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SCP-1682 Neutralized ~ medium confidence
SCP-1682
Expected annual
$4.0M
One-time setup
$54.9M
Annual recurring
$3.3M
Personnel
4
First-year one-time setup and contingency funds are approximately $54.9M, driven primarily by embed/acquisition and spacecraft contingency reserves; ongoing yearly operations are modest at about $3.285M/yr, driven by personnel, disinformation/legal, and monitoring infrastructure.
🏗️ One-Time Capital Costs Total: $54.9M
Spacecraft Contingency Fund $20.0M
[#10] Contingency fund for hosted payload/smallsat build/integration/launch if independent space-based imaging is pursued.
Rapid Response Reserve $15.0M
[#20] Rapid-response contingency reserve for unexpected escalation / emergency missions.
Buyout Reserve $10.0M
[#6] Strategic buyout/acquisition reserve for sensitive instruments/datasets (aggregated reserve).
Embeds Initial Fund $5.0M
[#5] Initial placement infrastructure and funding for covert liaison/embedding program (placement, cover identities, relocation, training).
Facilities $3.2M
[#9, #12] Observatory site/dome/instrument/site prep and secure room/SCIF buildout.
Whistleblower Contingency Fund $1.0M
[#15] Contingency reserve for settlements, hush funds, or compromised-asset care.
Equipment $600K
[#1, #2, #13, #14] Server cluster/software setup, initial on-prem storage hardware, initial security hardening, and communications setup.
Initial Research And Lab Setup $50K
[#11] Initial modeling tools and software licenses for research program.
🔄 Annual Recurring Costs Total: $3.3M/yr
Cover Story And Legal $1.0M/yr
[#7, #15, #19] Disinformation/PR takedown reserve, legal retainer/whistleblower handling, and funding of public scientific cover projects.
Research And Monitoring $550K/yr
[#1, #2, #11] Ongoing data ingest/processing ops, cloud/colocation storage operations, and research/modeling program costs.
Staff Wages $500K/yr
[#3] Monitoring & analysis team payroll (1 senior solar physicist, 2 analysts, 1 ops coordinator) including benefits/overhead as budgeted in notes.
Embeds Maintenance $400K/yr
[#5] Ongoing maintenance/top-ups for embedded personnel and cutouts in partner agencies.
Logistics And Transport $350K/yr
[#8, #18] Covert operations/evidence retrieval contingency and travel/logistics for liaison and covert ops.
Facilities Maintenance $150K/yr
[#9, #12, #17] Observatory operations and maintenance, secure room maintenance, and utilities/energy for data center/observatory.
Internal Counterintelligence $150K/yr
[#16] Periodic CI sweeps, polygraphs, lifestyle audits, and personnel security activities.
Supplies And Consumables $110K/yr
[#4, #14] On-call/overtime reserve for watch/response staffing and operational communications consumables (burner comms, secure devices).
It Security $75K/yr
[#13] Ongoing IT security monitoring, patching, penetration testing, and audit logging.
Spacecraft Operations If Executed $0/yr
[#10] Recurring operations cost for a dedicated hosted payload / smallsat (estimated ~$500k/yr if spacecraft deployment is executed; set to 0 in baseline unless deployment occurs).
⚡ Cost Scenarios
📊 Baseline (baseline) $3.3M/yr
85.0% probability / year
Normal uneventful year: monitoring, embeds maintained, no major incidents or major space assets deployed.
predictable appearances no public exposures no spacecraft deployment
🚨 Minor Incident $4.3M/yr
12.0% probability / year +$1.0M vs baseline
A leak/public sighting or limited exposure requires rapid legal/disinformation response and evidence retrieval.
viral image leak civilian acquisition of EUI data limited exposure requiring takedown
🚨 Spacecraft Deployment $23.8M/yr
3.0% probability / year +$20.5M vs baseline
Decision/year in which Foundation executes a dedicated space-based imaging campaign (hosted payload / smallsat), consuming contingency funds.
need for independent EUV verification loss of access to partner agency imagery escalation in scientific interest or risk
👥 Personnel 4 total
Role Count Notes
Research Scientist / Solar Physicist 1 [#3] Senior solar physicist referenced in analyst notes.
Data Scientist / Analyst 2 [#3] Two analysts for automated detection validation and data analysis.
Operations Coordinator 1 [#3] Ops coordinator to manage pipelines, scheduling, and incident responses.
📋 Confidence Notes
Line-item recurring costs (storage, personnel, PR/legal) are well-specified; large uncertainties remain around embed placement and buyout/spacecraft decisions which dominate one-time totals, reducing overall confidence.
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