The project of the American space corporation SpaceX to regularly launch small satellites at a single price using Falcon 9 rockets will begin to make a profit by the end of the first year. This conclusion was reached by specialists of the Bauman Moscow State Technical University, who studied the initiative of Elon Musk 's company, RIA Novosti reports .
The abstracts of the report are published in the collection of Academic readings on Cosmonautics. Its authors recognize that with the help of the new project, SpaceX will be able to successfully respond to the growing competition from private and public companies that develop and use light and medium-class launch vehicles for launch.
Musk's company plans to launch satellites weighing up to 200 kilograms almost every month. The cost of the launch will be the same-a million dollars, and it is less than the competition.
The calculations of Russian specialists took into account investments in the project, payments for the launch, return of the first stage, its maintenance and insurance. As a result, despite all the costs, in less than a year, the profitability of the project is about 15-20 percent.
In October last year, the head of the Russian space corporation Roscosmos, Dmitry Rogozin , said that he doubted the economy of reusable rocket launches proposed by SpaceX. According to him, the calculations of Russian experts do not confirm the effectiveness of such a solution.
Later, in December, Rogozin said that he respects the" engineering and propaganda " talents of Elon Musk, but recalled that the work is carried out by a private company with public money.
Ivan Ovsov
