A new report from the Aerospace Corporation helps elucidate why satellite companies are optimizing for Starship. It’s big and reusable, and once operational, it could cut the cost of launching a kilogram of payload into orbit by an order of magnitude from the Falcon 9. This means costs could come down from a few thousand dollars per kilogram to a few hundred.

Karen Jones, a space economist and lead author of the paper, said her research supports some of those optimistic cost projections. She outlines three scenarios, two of which assume an initial launch cost of $100 million for each fully reusable Starship and Super Heavy booster, with marginal costs of 20 or 35 percent. This is in line with the marginal costs of the smaller, partially reusable Falcon 9, which SpaceX can launch for as little as $15 million per flight on a dedicated Starlink mission.

This would bring the per-kilogram launch cost for a fully loaded Starship down to $133 to $233 after 10 reuse cycles. A more optimistic scenario with a $50 million initial launch cost and 20 percent marginal cost would reduce payload costs to $67 per kilogram for a Starship/Super Heavy launch at full capacity after nine use cycles. That’s less than it costs to fill the gas tanks of most SUVs. If SpaceX can make these more optimistic ambitions a reality, it would validate a claim made by Elon Musk in 2022 that a Starship flight could eventually cost as little as $10 million.

“I actually thought I would basically disprove that [claim], and on my first try, I got to $67 per kilogram after nine use cycles,” Jones told Ars. “It’s based upon some significant assumptions in the paper, but it’s not something that’s completely crazy. It certainly wouldn’t be something they’d reach on the first few times, on their first model; but over time, and with a learning curve, why not? I think it’s possible.

The Nivalis Powered Trailer Kit centers on an electric axle...rated at 50 kilowatts peak, capable of both propulsion assistance and regenerative braking. That axle draws on a 60-kilowatt-hour, 400-volt lithium-ion battery pack charged from three sources: the axle itself during braking and deceleration, a full-rooftop array of photovoltaic panels generating up to 3.7 kilowatts-peak, and a 32-amp, three-phase AC grid connection available during parking stops.

This approach is more akin to a plug-in hybrid: the truck may still be diesel-powered, but the electric assist from the trailer allows the truck to run more efficiently. Replacing diesel with kWh can save operators money while also reducing emissions. This incremental approach may be more accessible and less capital-intensive than replacing the truck itself.

Trailer Dynamics’s modular system offers three configurations ranging from 187 to 551 kilowatt-hours.... The M300 version [a 300-kWh battery] adds approximately four tonnes to the trailer.... Trailer Dynamics argues the weight penalty is largely academic in practice, because more than 90 percent of trailer movements are constrained by cargo volume before they approach legal weight limits.

Trailer Dynamics prices its system between €145,000 and €195,000 and targets a payback period of no more than five years. Nivalis targets five to six years at current costs.... Until someone publishes a full year of results from a trailer running in normal commercial rotation, fleet operators cannot answer the two questions that actually drives adoption: What does this cost, and when does it pay back?

The New Jersey plates that were allegedly stolen from the LA dealer were 34 03 DTM, not 34 10 DTM. But when the police report was created and the plate was entered into Flock’s system, it was just recorded as 34 DTM.
Still, he warned me to drive straight home, park the Range Rover, and leave it there. If I were to cross into the neighboring town, I’d probably get flagged again and go through this entire ordeal again with a different set of officers. His parting words were ominous: “You’re lucky we’re in Plymouth. If you were in Minneapolis, they definitely would’ve come at you with guns drawn.”