because a 90M vehicle flown 100 times beats a 50M expendable by 17x

Starship's build cost is approximately $90 million per stack (Super Heavy booster plus Starship upper stage), with marginal propellant cost of $1-2 million per launch (liquid methane and liquid oxygen are commodity chemicals) and ground operations estimated at $3-5 million at maturity. The economic model is entirely determined by reuse rate:

- **1 flight (expendable):** ~$600/kg
- **10 flights:** ~$80/kg
- **100+ flights (airline-like):** ~$13-20/kg

This directly builds on [[reusability without rapid turnaround and minimal refurbishment does not reduce launch costs as the Space Shuttle proved over 30 years]] — the Shuttle lesson was that reusability is necessary but not sufficient. The sufficient condition is cadence. Starship's design explicitly addresses the Shuttle's failure mode: stainless steel construction for thermal resilience, hot-staging for rapid booster recovery, and the Mechazilla chopstick catch system for minimal ground handling.

As of early 2026, Starship has completed 11 full-scale test flights, demonstrated controlled ocean splashdowns, and achieved mid-air booster capture. No commercial payload flights yet, but Starlink deployment missions are expected in 2026. The Falcon 9 cadence trajectory — 31 launches in 2021, 61 in 2022, 96 in 2023, 134 in 2024, 167 in 2025 — provides a leading indicator of what Starship operations could become.

Most analysts converge on $30-100/kg by 2030-2035 as the central expectation. Citi's bull case is $30/kg by 2040, bear case $300/kg. Even the pessimistic scenario (limited to 5-10 flights per vehicle) yields $200-500/kg — still 5-10x cheaper than current Falcon 9 pricing. Nearly all economic projections for the space industry through 2040 are implicitly bets on where Starship lands within this range.


### Additional Evidence (extend)
*Source: [[2026-03-18-starship-flight12-v3-april-2026]] | Added: 2026-03-18*

V3's 100+ tonne payload capacity changes the denominator in the $/kg calculation independent of reuse rate. A V3 vehicle carrying 100t has fundamentally different economics than a V2 vehicle carrying 35t even at identical reflight rates, because the payload mass increase is achieved through engine performance (Raptor 3 at 280t thrust vs Raptor 2) rather than additional vehicle cost. This means the payload scaling benefit compounds with reuse rate benefits rather than trading off against them.

---

### Additional Evidence (extend)
*Source: [[2026-03-19-space-com-starship-v3-first-static-fire]] | Added: 2026-03-24*

V3 Starship with Raptor 3 engines represents the hardware generation designed for high-cadence reuse. First static fire March 19, 2026 establishes physical existence of V3 paradigm. Flight 12 in April 2026 will be first operational test of the cadence-enabling vehicle configuration.

### Additional Evidence (extend)
*Source: [[2026-03-27-blueorigin-new-glenn-manufacturing-odc-ambitions]] | Added: 2026-03-27*

Blue Origin's New Glenn manufacturing rate (1/month, targeting 12-24 launches in 2026) with only 2 actual launches in 2025 demonstrates that cadence is the hard part. The company has solved the manufacturing problem (7 second stages visible on factory floor) but not the operational cadence problem (NG-3 still delayed). This confirms that vehicle production rate does not equal launch rate—operational throughput is the binding constraint on economics.

### Additional Evidence (confirm)
*Source: [[2026-03-27-starship-falcon9-cost-2026-commercial-operations]] | Added: 2026-03-27*

Current $1,600/kg cost reflects operational reusability achieved in testing. Near-term projection to $250-600/kg depends on achieving full reuse and high cadence. Long-term $100-150/kg target requires operating costs of $10M/launch or less, which in turn requires both full reuse and high flight rate to amortize fixed costs.

### Additional Evidence (confirm)
*Source: [[2026-03-28-nasaspaceflight-new-glenn-manufacturing-odc-ambitions]] | Added: 2026-03-28*

Blue Origin's manufacturing rate of 1 New Glenn/month theoretically enables 12-24 launches/year, but actual cadence of 1.6 launches/year over 15 months shows that vehicle availability does not automatically translate to launch economics. The gap between manufacturing capacity and operational execution demonstrates that cadence is the binding variable, not vehicle production rate.





Relevant Notes:
- [[reusability without rapid turnaround and minimal refurbishment does not reduce launch costs as the Space Shuttle proved over 30 years]] — Starship's design explicitly addresses every Shuttle failure mode
- [[launch cost reduction is the keystone variable that unlocks every downstream space industry at specific price thresholds]] — Starship's cost curve determines which downstream industries become viable and when
- [[Starship achieving routine operations at sub-100 dollars per kg is the single largest enabling condition for the entire space industrial economy]] — this claim quantifies the range of outcomes that determine whether the enabling condition is met
- [[SpaceX vertical integration across launch broadband and manufacturing creates compounding cost advantages that no competitor can replicate piecemeal]] — the flywheel drives the cadence that drives the cost reduction
- [[the space launch cost trajectory is a phase transition not a gradual decline analogous to sail-to-steam in maritime transport]] — Starship's cost curve is the specific mechanism of the phase transition

Topics:
- [[_map]]
