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Off the top of my head I'd guess it's $30M for the rocket launch itself: - SpaceX charges $60M per launch. - Elon said fuel is $200k-$300k when explaining the
by mLuby 9y ago
Off the top of my head I'd guess it's $30M for the rocket launch itself:
- SpaceX charges $60M per launch.
- Elon said fuel is $200k-$300k when explaining the value of reusability.
- majority of cost is probably engine, followed by fairing, which Elon has said is expensive enough to want to reuse.
Keep in mind that there're a lot of operational and R&D expenses, and the launches have to cover that too, so I assume a healthy margin on each launch.
- londons_explore 9y agoMajority of the cost is probably operational and R&D costs. A F9 rocket is 14 tons of mostly aluminium alloys. The materials aren't a big fraction of the costs. Manufacturing is very expensive, but due to the accuracy, repeatability and size of parts needed, the vast majority of the work is semi-automated. It's the tooling and design thats expensive, not each individual rocket.
- mLuby 9y agoWouldn't that suggest that the first rocket in a line, say the F9, would be very expensive, and subsequent F9s would be close to the cost of the raw inputs?