| > There are large bespoke payloads (eg JWST) but these are inherently so expensive anyway the launch vehicle costs almost don't matter. If launch costs are going to be $250M, you need a budget of that order of magnitude to make a mission viable. At that point, you might was well spend anywhere from $50M to $1B on the payload because that's where your budget is. Or, to put it another way, only payloads with a $50M to $1B budget can afford to exist if the launch costs are of the order of $250M. However, if launch costs are of the order of $5M, then missions with much smaller budgets suddenly become economically viable. And there are a lot more potential missions out there with $10M budgets than there are missions with $500M budgets. Satellites get smaller not only because the tech gets smaller, but because launch costs/kg are so expensive, or so limited. Currently it's worth spending $10M to reduce your mass by 10%, if doing so means you can reduce your launch costs by $25M. Or, if doing so means you can double your onboard station-keeping fuel, and double the lifespan of the satellite. If launch costs are less and available upmass is higher, your budget for engineering to reduce your payload mass is less, and so is the reason to do so. |
There was IXPE, which has been the smallest dedicated payload launched by F9, which otherwise would've had to launch on a much smaller, air-launched pegasus rocket to get to the right inclination. I recall that they were able to simplify some aspects of the satellite deployment due to the roomier vehicle.
There was another mission, maybe Psyche? where the original plan would've required the risk of testing a new kind of engine to get to its deep space destination, but being able to get a dedicated ride instead, that risk was eliminated, such that it was going to be able to get there even if the engine tests failed.