Space Shuttle Cost
Recent nasa estimates peg the shuttle program s cost through the end of last year at 209 billion in 2010.
Space shuttle cost. In 2009 nasa determined that the cost of adding a single launch per year was 252 million in 2012 which indicated that much of the space shuttle program costs are for year round personnel and operations that continued regardless of the launch rate. For fiscal year 2010 the average cost to prepare and launch a shuttle mission was approximately 775 million. The officials explained that.
Nasa s budget for 2005 allocated 30 or 5 billion to space shuttle operations. The average cost per launch was about 1 2 billion in 2010 dollars during the shuttle s operational years from 1982 to 2010. The life of the shuttle program has cost 113 7 billion.
Under this calculation the first six boeing starliner missions will cost nasa about 345 million each while spacex crew dragon will cost nasa about 209 million each. Vision spaceport partnership 1998 2000. This was decreased in 2006 to a request of 4 3 billion.
Two of the program s 134 flights have ended in tragedy killing 14 astronauts in all. The model was used in many nasa studies addressing the direction for what might follow the space shuttle. This model significantly advanced operations.
Not adjusted for inflation. This model was a prototype for calculation methods that would be used in future operations cost models for space transportation systems. When the space shuttle was in operation it could launch a payload of 27 500 kilograms for 1 5 billion or 54 500 per kilogram.
But it rises to 1 5 billion per flight when factoring in lifetime. The exact breakdown into non recurring and recurring costs is not available but according to nasa the average cost to launch a space shuttle as of 2011 was about 450 million per mission. Shuttle endeavour the orbiter built to replace shuttle challenger cost approximately 1 7 billion to build.