SpaceX Slashes Base Price of Smallsat Rideshare Program, Adds "Plates"

takyon writes:

SpaceX's Rideshare program will now allow customers to launch a 50 kilogram payload for $275,000, down from a previous minimum of 200 kilograms for $1.1 million.

SpaceX slashes base price of smallsat rideshare program, adds "Plates"

SpaceX has rolled out an upgraded version of its Rideshare program that will allow even more small satellite operators to send their spacecraft to orbit for extremely low prices.

[...] While it technically hasn't reduced its prices, SpaceX will now allow satellites as small as 50 kilograms to book directly through the company at its virtually unbeatable rate of $5500 per kilogram. Before this change, customers with small satellites would either have to pay for all the extra capacity they weren't using, boosting their relative cost per kilogram, or arrange their launch services with a third-party aggregator like Spaceflight or Exolaunch.

Aggregators purchase slots on SpaceX's rideshare missions and then seek out numerous small satellites (usually well under 50 kilograms each) to try to reach their 200-kilogram minimum, thus ensuring that even the smallest satellites can launch for close to the advertised rate of $5500 per kilogram. As is always the case, a subcontractor has its own bills to pay and profit margins to seek, so aggregators likely charge customers quite a bit more than SpaceX's base price.

Read more of this story at SoylentNews.