Virgin has said that the cost will be 10-12m USD, but don't worry, that won't apply to SAS because they're special for some reason. Sorry, no. That's not how business works. Virgin will be doing test flights and launches prior to sending SAS's payload in to space to so from a launch perspective, this will be 'de-risked' and mind you, SAS are going to have launch insurance if anything were to happen (where is that launch insurance by the way, haven't heard any updates on this lately). SAS will pay what Virgin ask them to pay, and from all public knowledge available - that is 10-12m USD. You can dream all you want about a special discount, but that won't be the reality.
In terms of the other details, nobody knows that. But like most launch contracts there would be "lead-in" times whereby the customer has to pay a certain deposit t- X days before launch, t-30days, t-10 days etc. I think that is fair and commercial and what anyone would expect, rather than a 1 off lumpsum payment.
Fact is, your original post was just a wild guess contrary to ALL publically available knowledge reported to us by SAS and Virgin. You said the launch will not cost 10m USD and that SAS has other options lined up for launch providers. Fact is, they have only 1 other MOU (which isn't binding) for an alternate launch provider.
This is why SAS need to be transparent with all of the contract costs, how much does the Virgin contract cost? How much does the gomspace contract cost?
