Let me preface this by saying I strongly support all launch providers and wish every one of them the best. Though I, like most of you, am a die-hard SpaceX fan, my perfect world would be one where SpaceX, Blue Origin, ULA, Orbital, Arianespace, etc could all be successful in a broad space industry.

That being said, I wanted to discuss with you all what would happen if a launch service provider was to go under. Other than perhaps a few small companies like Sea Launch, I can't think of any recent examples of this happening to a commercial company.

Let us say that company Y (I won't choose company X for obvious reasons) has launches on their manifest for 2016 and 2017. But, at the end of 2016, company Y says their rate of sales is no longer sustainable and decide to close up shop (or go bankrupt or whatever). Would company Y be obligated to finish launching the rest of their manifest through 2017 even though they are no longer selling new launches? Or can they truly call it quits and all customers who have purchased future launches with them are out of luck?

Since I cannot think of a good example of where this has happened before, I want to discuss how a company's exit from the industry might work. Thanks all!