SpaceX's strategy is to entice customers with lower prices—and simultaneously faster launch tempos—than the incumbents. "All of the commercial [satellite] operators have been waiting for something like SpaceX to come along," according to industry consultant Roger Rusch of TelAstra Inc.
Martin Halliwell, chief technical officer of SES, the world's second-largest commercial-satellite operator, earlier said SpaceX's drive for market share "is really a game changer" that is bound to "shake the industry to its roots."
SpaceX emphasizes that it developed the original Falcon 9 for under $300 million—or roughly half of the Pentagon's overall cost to launch a single spy satellite on the heavy-lift version of the Delta IV rocket initially developed by Boeing.
Industry officials estimate SES got a discount from the roughly $60 million SpaceX officials have talked about as the typical price tag for such a launch. Many industry officials, though, predict SpaceX's prices eventually will climb to about $100 million per launch
