Pathfinder Mission to Mars—on a Shoestring In 1976, NASA’s two Viking Mars-lande
ID: 367020 • Letter: P
Question
Pathfinder Mission to Mars—on a Shoestring
In 1976, NASA’s two Viking Mars-lander missions took six years and $3 billion (in 1992 dollars) to develop. Twenty-one years later, Mars Pathfinder and Sojourner Rover landed on Mars once again, but at a development cost of only $175 million, representing a whopping 94 percent cost reduction over the earlier mission. This amazing cost reduction was achieved through a variety of means but the most important was perhaps the philosophical one that this was a design-to-cost project rather than a design-to-performance project. Given this philosophy, the scope of the mission was intentionally limited and “scope-creep” was never an issue:
• to achieve a successful landing
• return of engineering telemetry
• acquisition and transmission of a single, partial panoramic image
• successful rover deployment and 7 sol (Martian day) operation on the surface
• completion of a 30 sol lander mission meeting all engineering, science, and technology objectives
• one successful alpha proton X-ray spectrometer measurement of a Martian rock and soil sample. The means of limiting the cost of the mission were multiple and creative:
• development was cost-capped, with no opportunity for more funds
• identifying a set of “de-scope” options which could be implemented in case the cost grew beyond the fixed budget
• mission, flight, and ground systems designs were driven by existing hardware and system capability
• a project cash reserve of 27 percent of the total budget was held back and carefully planned for time-phased release throughout the duration of the project
• mission designers/builders transitioned into the testers/operators to save documentation, time, labor cost, and chance of error
• existing NASA mission infrastructure was used rather than designing new systems
• instituting time-phased “what if” and lien lists for real or potential current and anticipated items of cost growth during the project
• choosing to use a “single-string” but higher risk design and offsetting the risk by using more reliable parts
• 70 percent of major procurements contracts were fi xed-price rather than cost-plus
• creative procurement, such as existing equipment spares, and accounting, such as lower burden rate personnel
On July 5, the Mars Sojourner Rover rolled down its deployment ramp and the resulting pictures made the headlines on newspapers around the world. The mission continued for almost three months and returned 2.6 Gigabytes of scientific and engineering data, 16,000 lander camera images, 550 rover camera images, 8.5 million environmental measurements, and the results of 16 chemical rock/soil experiments and 10 technology rover experiments.
1. How did a change in philosophy make such a drastic difference in project cost?
2. Why was the mission scope so limited? Why even spend the money to go to Mars with such limited objectives?
3. Describe their “de-scope,” “lien list,” and “cash reserve” approaches.
4. Recent design-to-cost interplanetary projects have also had some spectacular failures. Is this the natural result of this new philosophy?
Explanation / Answer
Answer (1) -
The change in philosophy make such a drastic change in project cost is mainly due to following reasons
1. The philosophy basically changed the direction of project team towards cost optimization.
2. This helped project team to view the project in the sense of cost optimization.
3. Cost optimization is a key considerations in designing the project plan.
4. The philosophy set the aim of the project team towards the cost optimization goal. Here the project objective seen as project success with lowest possible cost expense. So cost is considered as one of the big element to be considering in the project.
5. The philosophy led the team to think in cost reduction direction, as earlier this was not the case. So we can say thought processes are very important for achieving the goals.
6. The philosophy led to build cost reduction opportunities in each and every action of the project plan.
Answer (2) -
The project planning was done with desired objective with keeping cost as a key element. So the team has finalized the project scope based on the need of key requirement/achievement from the project, which will be helpful for future investigation. Based on the requirement the project scope was made and project objectives were listed down.
The mission scope was limited as they want to achieve the required objectives only and at the same time they do not want have additional expense and want save the cost. The unnecessary actions are removed from the project mission and only key project requirement were made as a part of project mission.
They want to go to Mars for the limited objectives only as they only need the investigation for these objectives. So based on the requirements they planned to go to Mars for limited objectives.
Answer (3) -
De-scope approach - This means the project scope needs to be optimized to achieve the critical/ important requirement only so that cost optimization can be achieved and avoid the unnecessary expense in the project. So De-scope helps to scope the project with right objectives and targets with optimized cost.
Lien list approach - This approach means make a list of items which are going to have big cost to project or which actions need high cost. So basically understanding the list of actions, which are high cost consuming so that possible alternatives can be worked out.
Cash Reserve Approach - This approach means reserve the cash so that it can be effectively used later in the project or other project for the nation. This approach helps to avoid the unnecessary expenses and keep the cash for future requirements.
Answer (4)
Recent design-to-cost interplanetary projects have also had some spectacular failures. This is not the natural result of this new philosophy, as cost optimization does not guarantee for project failure. Projects failures are due to various reasons. But cost optimization is not a natural reason for project failure. Cost optimization do not ask for reduction in cost in each and every activity, but is suggest to optimize the cost for the desired actions and explore low cost option available which meets the required quality performance and reliability.