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Comment by eru | original | SpaceX catches the Starship to end Flight 15
[−]eru · 2026-11-15 Sun 07:25 UTC · link
> Commercial customers largely used Ariane.

That and the Russians. But SpaceX is cheaper than both of them.

[−]fpoling · 2026-11-15 Sun 08:17 UTC · link
The current list price of Falcon-9 flight at 74 millions is a third more than what Russia used to charge for commercial payloads. Production cost of Russian rocket is below 15M USD and probably was below 10M at the peak of Russian comercial services. This is comparable with Falcon-9 amortized cost per flight.
[−]scottyah · 2026-11-15 Sun 08:24 UTC · link
Are you adjusting for inflation over the decades between when russia provided these services for financial gain and what falcon does now?
[−]fartfeatures · 2026-11-15 Sun 09:09 UTC · link
Also don't forget what a state their launch facilities are in. Just because they could do something before does not mean they can do it now. They haven't invested properly in their infrastructure.
[−]bumby · 2026-11-15 Sun 13:46 UTC · link
Wouldn’t this imply the SpaceX costs need to adjust for the infrastructure they didn’t pay for? Not slighting them, just acknowledging an apples to apples comparison is hard
[−]panick21_ · 2026-11-15 Sun 11:07 UTC · link
You can't compare rocket vs rocket. Cheap Russian rockets are way smaller. Falcon 9 destroyed their market even before it was reusable.

You are also missing that Falcon 9 costs as much as costumers pay, SpaceX internal cost are significantly less. They just don't have competition to make it cheaper.