How does SpaceX make money?

SpaceX obtains most of its money from participating in just one activity, which is launching satellites into orbit. The company changes commercial customers a standard rate of $62 million per launch for this service. It changes to around $20 million more for more complex government space missions such as putting a science satellite into for NOAA, launching a GPS satellite for the Air Force, and resupplying the international space station.

The SpaceX seems to have a price to sales ratio of 9.2 or maybe lower if there are some other impending revenues. In the near future, they will be selling seats on human-crewed flights to the ISS in their Dragon spacecraft. They also plan on selling trips to the moon.

SpaceX makes its money a number of ways. One way is through their costs. Their costs are incredibly lower than those of their competition. Many of the satellite and spacecraft launches prices are set others like ULA. SpaceX does not go off of those prices. Instead, they lower the cost.

In doing so, they are able to make a significant profit every time there is a launch. Another way SpaceX makes money is through their contracts. They have a contract for NASA, which helps the commercial crew. Space X is able to use their profit to recover any costs accrued from development and help future launchers.