The Delivery Cost Stack: Launch, Transfer, Landing, Operations
What makes up the cost of putting one kilogram on the lunar surface, and how does it change from a small commercial lander to a Starship-class cargo lander?
Chapter summary
Four items set the price: the mass that must be launched to Earth orbit (payload plus lander, multiplied by the rocket equation's gear ratio of about 5.3), the launch price per kilogram, the cost of building the lander (divided by the number of times it is reused), and mission operations.
Key takeaways
- 1
For a small lander delivering 150 kg, launch is under a tenth of a ~$110 million mission and the result is about $730,000 per kilogram.
- 2
For a Starship-class cargo lander delivering 100 tonnes, launch dominates; at $1,000 per kilogram to orbit the price is about $13,000 per kilogram on the surface, and at a mature $200 it is about $3,800.
- 3
That range, from hundreds of thousands to a few thousand dollars per kilogram, is the single most important number for everything else in this study.
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What a Kilogram on the Moon Costs Today
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