A Case Study in NASA-DoD - The Black Vault

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option. Other candidates become competitive only when the program
size is expanded to 228 payloads.
In this last case, an upgraded AEM spacecraft with costs of that
magnitude would probably also have greater payload, power, and data
rate capabilities. Furthermore, it would probably also be a redundant
design to minimize the single-point failure modes. Because of the
potential value of such a spacecraft it seemed highly desirable that
an upgraded AEM having many of the above characteristics be designed
and evaluated for use in the Air Force's Space Test Program.
*l Large-Diameter Shuttle-Launched AEM (L-AEM)
Under NASA sponsorship the Boeing Company undertook a configuration
and cost study for a 5 ft diameter AEM that would be designed for
shuttle launch and would include the capabilities ascribed above to
the upgraded AEM. Revised Boeing cost estimates (as described in
Appendix A) were used to compute program costs for a variety of procurement
options including the L-AEM. Table 13 shows those options
compared with others for the nominal case.
Where the L-AEM is used,
all three configurations (baseline, spin, and precision) were considered;
but for the same reasons discussed earlier for the STPSS, the
spin configuration is included only when the mission model includes
228 payloads.
Two procurement options are included that use the MMS but none
that uses the STPSS in combination with the L-AEM. There are two
reasons for this. First, the MMS has been used primarily when its use
would decrease the total number of spacecraft necessary to fly the
designated payloads as a result of its large payload capability (4000
lb); the payload capabilities of the STPSS and L-AEM are identical,
so we always chose the lower-cost L-AEM. Second, consideration of
both the L-AEM and STPSS in a single procurement option would mean
that the nonrecurring cost associated with developing both spacecraft
would have to be included in the total program cost.
The use of the modified NASA tariff increases the program cost
of the MMS and AEM/ MS options relative to the other options shown in
Table 12, and thereby would not alter this observation.