Despite its reputation, India’s per-unit space launch cost highest: study

India spends more to put a kilogram of payload into orbit than any other major spacefaring nation, marring its public image as a cost-effective launcher, according to a new peer-reviewed analysis of more than six decades of rocket launches published in Economics Letters.

The authors, Alessio Terzi of the University of Cambridge and Francesco Nicoli of Politecnico di Torino, estimate that it cost $13,302 to send a kilogram to low-earth orbit on Indian rockets in 2025 — higher than Europe ($9,897), Russia ($6,682), China ($5,809) and Japan ($5,287), and the U.S. ($3,225). The global average was $3,868.

The authors say the high cost is due to ISRO mostly flying small rockets, due to which the fixed cost of each launch is spread across very little payload. The study finds that only the U.S. and Europe have shown a statistically significant experience curve — meaning costs falling steadily as cumulative launches grow — since 2010. India, the authors write, simply doesn’t launch often enough to bring its costs down.