Essentially, Astro-SPAS can be considered to be a short-duration version of Eureca. Where Eureca requires the complexity of a second Shuttle mission to recover it after 6 months, Astro-SPAS is recovered on the same mission as it is launched. The short duration mission also enables Astro-SPAS to be much simpler than Eureca. For example, Eureca requires a propulsion system to raise its orbit in the event of Shuttle delays, but Astro-SPAS only needs a cold gas attitude control propulsion system. As another example, Eureca requires solar arrays for power, but Astro-SPAS can get away with high energy lithium batteries. As a result, Astro-SPAS can carry nearly twice the payload mass and the cost of the mission is significantly less than Eureca, The Powersat demonstrator equipment will still need to be qualified to meet Shuttle safety standards. However, the large mass capability would allow a heavier and more robust design able to provide larger safety margins - an approach more appropriate to terrestrial design practises. Safety will remain a concern, but the severest aspects could probably be avoided through large design margins. The principal drawbacks with Astro-SPAS are its cost and its dependence on the Shuttle. Launch costs alone would be as much as 20-25 MAU if Europe had to pay for it (based on a Shuttle price of about 150 MAU to Europe, not the actual cost of nearer to 500 MAU). Costs to lease the complete platform for one mission are estimated at 10 MAU, while the Shuttle integration costs are about 8 MAU. [18] This leads to a cost of about 18 MAU to lease and integrate Astro- SPAS. Once the cost of the launch and experiment development and operations is included, a total program cost of nearer to 50-70 MAU would not seem unreasonable.
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MTU5NjU0Mg==