Every dollar ever spent getting a kilogram to orbit — 50 years of rockets compared.
Source: NASA Technical Report NTRS 20200001093 · OrbitalRadar.com · X-axis is logarithmic scale. *Starship target not yet achieved commercially.
Equivalent to shipping 1 kg via Concorde × 100. The shuttle flew 135 missions over 30 years. Retiring it was easy math.
95% cheaper than the Shuttle. Achieved through vertical landing, booster reuse (25 flights per booster), and manufacturing at scale.
545× cheaper than the Shuttle. A metric ton to orbit for ~$100k. Would make permanent Mars bases economically conceivable.
From 2 launches in 2010 to 133 in 2024 — one every 2.7 days.
Source: World of Statistics / SpaceX mission archives · spacexstats.xyz
How much each active rocket can lift to low Earth orbit (kg).
Source: Wikipedia comparison of orbital launch systems · SpaceX/NASA spec sheets
SpaceX launched more rockets than all other providers combined.
Source: payloadspace.com · Motley Fool space launch statistics research
Success rate across all mission attempts. Falcon 9 leads by wide margin.
Source: Wikipedia launch vehicle articles · mission databases
Sortable by payload capacity.
| Rocket | Payload | Country | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
Saturn V (hist.) | 130.0t | USA | Retired |
Starship (target) | 100.0t | USA | In Dev |
Falcon Heavy | 63.8t | USA | Active |
New Glenn | 45.0t | USA | Active |
Vulcan Centaur | 27.2t | USA | Active |
Long March 5 | 25.0t | China | Active |
Falcon 9 | 22.8t | USA | Active |
Ariane 6 (64) | 21.6t | Europe | Active |
Soyuz-2 | 8.2t | Russia | Active |
Electron | 300kg | USA/NZ | Active |
Source: Wikipedia comparison of orbital launch systems
The Space Shuttle cost $54,500/kg to orbit. Falcon 9 delivers the same kilogram for $2,720. That's a 95% reduction in 40 years — faster than any other transportation technology in history.
SpaceX launched 133 rockets in 2024 — more than the rest of the world combined. In 2010, they flew just twice. The rest of the world has stayed roughly flat at 70-125 launches/year since 2010.
The same Falcon 9 booster has flown 25 times. Each reuse slashes cost by eliminating the most expensive part. Starship aims to fly multiple times per day, like a commercial airliner.
Falcon 9 Block 5 has achieved 99.8% success across 586 flights — the most reliable orbital rocket in history at this cadence. Ariane 5, widely considered the previous gold standard, achieved 95.7% across 117 flights.
If Starship hits its $100/kg target, it will be 545× cheaper than the Space Shuttle per kilogram. At that price, a metric ton to orbit costs less than a first-class transatlantic flight.