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Recently, in the space market, there has been a rapid reduction in the launch price. The major reason for this is that a few commercial companies began to enter the space market about ten years ago, which has changed the space market from monopolization to competition and accelerated the adoption of commercial efficiency in technology and management. Also, SpaceX made a breakthrough by successfully recovering the first stage of its launch vehicle in 2016, thereby opening the door to reusable launch vehicles. They have declared their intention to significantly reduce satellite launch costs in the future by utilizing the potential of reusable launch vehicles. In this study, we calculate the total launch cost required to place a single satellite into Low Earth Orbit (LEO) and compare the launch costs for three different payload capacity scenarios, investigating how payload capacity affects the cost-effectiveness of reusable launch vehicles. The launch cost is broken down into development costs, production costs, reuse costs, operational costs, fixed costs, and insurance costs, with cost estimation equations utilized based on cost calculation models such as TRANSCOST.

This paper presents a summary of an initial phase of a long term study to develop techniques for accurately predicting launch vehicle costs, and is an initial part of a larger research project to develop a computer program cost model for long range planning. Emphasis is on the accuracy or confidence associated with cost estimates calculated by industry launch vehicle cost models. Results are shown of a statistical analysis of the mean and standard deviation of sample model estimates for various cost elements of a liquid and solid launch vehicle program. The variations in the cost estimates are discussed.