NASA’s Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity Rover was proposed in 2004, constructed over a period of 7 years, launched in November 2011, and arrived at Mars in August 2012. It has an expected lifetime of 10 years for exploration. Its primary goals are to investigate the chemical and geologic processes that determine the nature of past environments on Mars in order to determine if they may have been habitable or if any features represent the effects of biologic processes.

Curiosity cost $2.47 billion to construct and launch. Calculate the cost per year for this mission – from launch to expected mission end.

Step 1: Timeline

How much time is there between launch and End-of-Mission?

Exploration lifetime begins at arrival! Months matter, so this is November 2011 to August 2022. That's 3 months shy of 11 years. So, 10 years 9 months. Decimal form = 10.75 years

Why don't we count construction time? It's complicated. Part is that the research phase is separately funded- and only some missions researched make the cut. That money is usually grants to individual scientists, so it pays for more than just initial studies for the mission. Construction is sort of like a car payment - you drive off the lot (Earth) with your new car (spacecraft + rocket) and we pay it off in installments during its life (mission).

Step 2: Annual Cost

Divide total mission cost by that number of years to get the annual cost.

Step 3: Per Person Annual Cost

Now, take your annual cost and divide by the number of taxpayers according to 2010 U.S. Census data (310 million). This is how much you pay out of your taxes every year during the mission.

Units are important! What are they? Include them in your response.

Round to the nearest cent.

I have Canvas set to accept the exact values to 2 decimal places. If your rounding is off (don't round until the end!), I'll manually examine your work and award credit.

Question 2

THE CASSINI-HUYGENS ORBITER AND DESCENT PROBE

The Cassini mission was a collaboration between NASA, the European Space Agency (ESA), and the Italian Space Agency (ASI) to study the Saturn system; in all, 17 countries participated in the mission. Planning began in 1982 and construction began in 1989. The spacecraft was launched in October 1997 and arrived at the Saturn system in July 2004 after a tour of the inner solar system. ESA’s Huygens probe was deployed in January 2005 and landed on the moon Titan, sending data for several hours; this was the first landing on a moon other than our own. NASA’s Cassini orbiter continued to study Saturn until the spacecraft’s disposal into Saturn’s atmosphere on September 15, 2017.

Step 1: Timeline

What is the total operation time of the Cassini mission from launch to disposal?

Step 2: Annual Cost

NASA’s contribution to the orbiter mission was $2.6 billion. Calculate NASA’s cost per year during the mission’s lifetime.

$ per year

Round to the nearest dollar. (The IRS does!)

Step 3: Per Person Annual Cost

Calculate the annual cost of the Cassini mission per person using 2010 U.S. Census data.

Units are important! What are they? Include them in your response.

Round to the nearest cent.

Question 3

NEW HORIZONS PLUTO FLYBY

New Horizons is an interplanetary probe with the primary mission of performing a flyby of the Pluto system. The mission was selected in November 2001 as the first New Frontiers mission. It was launched in January 2006 and, after a Jupiter flyby in 2007 to increase speed, it flew past Pluto in July 2015. After 15 months, all data was finally received. The spacecraft flew by object 2014 MU69 (recently renamed Arrokoth) in 2019 and is expected to observe 24 additional targets in the Kuiper Belt from a distance. New Horizons will become the fifth artificial object to achieve escape velocity and leave the Solar System.

We don't yet have a known end date for this mission. For the 15 year development and operation timeline, the total mission cost is $700 million.

Steps 1-3: Per Person Annual Cost

Calculate the annual cost per person.

Learning curve! Do the steps.

Units are important! What are they? Include them in your response.

Round to the nearest cent.

Question 4

STARDUST COMET AND COSMIC DUST SAMPLE RETURN

The primary goals of the Stardust mission were to collect dust samples from the comet Wild 2, to collect samples of interstellar cosmic dust, and to return those samples to Earth. In addition, the spacecraft studied the asteroid 5535 Annefrank and intercepted comet Tempel 1.

Construction began in 1996, the spacecraft launched in February 1999, flew by Comet Wild 2 in January 2004, released its sample capsule, then continued on to comet Tempel 1 in February 2011. Images of Tempel 1 revealed the impact site of the earlier mission Deep Impact. In March 2011, the remaining fuel was burned and the spacecraft was left in solar orbit. The Sample Return Capsule successfully returned to Earth in January 2006.

Total mission cost was $200 million.

Steps 1-3: Per Person Annual Cost

First, determine the total mission time from launch to end-of-mission. Then, calculate the annual cost per person.