Cost
Unit costs, including launch, in 1990 dollars are estimated to be in the range of US$1.25 to 1.75 billion (inflation adjusted US$2.22 to 3.11 billion in 2012).
According to Senator Kit Bond initial budget estimates for each of the two legacy KH-11 satellites ordered from Lockheed in 2005 were higher than for the latest Nimitz-class aircraft carrier (CVN-77) with its projected procurement cost of US$6.35 billion as of May 2005. In 2011, after the launch of USA-224, DNRO Bruce Carlson announced that the procurement cost for the satellite had been US$2 billion under the initial budget estimate, which would put it at about US$4.4 billion (inflation adjusted US$4.55 billion in 2012).
Read more about this topic: KH-11 Kennan
Famous quotes containing the word cost:
“Each is under the most sacred obligation not to squander the material committed to him, not to sap his strength in folly and vice, and to see at the least that he delivers a product worthy the labor and cost which have been expended on him.”
—Anna Julia Cooper (1859–1964)
“The cost of a thing is the amount of what I will call life which is required to be exchanged for it, immediately or in the long run.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“One must always be aware, to notice—even though the cost of noticing is to become responsible.”
—Thylias Moss, African American poet. As quoted in the Wall Street Journal (May 12, 1994)