A Case Study in NASA-DoD - The Black Vault

-68-
for missions with large payload weights and high altitude requirements;
(4) the percentage of shuttle costs prorated to Space Test Program payloads
was varied from 0 to 100 percent; (5) criteria other than weight
were used for allocating shuttle cost; (6) shuttle cost was increased
from $15.4 to $30 million; and (7) lower development cost was assumed
for the STPSS to reflect the elimination of the qualification test model.
Of the above cases, maximum payloads per spacecraft, payloads in the
Space Test Program, allocation criteria for launch costs, and shuttle
cost were found to be the most important in terms of program costs.
The variation of total program cost with maximum payloads per
spacecraft is illustrated in Fig. 7. As the maximum increases, the
reduction in program cost for the all-MMS case is much larger than for
any of the other options. This is partly because of the large payload
~300
STPSS
o WAS
9 AEM-STPSS
o AEM-MMS
PROGRAM
COST
(millions
of
dollars) 100
•I I p
6 8 10 13
MAXIMUM NUMBER OF PAYLOADS PER SPACECRAFT
Fig. 7-Effect of the maximum number of payloads
per spacecraft (nominal case)
capability of the MKS. The result is that the ability to distinguish
between the procurement options on the basis of cost disappears when
the maximum number of payloads increases above 10. However, the total
program cost is about 30 percent lower than in the nominal case (maximum
number of payloads - 6) when the number of payloads is allowed