The Role of Reusable Rockets in Reducing the Cost of Access to Space

The long-held dream of reusable rockets is quickly becoming a reality. This emerging technology promises to dramatically lower the cost of launching payloads into space through rockets that can fly multiple missions. By making space access more affordable and frequent, reusable rockets could enable a wave of new commercial space activities and exploration.

The Premise and Promise of Reusable Rockets

The fundamental premise behind reusable rockets is that they are designed to launch, land, and be relaunched again. This is radically different from traditional expendable rockets that can only be used once and are discarded after each mission. By recovering and refurbishing used stages and boosters, the high costs of building new rockets for every launch can be avoided. Proponents have compared the potential impact to that of the transition from single-use aircraft to reusable airliners in aviation.

Reusability offers the promise of slashing launch costs by a factor of 10 or more. SpaceX has advertised about $60 million per flight for its partly reusable Falcon 9 rocket, compared to over $200 million for expendable launch vehicles. The company estimates the marginal cost for additional flights using a reused booster could be as low as $30 million. If rockets can eventually approach high flight rates and rapid reusability like airplanes, the per-launch costs may decrease even further over time.

These dramatically lower launch prices would enable transformative new opportunities in space commerce, space tourism, satellite deployment, and space exploration. Affordable and frequent access could open up entire new markets and business models.

Pioneering Progress by Private Companies

While NASA and others have long researched reusable space transportation concepts, private companies like SpaceX and Blue Origin have more recently pioneered the path to operational reusable rockets.

SpaceX has led the charge with the Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rockets. Both designs land the first stage vertically by returning to a platform at sea or on land. SpaceX has steadily improved the reusability of the Falcon vehicle family. Falcon 9’s second stage is now expendable, but the company intends to eventually develop a reusable upper stage as well.

Many Falcon 9 boosters have already been flown multiple times, with the current record at 12 flights for a single first stage. Refurbishment procedures are being continuously streamlined. For example, a booster in 2021 was relaunched in just 27 days, demonstrating a rapid turnaround.

Blue Origin’s orbital-class New Glenn rocket, slated to debut in 2022, will also be reusable. It is designed to land its first stage on a moving ship downrange. Small rocket company Rocket Lab is innovating with mid-air helicopter captures to reuse Electron rocket boosters.

Continuing Challenges for Reusable Rockets

While the promise of reusability is enormous, there are still significant engineering challenges. Recovering large rocket boosters demands advanced control systems, resilient thermal protection, and precision in navigation and landing. Refurbishing the stages between flights also requires extensive inspection, testing, repair, and refit of complex systems.

There are also some trade-offs in performance. Reusable designs typically have less payload lift capacity compared to expendable, one-use rockets. However, the enormous cost savings of reusability make it well worth this performance hit for many satellite launches and other missions.

As companies build up flight experience, they continue to refine reusable rocket technology and address remaining hurdles. There is also ongoing work to make upper stages and fairings reusable. Reliability and rapid turnaround must improve as flight rates increase. But the overall trend is clearly towards increasingly affordable access to space through reusable rockets.

Realizing the Promise

Reusable rocket technology remains in its early days, but is already transforming the economics of launching into space. As the technology matures, costs are likely to drop much further. Entire new industries could emerge to take advantage of frequent, low-cost space access. Reusability may enable ambitious exploration missions that were previously unaffordable. The ultimate result could be the opening of the space frontier for both commerce and discovery.