Totally gonna use this next time . <| sep |> That ' s a good question , unfortunately not an easy one to answer . In short , there are different types of criteria for contracts value , reliability , etc . . SpaceX does best on value because they ' re cheapest , other providers still get more highvalue launches because of their reliability . Upcoming example , the James Webb Space Telescope is launching on an Ariane 5 in 2018 . Ariane 5 costs $ 137 M vs . a Falcon 9 at $ 62 M although both prices would be higher for such a crucial mission . The telescope cost $ 8 B to develop and build , so at that point the price difference in launch providers is pretty negligible and it ' s worth extra for reliability . AFAIK , all government launch contract info , including bid decisions , should be publicly available since it ' s taxpayer money . I know if you Google the various contracts CRS , CCtCap , the individual spacecraft missions like SWOT , you should be able to find most of the information on how it was awarded .