New Delhi: India's cost of placing a kilogram of payload into low Earth orbit stood at Rs 12.77 lakh in 2025, significantly higher than that of several leading spacefaring nations, according to a study by economists from the University of Cambridge and Italy's Polytechnic University of Turin.

The study, conducted by Cambridge economist Alessio Terzi and Francesco Nicoli of the Polytechnic University of Turin, analysed data from more than 6,740 rocket launches across several countries between 1960 and 2025.

The global average cost of placing a kilogram of payload into low Earth orbit was Rs 3.71 lakh in 2025. The corresponding figures were Rs 3.10 lakh in the US, Rs 5.08 lakh in Japan, Rs 5.58 lakh in China, Rs 6.41 lakh in Russia and Rs 9.50 lakh in Europe.

India's cost of Rs 12.77 lakh per kg was the highest among the major spacefaring nations examined, and more than four times the US figure.

The researchers attributed the higher per-kilogram cost in India partly to the relatively small payloads generally carried by Indian rockets, which means fixed launch costs are distributed over a smaller payload. In contrast, reusable rockets and the spreading of infrastructure costs over a larger number of launches have helped reduce the per-kilogram cost in the US.

The findings appear to challenge the widely held perception of India as a low-cost space power.

However, former ISRO chairman S Somanath disputed the use of per-kilogram cost as the sole measure of launch economics.

He said the overall launch cost could not be assessed merely on the basis of the cost per kilogram. He pointed out that the amount India paid a US company to launch a 4.5-tonne satellite was comparable to the cost of launching the same satellite using India's LVM-3 rocket.

Indian rockets could not necessarily be described as low-cost, but neither were they excessively expensive, Somanath said.