4 ms·

A tenth the cost? No. Half the cost? Possibly but even that is a stretch. A huge amount of the work effort (and funding) would have to be repeated. All the test

A tenth the cost? No. Half the cost? Possibly but even that is a stretch. A huge amount of the work effort (and funding) would have to be repeated. All the testing, validation, hardware-specific characterization and calibration, troubleshooting, and attendant analysis. Not to mention partial redesign since many of the parts used are no longer produced and the tooling long gone. Source: just my perspective after 20 years working on space systems.

WalterBright 4y ago
> tooling long gone But of course. I meant before that happened, i.e. planning to make some siblings.
OrvalWintermute 4y ago
Other elements that drives substantial cost is the move to push things to commercial industry to do fabrication, and their internal training gaps... Case in point: When there are 3 people on a planet that know how to create a specific sensor, and they happen to be NASA civil servants, JPL employees, Professors in Academia, or from a boutique non-profit like Aerospace or Mitre...in many cases the govt will decide to push the fabrication to commercial industry to create it, instead of the elite teams that created the most recent groundbreaking sensor. This causes huge cost overruns as the commercial teams fumble around [1] and in some cases, even get paid despite dropping a satellite [2] One of the funny fixes to this for NPP, was assigning a government "hall monitor" experienced in safe satellite testing to oversee test operations, and gig them for every infraction of safety protocols. [1] https://www.defensedaily.com/npoess-has-more-than-1-billion-added-cost-overrun-pentagon-threatens-funds-freeze-if-paperwork-undone-screws-on-viirs-sensor-break-must-be-replaced/congress/ https://www.defensedaily.com/npoess-has-more-than-1-billion-... [2] https://spacenews.com/another-factory-mishap-damages-noaa-n-prime/ https://spacenews.com/another-factory-mishap-damages-noaa-n-...

WalterBright 4y ago

> tooling long gone But of course. I meant before that happened, i.e. planning to make some siblings.

OrvalWintermute 4y ago

Other elements that drives substantial cost is the move to push things to commercial industry to do fabrication, and their internal training gaps... Case in point: When there are 3 people on a planet that know how to create a specific sensor, and they happen to be NASA civil servants, JPL employees, Professors in Academia, or from a boutique non-profit like Aerospace or Mitre...in many cases the govt will decide to push the fabrication to commercial industry to create it, instead of the elite teams that created the most recent groundbreaking sensor. This causes huge cost overruns as the commercial teams fumble around [1] and in some cases, even get paid despite dropping a satellite [2] One of the funny fixes to this for NPP, was assigning a government "hall monitor" experienced in safe satellite testing to oversee test operations, and gig them for every infraction of safety protocols. [1] https://www.defensedaily.com/npoess-has-more-than-1-billion-added-cost-overrun-pentagon-threatens-funds-freeze-if-paperwork-undone-screws-on-viirs-sensor-break-must-be-replaced/congress/ https://www.defensedaily.com/npoess-has-more-than-1-billion-... [2] https://spacenews.com/another-factory-mishap-damages-noaa-n-prime/ https://spacenews.com/another-factory-mishap-damages-noaa-n-...