From my understanding developing Military Satellites is far more expensive than developing commercial satellites. The reason is actually the amount of secrecy a

From my understanding developing Military Satellites is far more expensive than developing commercial satellites. The reason is actually the amount of secrecy and protocol behind the development of classified technologies. Building a satellite is already an ultra-complex project that requires designing and sourcing specialized parts that need to comply with some very detailed specs. I'm speculating but I'd have to imagine that a project so heavily classified, would result in a larger cost (reduced availability of contractors, more time required to design specialized parts, less availability of researchers and manufacturing workforce that meet the security criteria, etc.) Just a reference, Envisat which was was an earth observation satellite developed by the EU, had a cost of around of $3 billion USD.