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From the early moon landings of the 20th century to today’s orbiting laboratories and interplanetary probes, each mission has pushed the boundaries along with the budgets. Often, these ambitious space missions carry staggering price tags, reflecting the complexity, scale, and pioneering nature of these ventures.
Here are the five most expensive space missions ever launched:
1. International Space Station (ISS) — $150 billion
The International Space Station is a multinational space station collaboration between the USA, Russia, Japan, Europe and Canada. This figure includes the contributions of various space agencies from around the world, including NASA, Roscosmos, ESA, JAXA, and CSA. The construction phase took over a decade, beginning in 1998 and concluding in 2011.
The space station orbits roughly 250 miles above the Earth’s surface and has been continuously inhabited since 2000.
According to NASA reports, it was built at $150 billion and cost $3 billion a year — roughly a third of NASA’s annual human space flight budget.
The space station serves as a hub for scientific research. Orbiting Earth every 90 minutes, the ISS is also a critical testbed for long-duration spaceflight, shaping our understanding of how the human body adapts to space.
2. Space Shuttle Program — $113 billion
NASA’s Space Shuttle program was the United States’ fourth human spaceflight initiative. It relied on reusable spacecraft to carry astronauts and cargo to and from Earth orbit. Over its 30-year run, the program completed 135 missions—beginning with its first launch on April 12, 1981, and concluding with its final landing on July 21, 2011.
The five space shuttle fleet—Columbia, Challenger, Discovery, Atlantis, and Endeavour — launched satellites, were instrumental in various missions including the Hubble Space Telescope, and played a central role in building the ISS.
According to NASA’s website, the life of the shuttle program cost $113.7 billion.
3. The Apollo Program — $25 billion
The Apollo Program was born out of the Cold War and US President John F Kennedy’s promise to land a man on the Moon — becoming one of the most ambitious missions in human history.
As per BBC reports, the total estimated cost of the Apollo programme came to around $25.8 billion.
Apollo was a three-part spacecraft — the command module (CM), service module (SM) and the lunar module (LM), according to NASA’s website.
From 1961 to 1972, NASA developed the Saturn V rocket and a suite of spacecraft that successfully carried astronauts to the lunar surface six times. The most iconic moment came in 1969, when Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin took humanity’s first steps on the moon.
4. Hubble Space Telescope — $16 billion
The Hubble Space Telescope orbits just above Earth’s atmosphere at an altitude of approximately 515 km. Hubble orbits at a speed of 27,000 kph and completes one orbit approximately every 95 minutes. Hubble gets clear images because it’s above Earth’s atmosphere, not because it travels or flies closer to cosmic objects.
It continues to operate alongside its successor, the James Webb telescope.
Hubble was launched in 1990 at an estimated cost of 16 billion (adjusted for inflation to 2021 dollars).
5. James Webb Space Telescope — $10 billion
Built at a cost of $10 billion, the James Webb Space Telescope is said to be the most powerful space observatory. The telescope was on Christmas Day in 2021.
The Webb does not orbit around the Earth; however, it orbits the Sun 1.5 million kilometres (1 million miles) away from the Earth at what is called the second Lagrange point or L2.
