India’s rocket launches costliest among major space powers: Study

Study highlights India's high launch costs

A new study estimates that India's cost of sending a kilogram of payload into orbit in 2025 was the highest among the major space powers, at $13,302. The research, published in the journal Economics Letters and titled "Geopolitics and space access: cost asymmetries and strategic dependence," analyzed more than 6,740 rocket launches between 1960 and 2025.

The study, conducted by researchers Alessio Terzi and Francesco Nicoli from the University of Cambridge and Italy's Politecnico di Torino, put the United States' per-kilogram cost at $3,225, Japan at $5,287, China at $5,809, Russia at $6,682, and Europe at $9,897. The global average was $3,868 per kilogram.

Researchers attributed India's high per-kilogram cost to the relatively small size of its launch vehicles. While the overall cost of a launch may be low by international standards, smaller rockets carry less payload, meaning fixed costs are spread across fewer kilograms.

The study's authors acknowledged that India's figure may seem counterintuitive given the Indian Space Research Organisation's reputation for frugal engineering.

Only US and Europe show significant cost improvements

The study found that only the US and Europe showed statistically significant improvements in launch costs between 2010 and 2025, with the US improving much faster. Statistically significant improvements through experience curves were observed for these two actors, but not for India, China, Russia, or Japan.

India's launch activity may be too limited to bring down costs through greater experience, the researchers suggested. China, meanwhile, is still testing multiple launch technologies as it expands its space programme. Russia has phased out its lower-cost-per-kilogram Proton rocket but failed to successfully bring in its intended successor, Angara, and is now relying on more expensive Soyuz rockets.

The study also found that the world's overall cost improvement was faster than the US rate, partly because a growing share of global payload shifted from more expensive domestic launchers to cheaper US providers.

US dominance and the role of SpaceX

The US has sharply increased its share of global payload. Its share fell from almost 50% in 1995 to below 20% in 2012, then rose to more than 82% in 2024. The rise in US launch activity from 2016 was helped by SpaceX's reusable rockets and the Starlink constellation. SpaceX accounted for 75% of global payload sent into orbit in 2025.

The study identifies reusability and launch cadence as key drivers of lower costs, with SpaceX's reusable Falcon 9 giving the US a major advantage.

The Columbia disaster led to a two-year pause and scaling down of the US Shuttle programme, which was retired in 2011 without a heavy-lift replacement ready. The US and Europe had similar average launch costs in 2012-13, but the gap has since widened sharply, making it more than three times as expensive to use European rockets than US rockets. This gap is linked to Europe's continued use of the Ariane 5 through much of the 2010s, while the US moved towards reusable rockets with the Falcon 9. The Ariane 6, introduced in 2024, remains single-use, with four launches expected in 2025, eight in 2026, and the rate expected to settle at 10 per year.

China overtook Europe in cumulative payload sent into space in 2023.

The researchers highlighted the importance for non-US space powers of developing cheap, domestically controlled reusable launch technology. Countries that choose domestic rockets for strategic autonomy could face much higher costs, making it harder to build and maintain significant space infrastructure.

Indian officials dispute the findings

ISRO Chairman V Narayanan told NDTV that the paper used "wrong data." Former ISRO Chairman S Somanath also challenged the interpretation, saying cost per kilogram does not capture the full economics of a launch. Somanath cited the example of a 4.5-tonne spacecraft, saying India's launch cost can be broadly comparable with what an American provider charges for a similar mission. He said SpaceX's lower per-kilogram costs are largely driven by its enormous scale and high launch frequency.

For India, the findings underline the challenge of scaling up launch frequency and developing reusable systems as the country seeks to expand its share of the space market.