Taiwan Formosat-5 SpaceX contract looks like an outlier, not a pathfinder

by Peter B. de Selding

PARIS — Taiwan’s National Space Policy Office, with an annual budget of just $35 million, is no heavyweight in the global space market but it nonetheless realized an exploit that larger satellite fleet owners can only envy: inserting a launch-delay penalty into a contract with a major launch-service provider.

With a new generation of rockets being readied for introduction from most of the world’s major rocket developers — Arianespace, Blue Origin, China Great Wall Industry Corp., the Indian Space Research Organization, International Launch Services, SpaceX and United Launch Alliance — launch delays . . .

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