Policy experts: Europe stuck between “rock and a hard place” on launch

政策专家：欧洲在发射领域陷入“进退两难”的境地

A decade ago, SpaceX began to land the first stages of the Falcon 9 rocket with some regularity, but it’s only within the last five years that the company has begun flying the rocket dozens and then hundreds of times a year. As a result, SpaceX has very rapidly become responsible for more than three-quarters of all mass launched into orbit. Much of this is the company’s Starlink satellites, but due to cost and the lack of alternatives, SpaceX has also stepped up to launch payloads from all comers, including direct competitors such as Amazon, Northrop Grumman, AST Space Mobile, OneWeb, and more. New research is beginning to quantify just how much the introduction of the Falcon 9 rocket, the adoption of reuse, and the vehicle’s high cadence have upended the global launch market.

十年前，SpaceX 开始定期回收猎鹰 9 号火箭的第一级，但直到最近五年，该公司才开始实现每年数十次甚至数百次的火箭飞行。结果，SpaceX 迅速占据了全球轨道发射总质量四分之三以上的份额。其中很大一部分是该公司的“星链”卫星，但由于成本优势和缺乏替代方案，SpaceX 也开始承接来自各方的有效载荷发射任务，包括亚马逊、诺斯罗普·格鲁曼、AST Space Mobile、OneWeb 等直接竞争对手。最新的研究开始量化猎鹰 9 号火箭的引入、可重复使用技术的采用以及该载具的高发射频率对全球发射市场造成的巨大冲击。

Public policy researchers based in the United Kingdom and Italy have published new research in Economics Letters that showcases the marked changes wrought by the Falcon 9 by mining a dataset of more than 6,700 launches from 1960 to 2025. One of the more striking findings comes in the cumulative payload to orbit by nation. From 1990 to the early 2000s, the United States and the Soviet Union tracked fairly closely to one another. Then, in the wake of the Space Shuttle Columbia accident in 2003, Russia began to pull ahead. This trend slowly reversed course in the mid-2010s and then, amid the Falcon 9 ramp up in the early 2020s, the United States pulled ahead dramatically. Just a handful of years later, the United States has now more than doubled all of Russia’s payloads to orbit since 1990.

来自英国和意大利的公共政策研究人员在《经济学快报》（Economics Letters）上发表了一项新研究，通过挖掘 1960 年至 2025 年间超过 6,700 次发射的数据集，展示了猎鹰 9 号带来的显著变化。其中一个引人注目的发现是各国累计入轨有效载荷的变化。从 1990 年到 21 世纪初，美国和苏联的发射量相当接近。随后，在 2003 年哥伦比亚号航天飞机事故之后，俄罗斯开始领先。这一趋势在 2010 年代中期缓慢逆转，随后在 2020 年代初猎鹰 9 号发射频率激增的背景下，美国实现了大幅领先。仅仅几年后，美国自 1990 年以来的累计入轨有效载荷已超过俄罗斯的两倍。

“Another way to look at it is to analyze the shares of yearly global payload captured by selected spacefaring nations,” the authors write. “Between 1995 and 2012, the US share of global payload collapsed from almost 50 percent to a trough of less than 20 percent, far below Russia and only a few percentage points above China and Europe. Since then, it accelerated rapidly to a peak of over 82 percent in 2024.”

“另一种观察方式是分析主要航天国家每年在全球有效载荷中所占的份额，”作者写道。“在 1995 年至 2012 年间，美国在全球有效载荷中的份额从近 50% 暴跌至不足 20% 的低谷，远低于俄罗斯，仅比中国和欧洲高出几个百分点。此后，这一份额迅速回升，并在 2024 年达到超过 82% 的峰值。”

SpaceX has also made significant gains in controlling costs compared to other nations. A decade ago, the United States and Europe had similar launch costs. Today, according to publicly available data, launch costs in Europe are now three times higher than for comparable payloads in the United States. The researchers estimate that the average cost of sending a kilogram of payload to orbit in the United States is now $3,225, compared to higher costs elsewhere: Japan ($5,287), China ($5,809), Russia ($6,682), and Europe ($9,897). India is higher still at nearly $15,000 a kilogram.

与其他国家相比，SpaceX 在成本控制方面也取得了显著进展。十年前，美国和欧洲的发射成本相差无几。如今，根据公开数据，欧洲的发射成本已是美国同类有效载荷的三倍。研究人员估计，目前在美国将一公斤有效载荷送入轨道的平均成本为 3,225 美元，而其他地区则更高：日本（5,287 美元）、中国（5,809 美元）、俄罗斯（6,682 美元）和欧洲（9,897 美元）。印度则更高，每公斤接近 15,000 美元。

“The very high figure for India might be counterintuitive as it stands in stark contrast with the narrative of the country’s frugal space program,” the authors write. “However, this is a result of focusing on small rocket sizes, which implies that, albeit being low by international standards, fixed costs get amortized over a limited payload.” The key factors in bringing down costs are larger rockets, increased cadence, and reuse of launch vehicles.

“印度的这一高额数字可能有些反直觉，因为它与该国‘节俭航天计划’的叙事形成了鲜明对比，”作者写道。“然而，这是专注于小型火箭的结果，这意味着尽管其单次发射成本按国际标准来看较低，但固定成本被分摊到了有限的有效载荷上。”降低成本的关键因素在于更大规模的火箭、更高的发射频率以及运载火箭的重复使用。

As for what other countries should do about this, the researchers assert that nations in Europe and elsewhere that decide to rely solely on their domestic rockets for launch needs will see their costs go up, which could slow their efforts to expand space-based operations such as satellite constellations. This leaves policymakers in a difficult position. “Looking specifically at Europe, for now the continent is stuck between a rock and a hard place, having to choose between continuing to depend on lower-cost American launch technology and relying on expensive, poorly scalable domestic technology to expand its strategic presence in space,” the authors write.

至于其他国家应如何应对，研究人员断言，欧洲及其他地区如果决定仅依赖本国火箭来满足发射需求，其成本将会上升，这可能会减缓它们扩展卫星星座等天基业务的步伐。这使决策者陷入了困境。作者写道：“具体看欧洲，目前该大陆正处于进退两难的境地，必须在继续依赖成本更低的美国发射技术，还是依赖昂贵且难以规模化的本土技术来扩大其在太空的战略存在之间做出选择。”

Ultimately, to remain competitive, spacefaring nations will need to develop better and more modern launch capabilities. The United States is far and away the current leader of reusable launch, and virtually all new commercial rockets under development incorporate some aspect of reuse. Chinese firms are similarly pushing forward with this technology. To date, Europe’s efforts have been slow and stodgy. For example, a European Space Agency program to demonstrate small, suborbital hops called Themis was originally supposed to perform low-altitude hop tests by 2022. So far, the vehicle has yet to get off the ground.

归根结底，为了保持竞争力，航天国家需要开发更好、更现代化的发射能力。美国目前在可重复使用发射领域遥遥领先，几乎所有正在开发的新型商业火箭都采用了某种形式的重复使用技术。中国企业也在积极推进这项技术。迄今为止，欧洲的努力显得缓慢而迟钝。例如，欧洲航天局一个名为 Themis 的小型亚轨道跳跃演示项目，原定于 2022 年进行低空跳跃测试。到目前为止，该载具仍未实现起飞。