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LauncherOne costs $12 millions per launch and delivers 300 kg, which means $40k/kg. Compared to $4k/kg of Falcon9, this is... uhm... They definitely gotta optimize things

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The difference is that you can “afford” to buy the whole launch and get to your desired orbit instead of doing a ride share and ending up wherever the main payload was headed.

I don't think they're competitive with Rocket Lab, which is half the price and could be even lower.

Makes me wonder if there could be a business opportunity in providing "the model T" of ion drives for rideshare payloads if that doesn't already exist.

Even a ion drive will not help you if you need substantially different inclination.

Also it will need quite substantial solar panels, that add considerable drag, which is doble problematic on these relatively low orbits.

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