| Abstract: | Competition between the providers of space transportation has become intense with the distinct possibility of governments providing both direct and indirect subsidies in order to influence transportation user choices. This bodes well for users of transportation services but has serious ramifications with regard to the future makeup of the international space transportation industry. This paper addresses the following key issues: selecting a launch service given a decision to establish a business to provide satellite communication services; establishing the price that should be bid by a launch provider in order to have a specified chance of being awarded the launch contract; and assessing the possibility that a launch provider is utilizing unfair or predatory pricing in order to increase the likelihood of winning launch contracts and thereby increasing market share. A method is developed and results presented based upon establishing ‘value in use’ pricing that explicitly takes into account the multiple attributes of alternative launch services. This leads to an assessment of ‘predatory’ pricing in terms of the value in use pricing. |
