3 ms·

When a mission is $250m, I wonder how much additional a second identical copy would cost. For example, if $200m of that is R&D, it would only cost $300m for two

• civilitty 8y ago
  The marginal cost of an identical copy is almost always "just" the cost of assembly and testing - which can be astronomical if the mission is pushing the boundaries of technology like the Mars Science Lab or the NuStar x-ray telescope - but for most missions the major cost is R&D leading up to final assembly. For the majority of missions, that second $250 million goes towards engineering an extra 15% success chance for the satellite itself (success rate of the launch vehicle is known). The first $150 million gets you 80%, the second 250 million gets you an extra 15% with a flat $100 mil for launch. If you budget for two 80% launches, however, $150-200 million gets you two satellites, you spend $125-200 million on launches (you cant wait until your first failure to put money down for the second launch so it's at least a 1.25x multiplier), and $25-100 million on extra staffing costs (you can't risk losing your top PIs/scientists between the first and second launch so you have to pay them the entire time). Ideally, both options would be evaluated independent of popular sentiment. For manned exploration or cutting edge missions like the Mars rovers, we should strive for that 95% single mission success rate. Otherwise we should err towards getting more science done faster and cheaper.