Despite Citi's optimistic outlook, the firm emphasized that much remains speculative in the industry,"such as space-based solar power, moon/asteroid mining, space logistics/cargo, space tourism, intercity rocket travel, and microgravity R&D and construction."
The bank credited the private sector for the sharp decline in costs."Lower launch costs were pioneered by SpaceX with the launch of Falcon 9 in 2010," Citi said. The rocket dropped the average cost per kilogram down to around $2,500, 30 times lower than NASA's Space Shuttle's costs and 11 times lower than the previous historical average.
While satellite revenues have dominantly come from services like television, the bank sees an expansion into applications ranging from consumer broadband to mobile connectivity to internet-of-things networks.Project Kuiper will accelerate this shift through"greater accessibility" to internet services across the globe.
As to human spaceflight, Citi noted that the failure rate for crewed launches is less than 2% historically. But that"is still far too high for space passenger flights," it said, given that commercial aviation experiences failures at the minuscule rate of about 0.0001%.
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