Technology Insights — Game-Changing Inflection Points
Which technology shifts change the economics of space between 2026 and 2030?
Chapter summary
Four inflection points turn incremental progress into step changes: fully reusable launch, hypersonics moving to deployment, AI-run space operations, and processing data in orbit. Starship is the fulcrum; the chapter traces what becomes viable as cost to orbit approaches $10–20/kg.
Key takeaways
- 1
Starship carries 150–200 tonnes to orbit; its build cost of ~$90M is targeted at $20M by 2027 and $2–5M at scale.
- 2
At $10–20/kg, 40,000-satellite constellations, crewed stations and orbital fuel depots become routine missions.
- 3
On-board AI cuts downlink data by up to 80%; software-defined networking cuts ground latency from 18.4 ms to under 8 ms.
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