China has not been exceptionally successful in garnering commercial funding of its space program. China did not announce how much they charged per launch of Iridium, Chinastar-1 and Sinosat-1 satellites launched recently. Strictly speaking, only Iridium was a foreign customer, since the others were for Chinese domestic use. A reasonable estimate for a CZ-3B launch is about US$50 million- US$60 million. Since China conducted four commercial launches in 1998, two CZ-3Bs and two 2C/SDs, China could have earned US$150 million–US$240 million to reimburse a portion of their space program. This constitutes a relatively large percentage but a relatively small total funding source. A strong Chinese economy remains elusive. Well-publicized rocket failures make marketing of its commercial launch capability difficult. The Chinese have the ability to overcome their technical difficulties, but economics will limit China as a space power until the domestic economy can provide greater levels of government and commercial funding.

---

Oberg, James. Space Power Theory. Maxwell AFB, AL: USAF Air University, 2001. [ 5 quotes ] [ page 64 ]