A Case Study in NASA-DoD - The Black Vault

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The Air Force had studied the standard spacecraft approach for
several years and was convinced that substantial savings could be
realized, but to be able to support this position during the FY 77
budget review it needed an independent economic assessment, hence
its interest in having the Rand study supported.
The AACB panel
on unmanned spacecraft also supported the need for an economic evaluation
of the various standard spacecraft of both NASA and DoD that
might be applicable for the Air Force Standard Test Program missions.
While the Space Test Program Office emphasized throughout the
study that it was not necessarily interested in an outcome that included
its standard spacecraft design (STPSS), this position was, to
some degree, contrary to the role that the Space Test Program Office
had played in carrying out its missions in the past. As indicated
earlier, it had been involved largely in funding the development of
its own spacecraft. The interaction that occurred throughout the study
verified that the Air Force initial emphasis was indeed valid.
Rand Corporation
There were several motivations for Rand's participation in this
study. First, although the standard spacecraft procurement decision
Concurrent with the Rand study of the standard spacecraft, but
independent of it, the Air Force Space Test Program Office and NASA
Low-Cost Systems Office jointly funded a cost study with Aerospace
Corporation that compared the MHS and STPSS for one of the upcoming
missions, i.e., the Solar Maximum Mission (SMM).( 30 ) The spacecraft
cost estimating approach used by Aerospace relied uporr the SAMSO cost
model( 2 9 ) directly without adjusting the results for the use of flightproven
subsystems or other low-cost experience; this resulted in a
unit cost for the MMS about twice as high as that used in the Rand case
study (Fig. 6, Sec. IV). Although we were not privileged to the reconciliation
of these divergent cost estimates by the Air Force and
NASA, we understand that the Aerospace cost estimates were accepted
as being very conservative and could be considered as an upper bound,
assuming that these spacecraft are purchased in the normal manner that
other DoD spacecraft are purchased. The successful experience of the
Air Force Space Test Program in acquiring individual spacecraft at a
cost considerably less than that estimated using the SAMSO model tends
to validate the magnitude of the Rand cost estimates. A recent check
with the NASA MMS Program Office confirmed that the industrial cost
proposals
of the MMS
for
are
the
in
development
fact
and production
close to those estimated
of the
by Rand.
three major systems