{"id":43137,"date":"2026-07-10T01:04:26","date_gmt":"2026-07-09T17:04:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/payloads-used-to-dictate-the-terms-of-launch-thats-finally-changing\/"},"modified":"2026-07-10T01:04:26","modified_gmt":"2026-07-09T17:04:26","slug":"payloads-used-to-dictate-the-terms-of-launch-thats-finally-changing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/payloads-used-to-dictate-the-terms-of-launch-thats-finally-changing\/","title":{"rendered":"Payloads used to dictate the terms of launch. That\u2019s finally changing."},"content":{"rendered":"

It wasn\u2019t easy to find anyone outside of SpaceX clamoring for a rocket like Starship just 10 years ago. Today, the space industry can\u2019t wait for Starship to finally deliver.<\/p>\n

With a payload capacity of more than 100 metric tons (220,000 pounds) to low-Earth orbit, SpaceX\u2019s new rocket is changing the thinking of just about everyone in the space industry. With the unrealized but potentially game-changing benefits of refueling, Starship could carry the same amount of payload to higher orbits, the Moon, or Mars.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s important to note that Starship is still very much in its experimental phase, far from proving Elon Musk\u2019s loftiest claims about what it can do. Still, NASA and the US military are considering novel ways to use Starship to fly to the Moon or transport cargo to far-flung war zones. Scientists are eager to use its enormous volume to launch giant space telescopes. Competitors are taking notice. China, the strongest strategic adversary America has ever faced, is looking for its own Starship. Now, some US satellite manufacturers are adapting for the substantial capacity of the world\u2019s most powerful rocket.<\/p>\n

This is a reversal of how things usually go in the balance of supply and demand between launch vehicles and satellite operators. Rocket designs have long engineered their vehicles to match trends in the satellite industry. They designed for their customers\u2019 needs, or at least for what their customers were telling them they needed. But in 2026, a new era of abundant super-heavy-lift launch promises to unlock entirely new applications for satellites.<\/p>\n

Historically, engineers relied on a few basic assumptions when it came time to design a new rocket. One was that their launch vehicle would deliver a single payload or a small number of satellites to space. These payloads would be stacked on top of their launch vehicle for release at just the right moment, in just the right orbit. Matching satellites and rockets followed a predictable, orderly pattern. Small satellites needed a small rocket, and larger payloads required a heavier launcher.<\/p>\n

,<\/p>\n

Perhaps the most fundamental assumption was that these satellites would ride to orbit inside the uppermost part of the rocket, protected by a clamshell-like aerodynamic shroud that would peel away once the launch vehicle soared above the atmosphere and reached the sterile environment of space.<\/p>\n

The only launch vehicle to ever challenge these assumptions was NASA\u2019s Space Shuttle, which deployed numerous satellites of all sizes in the first half of its career before it proved a commercial failure. NASA then turned its focus to constructing the International Space Station, a task the Space Shuttle marvelously completed upon retiring in 2011. Ultimately, the Shuttle was outclassed, at least on a commercial basis, by lower-cost expendable rockets. Its unique attributes never had much influence on how engineers designed their satellites.<\/p>\n

Today, SpaceX\u2019s Starship rocket is again promising to upend the launch industry and, by extension, the futures of those who build and own satellites. There are other super-heavy-lift rockets coming onto the market, too. Blue Origin\u2019s New Glenn rocket, particularly a yet-to-fly upgraded variant with more engines, fits in between SpaceX\u2019s workhorse Falcon 9 rocket and Starship.<\/p>\n

\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

A Starship rocket and Super Heavy booster lift off from Starbase, Texas.<\/p>\n

Credit:
\n SpaceX<\/p>\n<\/figure>\n

Taking advantage<\/h2>\n

Starship\u2019s first real payloads will be SpaceX\u2019s own next-generation Starship V3 broadband satellites. It can carry up to 60 of them on a single launch. Starlink V3s are based on the same stackable, flat-satellite architecture as SpaceX\u2019s existing Starlink satellites.<\/p>\n

SpaceX shunned the conventional boxy satellite designs pretty much everyone else has used for more than a half-century. On the Falcon 9, stacks of Starlink satellites still ride to space on top of the rocket, inside a fairing, and then release all at once upon reaching orbit. The company first showed the utility of the flat-packed, stackable satellite architecture with Starlink beginning in 2019.<\/p>\n

SpaceX uses a different approach on Starship, with Starlinks riding inside the vehicle\u2019s fuselage, then ejecting through a small door on the side like a Pez dispenser. Pulleys and cables lower each satellite into position for deployment, one at a time, then the door closes to allow the rocket to come back to Earth.<\/p>\n

,<\/p>\n

SpaceX settled on this novel architecture for several reasons. The flat design allows each satellite to have a broader surface area facing the Earth. It also eliminates the need, at least initially, for SpaceX to focus on developing a large payload fairing. Rocket Lab\u2019s smaller medium-class Neutron rocket takes a similarly revolutionary approach to payload fairing design, integrating it with the Neutron\u2019s reusable booster stage rather than the expendable upper stage. With Starship, however, SpaceX intends to make the entire vehicle rapidly reusable.<\/p>\n

Other satellite manufacturers are starting to take note, but not all of them. Satellites for China\u2019s Qianfan broadband megaconstellation use a flat-panel, stackable design. Amazon\u2019s broadband constellation, Amazon LEO, uses a more conventional-looking satellite.<\/p>\n

Muon Space, a satellite manufacturing startup, announced earlier this month that it is developing a new high-power satellite design to take advantage of Starship\u2019s payload accommodation. Muon Space calls the new platform Condor-Ultra. The company says it is \u201coptimized for stackable mass-deployment from SpaceX\u2019s Starship\u201d for potential use on communications, sensing, and orbital data center-type missions.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is designed for stackable deployments through the opening without requiring the whole fairing to open,\u201d said Greg Smirin, president of Muon Space. \u201cThat\u2019s sort of what we\u2019re designing to, what us and other customers have an understanding of for [what SpaceX will offer in] the near term, in the sort of \u201928 timeframe.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Artist\u2019s illustration of a Condor-Ultra flat-panel satellite with its solar panel deployed in orbit.<\/p>\n

Credit:
\n Muon Space<\/p>\n<\/figure>\n

Muon\u2019s new satellite design can also fit on medium-lift rockets, such as the Falcon 9 and Rocket Lab\u2019s Neutron. It will weigh about 1.5 metric tons, or 3,300 pounds, at launch.<\/p>\n

Smirin said the diversity of future space missions will require some satellites to take more conventional shapes, some of which will need to launch on a rocket with a more conventional payload fairing. SpaceX is expected to eventually offer a different deployment system to accommodate other kinds of payloads that are not compatible with the Pez dispenser.<\/p>\n

,<\/p>\n

\u201cThere will likely be some other configurations,\u201d Smirin said in an interview with Ars. \u201cThis particular one is absolutely designed to work with the Pez dispenser framework. It sort of maps to the high nadir-facing payload face that you want for Earth interaction, that could also work with a stackable Pez dispenser sort deployment.\u201d<\/p>\n

Other satellite manufacturing startups are making inroads in flat-panel designs. Last year, Apex announced a new flat satellite chassis called Comet. On its website, the company teases an even larger version of Comet, named Comet XL, \u201coptimized for Starship and the super-heavy launchers of the future.\u201d<\/p>\n

Terran Orbital, a commercial satellite builder owned by Lockheed Martin, also boasts a flat-packed satellite design it calls Enterprise. Vast, best known for its plans to launch a privately funded space station, said last month that it\u2019s branching out into satellite manufacturing. The new initiative, called Vast Satellite, is based on a flat-panel design \u201cfor high-density launch and batch deployment.\u201d<\/p>\n

John Rood, CEO of the space infrastructure and transportation company Momentus, told Ars he credits SpaceX with the \u201cforethought\u201d of thinking creatively about how to better integrate satellites with their rockets. Momentus specializes in building spacecraft to host small experiments or other customer payloads. For example, the company\u2019s newest mission is now in orbit with NASA- and US military-sponsored experiments to test rendezvous navigation sensors and demonstrate how to robotically assemble modular structures in space.<\/p>\n

Momentus\u2019 spacecraft can also serve as space tugs to ferry smaller satellites or experiments from one orbit to another. These kinds of missions aren\u2019t necessarily the best fit for a flat-panel satellite.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think it\u2019ll be the new industry norm,\u201d Rood said of the flat-panel architecture. \u201cI think, for obvious reasons, given SpaceX\u2019s heft, it is something that will become a bigger and bigger part of the industry, but I don\u2019t know if everything will transition to that\u2026 There are compelling reasons to have other types of satellites.\u201d<\/p>\n

,<\/p>\n

Just a tank of gas<\/h2>\n

A new report from the Aerospace Corporation helps elucidate why satellite companies are optimizing for Starship. It\u2019s big and reusable, and once operational, it could cut the cost of launching a kilogram of payload into orbit by an order of magnitude from the Falcon 9. This means costs could come down from a few thousand dollars per kilogram to a few hundred.<\/p>\n

Karen Jones, a space economist and lead author of the paper, said her research supports some of those optimistic cost projections. She outlines three scenarios, two of which assume an initial launch cost of $100 million for each fully reusable Starship and Super Heavy booster, with marginal costs of 20 or 35 percent. This is in line with the marginal costs of the smaller, partially reusable Falcon 9, which SpaceX can launch for as little as $15 million per flight on a dedicated Starlink mission.<\/p>\n

This would bring the per-kilogram launch cost for a fully loaded Starship down to $133 to $233 after 10 reuse cycles. A more optimistic scenario with a $50 million initial launch cost and 20 percent marginal cost would reduce payload costs to $67 per kilogram for a Starship\/Super Heavy launch at full capacity after nine use cycles. That\u2019s less than it costs to fill the gas tanks of most SUVs. If SpaceX can make these more optimistic ambitions a reality, it would validate a claim made by Elon Musk in 2022 that a Starship flight could eventually cost as little as $10 million.<\/p>\n

\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Three scenarios for Starship\u2019s costs, and their resulting effects on cost-per-kilogram of payload.<\/p>\n

Credit:
\n Aerospace Corporation<\/p>\n<\/figure>\n

\u201cI actually thought I would basically disprove that [claim], and on my first try, I got to $67 per kilogram after nine use cycles,\u201d Jones told Ars. \u201cIt\u2019s based upon some significant assumptions in the paper, but it\u2019s not something that\u2019s completely crazy. It certainly wouldn\u2019t be something they\u2019d reach on the first few times, on their first model; but over time, and with a learning curve, why not? I think it\u2019s possible.\u201d<\/p>\n

,<\/p>\n

In the paper, Jones writes that SpaceX could achieve these numbers \u201cthrough a combination of manufacturing and operational learning curves, lower marginal costs, a fully laden rocket, and adequate reuse.\u201d SpaceX has shown it can do it with Falcon 9, but it won\u2019t happen overnight with Starship. Earlier this month, SpaceX launched one of its reusable Falcon 9 boosters for a record-setting 35th time. The company reached nine flights of one booster in 2021, nearly 11 years after the very first Falcon 9 launch.<\/p>\n

Ordinary to extraordinary<\/h2>\n

The first obvious market for Starship to serve will be megaconstellations, beginning with SpaceX\u2019s own. These kinds of missions will help SpaceX bend the learning curve to create and enable still-unrealized markets, like routine trips to the Moon and Mars, orbital data centers, or point-to-point transportation on Earth.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe here-and-now revenue generation opportunities lie with broadband constellations and connectivity plays, basically building out their current constellations,\u201d Jones said. \u201cWe focus on megaconstellations. They can kind of grow the business, and then from that platform, and from that success, some of these more speculative ventures might be able to springboard from that.\u201d<\/p>\n

In other words, the ordinary will unlock the extraordinary, Jones said.<\/p>\n

So it\u2019s no surprise that some satellite manufacturers are thinking seriously about taking advantage of Starship as soon as possible.<\/p>\n

\u201cA FlatSat form factor is going to replace these traditional boxy satellites, and a FlatSat type of form factor will help reduce drag and increase maneuverability,\u201d Jones said. \u201cThe actual deployment mechanism, which is the Starship Pez dispenser, to me, this demonstrates very smart industrial design and scale. These FlatSats fit into the Pez dispenser, and this could be perhaps the future space de facto standard for rideshare and mass-produced satellites and constellations.<\/p>\n

These \u201cFlatSats\u201d are not a panacea. It\u2019s hard to imagine some missions fitting on a flat-panel design. \u201cIt\u2019s not to say that there wouldn\u2019t be other types of satellites and ways to launch telescopes and other types of form factors,\u201d Jones said.<\/p>\n

,<\/p>\n

But flat-packed, stackable satellites allow operators to deliver more capability to orbit faster. Starship will take this to the next level with its capacity to launch SpaceX\u2019s more powerful Starlink V3s.<\/p>\n

\u201cOn a Falcon 9, they can only launch 27 of these V2s,\u201d Jones said. \u201cThe Starship can launch 60 of these larger V3s. What this means is bandwidth per launch amounts to 61,000 gigabits per second on Starship versus 2,600 gigabits per second for V2s on Falcon 9. In other words, almost 24 times as much bandwidth can be deployed per launch on Starship versus the Falcon 9 and the V2 satellites. That\u2019s huge.\u201d<\/p>\n

Of course, costs are not the same as prices. SpaceX charges commercial customers $74 million for a dedicated Falcon 9 launch, about five times the internal launch cost. This still makes Falcon 9 the most affordable and reliable launch option in the Western world. It\u2019s too early to know where or when SpaceX will set Starship launch prices. Part of the calculation will hinge on the progress of SpaceX\u2019s competitors, such as Blue Origin.<\/p>\n

\u201cCertainly, that\u2019s what the industry wants to see, is two equal players,\u201d Jones said. \u201cIt absolutely contributes to the economics in terms of price per kilogram.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve got these two rocket companies vying for positions,\u201d Jones said in an interview. \u201cI think it\u2019s going to be important that we have competition here, and one company seems to be ahead right now, but whether you\u2019re first to market or a fast follower, I think we would all benefit from seeing this competition between these two companies, Blue Origin and SpaceX. I think that\u2019s critical.\u201d<\/p>\n

Some economists believe Starship is simply too big to fulfill all of SpaceX\u2019s lofty goals, but Jones doesn\u2019t buy it.<\/p>\n

\u201cSometimes, when you increase the size of any type of transportation system, it creates something called diseconomies of scale, where the marginal costs start to increase,\u201d Jones said. \u201cNow, I think Starship is going to prove a new price point, but some think that when you get too big, kind of like the [Airbus] A380 airplane that tried to compete with the [Boeing] 747, it created all sorts of demands and types of maintenance.<\/p>\n

\u201cCould the Starship follow that path and become not relevant? I don\u2019t really believe it,\u201d she said. \u201cI think that they\u2019re going to have to prove it. They\u2019re going to have to prove over time that they can fly the Starship and continue to see marginal costs decrease, and hopefully the space sector will discover a new sweet spot, but right now it\u2019s the Falcon 9.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It wasn\u2019t easy to find anyone outside of SpaceX clamoring for a rocket like Starship just 10 years ago. Today, the space industry can\u2019t wait for Starship to finally deliver. With a payload capacity of more than 100 metric tons (220,000 pounds) to low-Earth orbit, SpaceX\u2019s new rocket is changing the thinking of just about […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":43138,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-43137","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43137"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43137"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43137\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/43138"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43137"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43137"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43137"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}