vii Beyond: We assume costs to launch a Starship7 and reuse each Starship, along with operations costs, are lower in 2050 than today. This is in part because autonomous capabilities are assumed for the representative SBSP designs. Comparable: We assume solar cell efficiency at the current state of the practice for GEO satellites because technological advances are difficult to predict beyond a few years. We assume an orbital transfer method leveraging refueling launches to reach GEO at the current state of the practice.8 We assume manufacturing curves and initial hardware costs at approximately the current state of the practice as a “starting point” for learning over the multi-decade manufacturing process. Manufacturing curves were selected based on analogous industries with similar production levels. Below: We assume a hardware lifetime below that of the current state of the practice for GEO hardware because the SBSP designs are first-of-a-kind systems requiring multiple refurbishment cycles. Our study found the following: The baseline lifecycle cost of electricity for RD1 is 0.61 $/kWh and for RD2 is 1.59 $/kWh. Launch is the largest cost driver (71% of RD1 and 77% of RD2) as 2,3216 launches are required to deliver 5.9Mkg of mass for RD1 and 3,960 are needed to deliver 10Mkg of mass for RD2. Most of these launches (12 of every 13) serve only to refuel payloads in LEO for transfer to GEO. Manufacturing is the second largest cost driver (22% for RD1 and 18% RD2) and includes initial spacecraft hardware development and manufacturing. Learning curves enable cost decreases over time as experience is gained through producing 1.5M spacecraft modules for RD1 and 2M spacecraft modules for RD2. In general, RD2 is more expensive than RD1 because more mass is involved; five RD2 systems are needed to generate roughly the same amount of power as one RD1 system. Figure 2 shows the comparison of the lifecycle baseline assessment to terrestrial renewable electricity production technologies, whose costs range from 0.02-0.05 $/kWh. The RD1 LCOE and RD2 LCOE are 12-31 and 32-80 times higher, respectively, than the 2050 projections for terrestrial alternatives. Therefore, our baseline analysis of SBSP designs does not return cost competitive results relative to terrestrial alternatives. For comparison, the average energy cost of a U.S. household in August 2022 was 0.167 $/kWh.9 7 Due to the size and mass of the representative SBSP designs, for purposes of this study, we used available data from Space Exploration Technologies Corporation’s (SpaceX’s) Starship launch vehicle. because at this time it is anticipated to be the largest super heavy launch vehicle with data available. It is important to note that multiple specifications for this vehicle are planned, and cover a range of payload capacities, fuel capacities, and more. The study’s use of data from Starship does not indicate any endorsement by NASA. 8 Blue Origin Fed’n, LLC; Dynetics, Inc.-A Leidos Co., B-419783 et al., July 30, 2021, 2021 CPD ¶ 265 at 27 n.13 9 U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (2023), Average energy prices for the United States, https://www.bls.gov/regions/midwest/data/averageenergyprices_selectedareas_table.htm.
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