I don’t disagree with the overall post, but in the interest of providing a little color:
Its very true that when a satellite is ordered, the customer also must secure a launch contract.
While I haven’t personally negotiated a launch contract, I think this is mostly just a function of practicality. Concurrent spacecraft and launch vehicle contract negotiation happens because it makes sense from a cashflow and business model. One does no good without the other. It also provides a layer of confidence in the LV or SC manufacturer that the operator isn’t going to flake on their big contract, because the operator would also have to flake on the other big contract. That said, there are a fair number of commercial contracts that have the SC manufacture procure the launch service [instead of the operator], so in those cases there explicitly
wouldn’t be a signed LV contract when the SC is signed…but it’s kind of no matter, because the norm in commercial space is handshakes and ATPs anyway. Entities have no problem moving forward without an official, signed contract in this industry. The industry is small, everyone talks to everyone, and royally screwing over any of the players you might need on your side down the road is bad for credibility.
The other facet is that there’s often prime and secondary launch contracts. Because of the serious consequences of a stalled manifest (NewSkies 8, Amos 6, seemingly every other Proton…) customers want their foot in the door of another LV's manifest. Obviously that’s more upfront cost, but it’s an insurance hedge that most take.
But here's the rub, often the satellite can be ready before a launch slot can be available.
Its probably a bit of semantics and a bit of chicken-and-the-egg, but that’s not typically the case. There’s rarely more than a few months between the completion of a commercial spacecraft and its launch (or at least, ship) date. Again, the industry is small and everyone talks to everyone, so everyone knows what’s happening. As a result the LV providers are constantly tuning their manifests—adjustments that are based significantly on spacecraft availability. In the cases where the launch slot isn’t available and a spacecraft would be done way early, typically spacecraft manufacturing slows down instead. Again it’s a cashflow thing [that benefits both the CM and the operator]. Unlike NASA or other gub’ment activity, we’re in this industry to make a buck, after all. For sure, there are occasional cases where spacecraft get put in mid or long term ground storage, but that’s usually due to a LV anomaly, or when business models change and extra on-orbit capacity is not needed and NOT because the spacecraft is simply waiting for a ride. It does no good for an operator to put their 15 year spacecraft on orbit a year before they need its capacity…
Also, if a company like SpaceX offers a launch contract where its cheaper to pay the cancellation fee plus SpaceX's fee and still save some more money, then SpaceX can steal the customer much closer to the customer's actual launch date. The customer might be able to keep both launch contracts until just a few months before the launch date.
It’s a little more nuanced than that. Typically big GEO spacecraft go through LV unique dynamic test profiles, with notching specific to the LV performance, and in some cases explicitly defining the LV performance. There’s also a ton of range safety and range manifest stuff that needs to be worked (especially on American soil…
), AND there's usually call-up stipulations in LV and SC contracts that are on the order of months, so typically the LV is locked in many months before launch. Switching vehicles is a BFD. Even late hour switching of spots in launch manifests--which typically (ahem) manifests itself as switching launch hardware--is a chore. Right now, every rocket is unique. They're snowflakes with different revisions for gizmos, procedures, software, non-conformances, etc. A manufacture needs to convince both customers that they'll be okay with the other guy's uniqueities.
Time will tell if the industry will become more cutthroat with stealing contracts and such, but my guess is that won’t happen, or at least anytime soon. There just aren’t enough players for that to be sustainable. More likely is that SpaceX effectively puts everyone else out of business (ULA, Ariane, KhSC), at least in the commercial market. Its kind of sad, but those big launcher companies might be relegated--like the shuttle--to government jobs programs.
