/sci/ - Science & Math

https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4626/1

> The new heavy launchers are the Vulcan by United Launch Alliance (ULA), New Glenn by Blue Origin, and Starship-Super Heavy by SpaceX.

> In this new era, the paradigm of gaining cost savings and additional performance from relaxed mass and volume limits is a matter of choice and opportunity, seeking to make best use of both higher-tech and lower-tech options. Expanded systems engineering frameworks and more flexible cost models could provide crucial assistance to these analyses.

> Reducing launch costs this much will remove launch as a prohibitive budgetary constraint for many projects. That will reinforce the cost of space systems as the dominant budgetary constraint. The next era of space engineering will explore how much the cost of space systems can be reduced with relaxed mass and volume constraints. New limiting factors are likely to be found in the base cost of systems and robotics needed for assembly and maintenance.