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Retail price of a Falcon 9 launch on a newly built booster is $67m. I doubt that it costs them $40m for one Starlink launch when they are now reusing those boos
by modeless 4y ago
Retail price of a Falcon 9 launch on a newly built booster is $67m. I doubt that it costs them $40m for one Starlink launch when they are now reusing those boosters 12 times each with 21 days turnaround. Also there are a lot of benefits to SpaceX of being their own customer. The increased launch cadence makes everything more routine and reliable, benefiting their other customers. But the most important thing is that they can try things that third party customers may not want to risk, like pushing reuse to the max, or being the first customer for Starship.
F9 numbers are moot, really, because the previous launches are
a sunk cost and won't be an ongoing expense. The ongoing expense will shift to Starship launches to launch and maintain V2 of the constellation, and costs per pound will drop dramatically if things go as planned, though the constellation will also be a lot larger.