I don't think China needs any third-party payloads. Even if they only launch Qianfan it should be enough to bring costs down.
The issue is that SpaceX, unlike any space company since some never-realized 1960s hypotheticals, is a flywheel company built around scaling.
They create demand so they can scale manufacturing that they can use to decrease prices that creates more demand... etc. etc.
You can't beat a company doing that by just getting "big enough" unless the scaling company (a) runs out of increased demand or (b) cannot convert increased volume into cheaper economics per unit.
Neither of those seem very plausible.
"convincing a substantial portion of global launch demand to use Chinese rockets seems the trickiest bit, give the CCP's relationship with the rule of law."
Expound more on this please assuming I'm a potential Brazilian South African ,Saudi or Thai client .
For countries that aren't on the US' shit list (e.g. Brazil, South Africa, Saudi Arabia, or Thailand), why would I take a chance on Chinese legal agreements instead of American ones?
The American private company might be prohibited from launching military assets for you, but once a launch contract is otherwise signed, you know it's going to happen.
In contrast, a Chinese legal agreement is worth what, if the central government decides to get involved?
American Gov is far, far more fickle and likely to "get involved" / abuse export controls / fuck over friendlies due to domestic politics. Space is ITAR heavy, there's less guarantee that private American company can honor agreement than CCP verbal contract. This is 2024, JP steel just happened, US "rule of law" means nothing when strategic interests involved, never have. Can't say the same about PRC, granted they're to high end capabilities export. Ultimately, going with PRC likely will get you ITAR tier tech access bundled with cheaper launch, see state of military drones sales.
This is an interesting comment because Russia and China have been sending satellites for many countries over the years .Do you have an example of a Chinese company refusing to launch a payload for a foreign customer ?
I'd love a link so that I can get educated more
And {world space launch demand} is >> {one country's space launch demand}
The argument for China overcoming SpaceX would be:
- China needs to get within functional (not cost) technological parity with SpaceX ASAP (i.e. which means reusability, albeit for cadence/capacity reasons)
- After that, they need to incentivize global demand to launch on Chinese rockets (likely heavily subsidizing prices to attract demand)
- After that, they need to continue to out-innovate SpaceX on technological and economic fronts
Of those, convincing a substantial portion of global launch demand to use Chinese rockets seems the trickiest bit, give the CCP's relationship with the rule of law.