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A paper titled 'Geopolitics and space access: cost asymmetries and strategic dependence', published in Economics Letters on 13 August 2026, finds that India had the highest average cost of putting a kilogram of payload into orbit among the major space powers in 2025.
The authors, Alessio Terzi and Francesco Nicoli of the Bennett School of Public Policy at the University of Cambridge, analysed more than 6,740 rocket launches between 1960 and 2025.
India's estimated 2025 cost was $13,302 per kg to low Earth orbit against $3,225 for the United States - more than four times higher - and against a global average of $3,868.
The study attributes India's figure not to expensive launches but to small rockets and a low launch cadence, which spread large fixed costs across fewer kilograms of payload.
Only the United States and Europe recorded statistically significant cost improvements between 2010 and 2025, and SpaceX alone accounted for around 75% of all payload sent to orbit in 2025.
| Country / Region | Cost per kg (2025) | Ratio to the US |
|---|---|---|
| India | $13,302 | About 4.1 times |
| Europe | $9,897 | About 3.1 times |
| Russia | $6,682 | About 2.1 times |
| China | $5,809 | About 1.8 times |
| Japan | $5,287 | About 1.6 times |
| United States | $3,225 | 1.0 (baseline) |
| Global average | $3,868 | About 1.2 times |
A launch carries large fixed costs - the vehicle, the range, the propellant loading, the tracking network, the launch campaign staff - that barely change with how much cargo is aboard. Cost per kilogram is that total divided by the payload actually lifted. India's launch prices are competitive in absolute terms, but ISRO flies mostly medium-lift vehicles carrying modest payloads, so the same fixed bill is divided by far fewer kilograms and the per-kg figure rises. The second driver is cadence: countries that launch often move down a learning curve, amortise ground infrastructure over more flights and standardise production. The study found statistically significant cost improvement since 2010 only in the United States and Europe, with the US improving much faster because reusable first stages, chiefly SpaceX's Falcon 9, recover the most expensive hardware for reuse.
Simple Analogy: Hiring a truck to move ten boxes costs almost the same as hiring it to move a hundred. The rent per trip looks cheap either way, but the rent per box is ten times higher when you send it half empty.
PSLV and GSLV Mk II are medium-lift vehicles; LVM3, the heaviest operational rocket, carries about 4 tonnes to geostationary transfer orbit; SSLV serves small satellites of up to about 500 kg. The absence of a heavy-lift workhorse is precisely the structural reason the study identifies for India's per-kg figure.
Approved by the Union Cabinet on 18 September 2024 with an outlay of Rs 8,240 crore, it is designed for up to 30 tonnes to low Earth orbit and about 10 tonnes to geostationary transfer orbit, with a partially reusable first stage - the direct policy answer to both the payload-size and the reusability problems.
Opening launch and satellite manufacture to private firms through IN-SPACe is aimed at raising India's launch cadence, which the study identifies as the second lever on cost alongside vehicle size.
The authors' central argument is that widening cost asymmetries turn into strategic dependence: countries that cannot launch affordably must buy access from those that can, which is why launch economics is treated as a security question and not only a commercial one.
GS Paper 3 > Science and Technology: Space Technology, Indigenisation and the Space Economy
General Awareness > Science and Technology Current Affairs
General Awareness > Science and Technology
General Awareness > Economy and Current Affairs
Total launch cost divided by the payload mass delivered; the standard measure for comparing launch efficiency across vehicles and countries
Orbital region roughly 160-2,000 km above the Earth, used by most Earth-observation satellites, communications constellations and crewed stations
A rocket whose stages are recovered and flown again, cutting the hardware cost of each flight; SpaceX's Falcon 9 is the leading example
The observed fall in unit cost as cumulative output rises, through learning, standardisation and spreading of fixed costs