Why this class exists
Cost per Kilogram Is Set by Flight Rate
Every destination is priced in dollars per kilogram to low Earth orbit.
The hundredfold fall in launch cost did not come from a new propulsion principle. It came from reuse - amortizing a booster across flights instead of throwing it away - and reuse pays only at flight rate. A reusable booster flown twice a year is an expensive booster; the same booster flown weekly is a different industry.
In 2025 the world flew 315 successful orbital launches. The United States flew 192 of them, SpaceX 165, all Falcon 9 and none failed. China flew 92. Through 2 October 2026 the year's total stood at 239. Western heavy lift in October 2026 is effectively one company: Vulcan has been grounded since February, New Glenn's pad was wrecked in May, and the Space Force moved national-security launches to Falcon. China caught its first orbital booster in July and is closing the reuse gap one vehicle at a time. Cadence and reuse rate, not payload mass, are the indicators tracked here. Observed
Western vehicles
Falcon Carries the West While Starship Reaches Orbit
Starship flew to orbit for the first time on 28 September 2026; Vulcan and New Glenn are both on the ground.
| Vehicle · operator | Key figures | Status | Rated |
|---|---|---|---|
| Falcon 9 · SpaceX | 17.4 t reusable · $74M list | 100th launch of 2026 on 25 August; booster B1067 flew its 37th mission, the reuse record. About 140-145 launches projected for 2026 | Observed |
| Falcon Heavy · SpaceX | Three-core reusable | First 2026 flight on 1 October, NROL-97 for the National Reconnaissance Office | Observed |
| Starship · SpaceX | 100 t to LEO, Block 3 | Flight 14 reached orbit on 28 September 2026 and deployed 26 Starlink V3 satellites - the first orbital Starship flight | Building |
| New Glenn · Blue Origin | 45 t to LEO | First booster landing on NG-2 (November 2025). A booster exploded in a static fire on LC-36 on 28 May 2026; a BE-4 oxygen valve was the cause, and the pad rebuild is reported at more than a year | Building |
| Vulcan · ULA | Solid-boosted | Grounded since a second solid-booster nozzle failure on 12 February 2026. Space Force moved GPS III SV-10 and 18 Space Development Agency launches to SpaceX | Building |
| SLS · NASA / Boeing | Expendable | Flew Artemis II in April 2026. Block 1B and the Exploration Upper Stage were cancelled in February 2026; about one flight every 10 months | Observed |
| Ariane 6 · Arianespace | Ariane 62 and 64 | First Ariane 64 flew 12 February 2026 with 32 Amazon Leo satellites. A turbopump anomaly caps 2026 at five or six flights | Observed |
| H3 · JAXA / MHI | Expendable | Flight 8 failed in December 2025; returned to flight 12 June 2026 with the first H3-30 | Observed |
| Neutron · Rocket Lab | 13 t reusable · $50M | First flight expected late 2026 | Projected |
| Terran R, Nova, Eclipse | 15-23.5 t | Relativity, Stoke and Firefly-Northrop Grumman; first flights 2026-2027 | Projected |
Starship has its own hub - vehicles, factories, pads, propellant and recovery - at Starship.
Chinese vehicles
China Caught a Booster in a Net Before Anyone Caught One at Sea
Long March 10B is the state vehicle; LandSpace, SAST, Space Pioneer and CAS Space are racing to reusable commercial lift.
| Vehicle · builder | Key figures | Status | Rated |
|---|---|---|---|
| Long March 10B · CALT | 16 t to LEO with recovery | First flight 10 July 2026 from the Hainan commercial site; the first stage was caught by a net on the recovery ship Linghangzhe - China's first orbital booster recovery | Observed |
| Long March 10 / 10A · CALT | 70 t to LEO · 27 t toward the Moon | Mengzhou abort test 11 February 2026; first orbital Mengzhou flight planned late 2026; two launches per crewed lunar landing | Building |
| Long March 9 · CALT | 150 t to LEO · 30 YF-215 | First flight targeted 2033; fully reusable version in the 2040s | Projected |
| Long March 12A · SAST | Reusable first stage | Reached orbit 23 December 2025; landing failed | Building |
| Zhuque-3 · LandSpace | 11.8 t expendable · stainless methalox | Flight 2 on 18 August 2026 landed on its legs in Gansu, then tipped over after a fire | Building |
| Tianlong-3 · Space Pioneer | 14 t to SSO | Maiden flight failed 3 April 2026 | Observed |
| Lijian-2 · CAS Space | Commercial medium lift | Debuted 1 April 2026, reportedly priced below Falcon 9 | Observed |
The Hainan commercial launch site at Wenchang flew 21 launches from two pads between its first launch on 30 November 2024 and August 2026. Long March vehicles alone flew 69 times in 2025 and 45 times in 2026 through 19 September.
Price
Falcon 9 Lists Near $4,250 per Kilogram; Chinese Commercial Lift Is Closing In
List prices are not marginal costs, and every downstream figure inherits the difference.
| Vehicle | Price per kg | Basis | Rated |
|---|---|---|---|
| Falcon 9 | ~$4,250 | $74M list over 17.4 t reusable; analysts estimate $2,700-3,000 | Observed |
| Falcon 9 rideshare | ~$6,000 | Transporter rideshare to sun-synchronous orbit | Observed |
| Falcon Heavy | ~$1,500 | Secondary estimate; list price not published | Projected |
| Starship | $100-500 | SpaceX early-operations target; $10-20 long term | Projected |
| Lijian-1 | ~$6,900 | CNY 50,000 per kg | Observed |
| Lijian-2 | ~$4,140 | CNY 30,000 per kg projected | Projected |
Where it appears
Everything Downstream Depends on This Leg
What depends on heavy lift, and what breaks if it falters.
| Depends on this class | Relationship | Breaks if | Rated |
|---|---|---|---|
| The Moon | Delivery of everything not made locally, until a mass driver runs | Cadence falls below the resupply interval | Observed |
| Orbital Compute | Rack, array and radiator mass to LEO | Cost per kilogram stops falling | Building |
| Commercial Stations | Modules, crew rotation and cargo | A single-provider outage | Building |
| LEO to EML-1 | The first leg of every corridor on the site | Nothing - but everything downstream reprices | Observed |
| Space Nuclear | Reactor launch under the NSPM-20 approval regime | The approval regime tightens | Projected |
Contested
Deliberately Not Claimed
The load-bearing uncertainties, tagged with the confidence they actually earn.
Published price per kilogram is not marginal cost. Advertised prices are commercial list rates; internal costs are not disclosed and diverge from list by an unknown factor. Every launch-cost figure in these pages carries that uncertainty forward.
Western launch concentration is measured, not modeled. With Vulcan grounded and New Glenn's pad under repair, nearly all US commercial and national-security mass reached orbit on Falcon in 2026. A Falcon grounding would stop most of the Western space economy, not one company's manifest.
Starship cadence is stated, not demonstrated. One orbital flight has flown. The step from one to weekly is the step every cost projection on this site assumes.
Record
Provenance and Data Sources
- Confidence
- Observed for flown, fielded or measured - Building for hardware and programs in development - Projected for announced plans - Modeled for original analysis
- Status date
- Q4 2026
- Launch counts
- Global orbital launch summaries for 2025; 2026 launch database through 2 October 2026; Payload and KeepTrack counts for China
- Vehicles
- SpaceX, Blue Origin, ULA, Arianespace, JAXA, Rocket Lab announcements; NASA Artemis restructure (27 February 2026); Space Force NSSL reassignments
- China
- CALT Long March 10B first flight (10 July 2026); LandSpace Zhuque-3 Flight 2 (18 August 2026); CAS Space Lijian pricing
- Weakest link
- Marginal launch cost is not public, and Starship cadence is one flight deep