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  #138  
Old February 23rd 05, 08:19 PM
Andrew Nowicki
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Andrew Nowicki wrote:

Dextre costs $154 million (US$).


Henry Spencer wrote:

Uh, no. The $154M is the cost of the *first phase* of the project, up to
Critical Design Review. Pre-CDR work is generally only a modest fraction
of the cost of a space project, especially one done in a hurry.


But... Dextre is finished and flight-qualified.
MDA (the maker of Dextre) has entered into a Firm Fixed Price
Contract with NASA at US$154 million to provide Dextre plus
the grapple arm and other accessories. MDA still works on the
grapple arm (which costs $25 million) and the accessories.

Andrew Nowicki wrote:

Its mass is about 1662kg. At 10000$/kg, launching Dextre into low
Earth orbit will cost about $17 million.


Henry Spencer wrote:

The only current US launcher you can maybe buy for $17M is a Pegasus,
which has about 1/4 of that payload. (Government projects are not allowed
to buy foreign launches.)


The total mass of Dextre, the grapple arm, new instruments
for the Hubble (COS, WFC3, batteries, and 6 gyros),
ejection module which houses Dextre, de-orbit module,
and everything else is 23,000 lbs.