SCP-7020 — SCP-7020 | Cost Breakdown

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SCP-7020 Euclid ? low confidence

SCP-7020

Expected annual

$403.9M

One-time setup

$44.2B

Annual recurring

$187.5M

Personnel

Initial capital outlays are large (~$44.2 billion) driven primarily by telescope hardware, communications infrastructure, and probe R&D/manufacturing; recurring annual costs are moderate (~$167.5M/yr) driven by operations, data handling, security, and influence/suppression activities.

🏗️ One-Time Capital Costs Total: $44.2B

Probe Manufacturing Per Probe $20.0B

[#13] Per-probe manufacturing & launch cost (per-probe capital if a build is authorized).

Equipment $11.5B

[#1, #2, #4] Orbital Telescope 47A build & launch, instrumentation upgrades, and redundancy/backup observatory assets (one-time capital hardware).

Probe Rd Program $10.0B

[#12] Mk. VII unmanned probe R&D program (anomalous/accelerated-tech assumption midpoint estimate).

Deep Space Communications $2.0B

[#14] Deep-space communications infrastructure build (large radio/laser arrays and signal-processing backends).

Contingency Reserve $500.0M

[#23] One-time contingency reserve for surge response / rapid expansion if SCP activity increases.

Initial Research And Lab Setup $50.0M

[#28] Initial program funding and instrument/lab setup for passive-observation research (neutrino/GW/etc.)

Legal Risk Reserve $50.0M

[#27] One-time liability reserve for legal/insurance settlements, indemnities and contingency lawsuits.

Rapid Response Reserve $30.0M

[#20] Rapid-response financial reserve (one-time component of leak/fast-response capability).

Facilities $20.0M

[#6] Secure analysis facility (SCIF) buildout one-time cost estimate.

Data Infrastructure $20.0M

[#5] One-time servers and on-premises secure storage buildout for petabyte-scale archival and HPC.

Legacy Accounting Establishment $20.0M

[#30] Establishment costs for long-duration custody, trust/fund mechanisms and legacy accounting.

Public Relations Reserve $20.0M

[#26] One-time urgent public-relations / crisis-campaign reserve for acute misinformation mitigation.

Cover Finance Setup $5.0M

[#17] Legal structure, shell entities and cover financing setup costs (one-time).

Cyber Penetration Initial $3.0M

[#11] Initial cyber-penetration / covert-access engagement to telescope/observatory archives.

Classified Archive Backups Initial $3.0M

[#21] Initial physical cold-storage and hardened-archive buildout (tape/optical vaults).

Embedded Operatives Setup $2.0M

[#9] Initial identity/cover establishment and setup for embedded operatives in civilian agencies.

Secure Communications And Cyber Initial Tooling $1.5M

[#8] Initial tooling for information-security program (air-gap tooling, secure comms, cyber tools).

🔄 Annual Recurring Costs Total: $187.5M/yr

Telescope Operations And Mission Support $30.0M/yr

[#3] Flight-control, mission operations, ground-station time, attitude control and routine mission support.

Depreciation Replacement Reserve $30.0M/yr

[#25] Annual replacement / refresh reserve for space hardware, compute clusters and ground equipment.

Data Scrubbing And Influence Operations $20.0M/yr

[#10] Ongoing data-suppression, legal/PR payoffs, journal influence and covert payments to sanitize results.

Probe Mission Support $20.0M/yr

[#15] Long-term mission command, telemetry analysis and operations staffing for any deployed probes.

Foreign Liaison Payments $20.0M/yr

[#19] Quiet agreements/payments to international agencies/observatories to coordinate data handling.

Data Storage And Hpc Cloud $12.0M/yr

[#5] Recurring cloud/HPC/storage and high-throughput link costs for analysis and archival operations.

Staff Wages $7.5M/yr

[#7] Salaries for scientific, engineering and operations staff (typical baseline: ~50 staff × $150k fully-burdened).

Cover Story And Legal $6.0M/yr

[#17, #18] Ongoing cover-finance/legal overhead and directed cover-story research grants (combined ongoing estimate).

Information Security Program $6.0M/yr

[#8] 24/7 cyber operations, secure comms maintenance and defensive monitoring.

Deep Space Communications Ops $5.0M/yr

[#14] Recurring power, ops and maintenance for deep-space transmitters/receivers.

Energy Costs $5.0M/yr

[#16] Electricity for HPC, ground stations and high-power transmitters.

Leak Response Teams $5.0M/yr

[#20] Field leak-response, on-site suppression teams, travel and emergency legal/PR rapid actions.

Global Launch Monitoring $5.0M/yr

[#29] Continuous OSINT monitoring of launches, manifests, firms and labs for unauthorized mission activity.

Embedded Operatives Payroll $4.0M/yr

[#9] Recurring fully-burdened costs for embedded operatives placed in civilian aerospace agencies.

Public Relations And Crisis Comms $3.0M/yr

[#26] Ongoing PR, misinformation mitigation and crisis communications baseline; urgent campaign reserve is one-time.

Facilities Maintenance $2.5M/yr

[#6] Annual secure facility (SCIF) operations and maintenance.

Cyber Penetration Maintenance $2.0M/yr

[#11] Ongoing maintenance of covert access and persistent compromises of archives and logs.

Personnel Security And Counterintelligence $2.0M/yr

[#22] Vetting, polygraphs, monitoring and CI operations for personnel with access.

Continuity Planning $2.0M/yr

[#24] Ongoing multi-generational continuity, cross-training, succession and documentation maintenance.

Classified Archive Backups Ops $500K/yr

[#21] Recurring storage/media refresh and secure-archive operations costs.

Supplies And Consumables $0/yr

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Research And Monitoring $0/yr

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Logistics And Transport $0/yr

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⚡ Cost Scenarios

📊 Baseline (baseline) $187.5M/yr

87.0% probability / year

Normal year: routine operations, data analysis, security, and cover activities with no major incidents or capital surges.

normal_operations no_major_incidents

🚨 Minor Incident $217.5M/yr

10.0% probability / year +$30.0M vs baseline

Localized data leak or small exposure requiring rapid-response teams, targeted legal/payments and emergency PR.

localized_data_leak small_public_exposure rapid_suppression

🚨 Major Breach $367.5M/yr

2.0% probability / year +$180.0M vs baseline

Significant public exposure or inter-agency discovery requiring broad legal defense, international payments, large PR campaigns and possible hardware seizures.

public_exposure international_scrutiny litigation_and_settlements

🚨 Probe Development Commitment $21.2B/yr

1.0% probability / year +$21.0B vs baseline

Decision-year to commit to active probe manufacturing/launch at scale (triggers multi-billion one-time manufacturing costs in that year).

decision_to_build_probe large_capital_commitment

👥 Personnel 50 total

Role	Count	Notes
Research Scientist	12	[#7] Astrophysicists and scientists performing spectral analysis and interpretation.
Data Analyst	10	[#5, #7] Data scientists and analysts running HPC/AI pipelines and archival processing.
Engineer / Maintenance	8	[#1, #2, #7] Telescope and ground/space hardware engineers for operations and upgrades.
Mission Operations / Flight Controllers	7	[#3, #15] Flight-control, mission-ops staff for Orbital Telescope 47A and probe command.
Information Security / Cyber Team	4	[#8, #11] Cyber operators maintaining secure telemetry, intrusion defense and covert access.
Administrative Staff	3	[#17] Admin, contracting and cover-finance maintenance staff.
Security Officer / MTF Agent	3	[#20, #22] Security and field rapid-response personnel for leak suppression and personnel security.
Site Director / Executive Staff	1	[#7] Senior management and program lead.
Medical Officer	1	[#7] On-staff medical officer for personnel contingency and health oversight.
Technician / Lab Assistant	1	[#5, #28] Technical support for lab/instrument operations.

📋 Confidence Notes

Estimates rely on wide-ranging, speculative analyst ranges (esp. probe R&D/manufacturing and choice of anomalous vs known-physics approaches); many line items are conditional, contingent, or subject to political/operational variability, so uncertainty is high.

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