Blog post
The true cost of commissioning an Atlas Heavy Freighter
Our published commissioning price for an Atlas Heavy Freighter is 410 million credits. It is a real number, and it is the number on the contract, but every finance team I speak with eventually asks the same question: what will this ship actually cost us? In the spirit of transparency, here is the breakdown we share privately with buyers, now made public.
The 410 Mc covers the hull, drive and certification. Roughly speaking it splits like this:
| Item | Share of price | Approx. Mc |
|---|---|---|
| 612 m spine, cargo frames and hull plating | 31% | 127 |
| Helium-3 fusion drive and reactor | 38% | 156 |
| Avionics, autonomy suite and flight deck | 9% | 37 |
| Crew habitat for 7 | 6% | 25 |
| Certification, test flights, delivery | 16% | 65 |
What the price does not include is fuel, insurance, crew and maintenance, and those add up. An Atlas burns about 6.8 tonnes of helium-3 pellets per 100 AU. A typical Earth-Mars-Belt circuit is roughly 6 AU per leg, and a busy operator flies around 70 AU a year, so annual fuel consumption is close to 5 tonnes. At current cislunar pellet prices, that is about 9 Mc a year, which is surprisingly modest for a ship that moves 52,000 tonnes per trip.
Crew is the larger line. An Atlas needs only three pilots, but a full complement of seven, rotating in shifts, plus a ground-side relief pool, costs operators between 6 and 8 Mc a year depending on where they recruit. Insurance runs about 1.2 percent of hull value annually, or 5 Mc. Scheduled maintenance, including a drive-core inspection every 30 AU and a full overhaul at year five, averages 11 Mc a year.
Add it together and a five-year total cost of ownership lands near 560 Mc. Divide that by the cargo an Atlas typically moves in that time, about 2.6 million tonnes, and you are paying roughly 215 credits per tonne delivered. That is the figure that matters, and it is why the Atlas still outsells every other freighter in its class seven years after its first flight in February 2180.
We offer financing through our partners at 4.5 percent over twelve years, and buyers who commit to a fleet of five or more receive the fifth hull at a 12 percent discount. If you want the spreadsheet behind these numbers, our sales team at Luna and Olympus Ring will happily walk you through it.