Cost Engineering Delfi – Investigation regarding cost engineering in small satellite development

Cost budget restrictions of space organisations and the appeals of science communities for faster development lead-times resulted in a new approach of developing satellites in the eighties. More companies and universities got involved in developing small and low cost satellites. This paper summarises a final thesis concerning cost engineering in small satellite development. The main issue is the description of a model consisting of activities required to meet objectives of cost engineering, such as generation of cost estimates, identification of high cost contributors and optimisation of the design. The development of a cost matrix is an important part of the model, in which a cost overview is generated based on a Product Tree and a Work Breakdown Structure. For the development of the model, a literature study was carried out. In addition, a world-wide survey was conducted amongst companies and universities participating in small satellite development to identify the importance of cost engineering objectives and to identify the used cost estimation methods and tools. The model was applied to a small satellite program at Delft University, called Delfi-1. With the available tools, some rough cost estimates were obtained together with the high cost contributors and its parameters (cost drivers).