SpaceX Effect on Space Industry

This page will analyze the effects of SpaceX entering the Space Industry in the 21st century and the effects of the gradual privitization of space exploration. We will explore the amount of investments into space rocket launches, the number of rocket launches, organizations and an exploration of whether SpaceX had any influence on the type of rockets that were used more over time.

Background

If you have even remotely kept up with rockets and space news in the past decade, the name SpaceX has all but become a household name. From landing rockets on platforms to catching rockets in mid-air, it's hard to argue that there has not been any innovation to the space industry. But, what innovations happened and how much of that happened in the past 20 years after the founding of SpaceX? We will look at a couple metrics of for investment and innovation over the years, with the cost of the rocket, the amount of money spent on rocket launches and the number of rocket launches by their funding source, either the government or by private companies.

SpaceX Influence on Space Launches

With the founding of SpaceX in 2002, the annual amount of money for space launches increase in both private and government funded rocket launches. Before the 21st century, the price of launches were steady between 1975 and 1990 before a decline closer to the turn of the century. A couple reasons could be behind the decrease in funding, between the dissolution of USSR in the late 90's, the lower frequency but larger scale projects supported by government ventures.

After SpaceX was founded, the amount of money spent by government and private launches per year were equal. But is that spending equality due to more rockets or more expensive rockets over time? We will explore that in the following sections.

By looking at the number of organizations by funding source, we see why the amount of money spent on space launches increased at the turn of the 21st century. The number of organizations held steady but the number of private organizations increased around 2018, fueled by the expansion of private ventures in the US and China.

Even with more organizations, that still does not fully explain the spike in annual launch costs. The rise after 2005 on the private sector may be due to increased interest in space by companies and the general public. With the first successful orbital launch for the Falcon 1 by SpaceX in 2010, there was a small increase in the number of organizations, but also a large increase in spending, indicating organizational confidence in the private space industry.

Finally, we explore whether the industry as a whole changed on the efficiency front. We will be examining the cost per weight of the rocket. Since a heavier rocket will cost more due to more resources and larger size required, standardizing cost based on the weight of the rocket will indicate the efficiency of an organization based on their rockets. Rockets are classified based on the weight they carry into orbit:

If we focus on the most common rocket types, medium and heavy lift, government rockets were significantly more expensive than private rockets up until about 2010. While the tockets used by private companies were cheaper even at the early 21st century, the number of rockets launched were lower.

From there, we also see that private funded rockets increased in number and coincided with the gradual decrease in cost per weight. We also see the decline in the number of government funded launches in this weight class which could have led to the explosive growth we see after 2010.

Finally, let's look at how the rockets have changed over the years. Between 2000's and 2020's, two things have happened. The overall number of rocket launches went up, but the percentage of medium lift rockets went down. Organizations began either going smaller or bigger with rockets, either with small lift rockets or heavy lift rockets.

Looking specifically only at SpaceX, we see most of their rockets are in the heavy lift class, which would explain the increase in heavy lift rockets during the years that SpaceX are active. However, small lift rockets are still unaccounted for.

Looking at the 200 launches of small lift rockets, you see smaller organizations like Rocket Lab out of New Zealand and Galactic Energy with ExPace/CASIC based in China as notable organizations launching smaller rockets. While these may not be direct competitors to SpaceX, the increased competition in the space has led to diversification in rockets in both directions, smaller and larger.

Looking at all the factors surrounding the changes in the current space industry, it is hard to pin down a clear cause of why things happened. While spending did increase, both government and private organizations spent more money after 2005. At the same time, there were more companies launching rockets into space.

While SpaceX certainly could have played a role, a larger influence is also present around this time, the decrease in government space launches. With NASA retiring the space shuttle in 2011, that gave way to other players to use rockets for transport, including SpaceX.

While rocketts got more efficient, cost-wise, we also see an increase in the number of heavy and super heavy rockets, showing that even with more launches, the current rockets are also getting bigger and may be taking advantage of economies of scale or designed to spread out the per launch costs of a rocket. The reduction of costs may also be what made these super heavy rockets viable in the modern age.