Value chain · CLM-0534
In plain terms
SpaceX's published Falcon 9 price is lower per launch than the 100 million dollars both the US and UK studies assumed, but higher per kilogram, because Falcon 9 carries far less than the rocket those studies assumed. A real government order in late 2025 for five missions averaged more than 100 million dollars each. Neither figure allows for getting from low orbit up to the power station's real orbit.
The claim as recorded
SpaceX's own published price sheet (no printed date; it quotes a standard payment plan "through 2026") lists Falcon 9 at USD 74 million per launch and 22,000 kg to LEO as the maximum capability on a fully expendable vehicle, roughly USD 3,364/kg by our division, though the sheet does not state that the USD 74 million buys the expendable configuration; a US Space Force National Security Space Launch Phase 3 Lane 2 order announced in October 2025 gave SpaceX five missions, four on Falcon Heavy and one on Falcon 9, for USD 714 million in total, an average of roughly USD 142.8 million per mission by our division. Per launch, the Falcon 9 list price is below the USD 100M that both NASA and Frazer-Nash assume and the five-mission average is above it; per kilogram to LEO, the Falcon 9 figure is above the USD 1,000/kg that NASA's baseline implies before its block-buy discount.
Evidence behind this: RE-GRADED T4 to T6 on 2026-09-11, under the weakest-source rule. The old detail read "secondary reporting of a primary price sheet", which describes the CHANNEL rather than the standing: SRC-408 is the vendor's own published price sheet, graded T6, and a company's self-published pricing is evidence that the company advertises that price, not that the price is what a buyer pays. A SUBSTANTIVE FINDING THE TIER DOES NOT CAPTURE, from reading the whole one-page document: the sheet marks 22,000 kg as "max capability on fully expendable vehicle" and nowhere states that the $74 M standard price buys that configuration. The roughly USD 3,364/kg derived here therefore joins a price and a payload the document does not join, and that is a stronger objection to the figure than its tier is. The claim's own correction stands and was confirmed by reading the full page - "January" and "2025" appear zero times, the only temporal string is "(through 2026)", so the 2026-01-13 date is a retrieval date.
Scope and limits
A national-security launch contract carries mission-specific requirements (orbit, integration, schedule assurance) that a high-cadence commercial SBSP launch programme would not necessarily bear, so this may overstate the price a bulk buyer would pay; conversely it is a real, contracted, dated price, not a list price or an aspiration. The USD 714 million covers five missions across two vehicle types and no per-mission breakdown is published, so the USD 142.8 million average is not a price for any one vehicle. The price sheet carries no printed date; its only time reference is "(through 2026)". It marks 22,000 kg as the maximum capability on a fully expendable vehicle and does not state that the USD 74 million standard price buys that configuration, so the per-kg figure pairs a price and a payload that the sheet does not state together. The per-kg comparison sets a Falcon 9 list price against a Starship-based assumption.
What it assumes
The five-mission NSSL average is treated as indicative of contracted government launch pricing, though it is a mission-specific national-security order across two vehicle types, not a bulk commercial rate.
Where it comes from
, the SpaceX "Capabilities & Services" price sheet (spacex.com, no printed date): "LOW-EARTH ORBIT (LEO)", "22,000 kg" and "$74 M" under the standard payment plan through 2026, with a footnote that the performance figure is the maximum for a fully expendable vehicle (paraphrased). SRC-406, Spaceflight Now (2025-10-04): "The first five of those will be launched by SpaceX for a total price of $714 million" and "All assigned SpaceX missions in OY2 require a Falcon Heavy, except for USSF-149, which requires a Falcon 9" (714 / 5 = 142.8, our arithmetic). SRC-012, NASA OTPS (PDF p38, printed p21): "$100M or $1000/kg (with 15% block buy discount, $85M or 850/kg)". Frazer-Nash Annex B (p11), paraphrased: it assumes a launch cost comparable with a current Falcon Heavy, $100M.
Basis: USD, nominal, per launch and per kg to LEO
Related records
- Answers question
- QST-003 not published in this release
Cite this
energyaperture.com/c/clm-0534
CLM-0534, Energy Aperture, as of 2026-09; 2025-10.
Connected records
Other published records linked to this one. A list, not a judgement.
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