SCP-9485 — SCP-9485 | Cost Breakdown

Read on SCP Wiki ↗

SCP-9485 Unknown ~ medium confidence

SCP-9485

Expected annual

$157.3M

One-time setup

$8.3B

Annual recurring

$39.1M

Personnel

Estimated one-time establishment/reserve costs are large (~$8.34B) driven primarily by potential deep-space mission, RTG/launch procurement and strategic/sterilization reserves; ongoing annual operations are modest by space-program standards at ~ $39.1M/yr driven by staff, probe operations (if active), and cover-story/legal/monitoring expenses.

🏗️ One-Time Capital Costs Total: $8.3B

Sterilization Capability $5.0B

[#10] Contingency reserve for sterilization/neutralization capability (design, readiness or deployment fund).

Strategic Reserve $2.0B

[#23] Large strategic contingency reserve for escalations, international incidents, or multiple missions.

Deep Space Probe $1.0B

[#6] One-time design/build/launch/initial-operations cost for a New-Horizons/Cassini-class sentinel probe.

Launch Services $250.0M

[#9] Heavy-lift launch procurement cost (representative; often rolled into mission budgets).

Rtg Procurement $50.0M

[#8] Radioisotope power supply procurement (Pu-238 RTG) called out separately from mission.

Facilities $25.0M

[#2] One-time hardened HQ construction and fitout estimate.

Equipment $5.0M

[#3, #5] Supercomputing cluster and Foundation-owned remote telescope/sensor hardware (cluster + 2–5 site array).

Covert Cleanup $5.0M

[#12] Initial one-off covert suppression/clean-up operations to remove/disrupt sensitive public data.

Front Setup $1.0M

[#15] Initial setup of front institutions, fake journals and administrative overhead seeding.

Archival Setup $600K

[#18] One-time secure archival storage and selective-destruction capability setup.

Ground Time One Off $500K

[#4] One-off purchases for guaranteed scheduled slots on large observatories.

Disinfo Rollout $500K

[#11] One-time rollout costs for an initial disinformation/PR campaign and seeded publications.

Liaison Setup $500K

[#16] One-time liaison/setup costs for covert engagement with national space agencies.

Initial Research And Lab Setup $300K

[#22] Seed studies and initial research instrumentation / lab studies for long-term modelling and archival research.

Cyber Setup $300K

[#14] One-time hardened infrastructure and initial red-team/OPSEC setup.

Legal Emergency $200K

[#13] One-time emergency legal actions / rapid litigation response costs.

🔄 Annual Recurring Costs Total: $39.1M/yr

Probe Operations $10.0M/yr

[#7] DSN/time allocation, mission ops team, telemetry archiving and long-term operational costs per active deep-space probe.

Staff Wages $8.0M/yr

[#1] Salaries, benefits, travel, security clearance and personnel costs for a core team (~25–40 staff).

Insurance Reserve $5.0M/yr

[#19] Annual insurance/indemnity/political-risk fund contributions to manage fallout and contractor indemnity.

Cover Story And Legal $3.0M/yr

[#11, #13] Ongoing disinformation, PR staff, ad buys and baseline legal/FOIA management to sustain cover stories.

Front Institutions $2.5M/yr

[#15] Annual funding flow for fake grants, front projects and seeded journals to absorb peer scrutiny.

Covert Ops $2.0M/yr

[#12] Ongoing covert influence, takedown ops, payments and access maintenance to suppress inconvenient observations.

Facilities Maintenance $1.5M/yr

[#2] Annual operations, secure comms, vaults, facility upkeep and accreditation costs for the classified HQ.

Cybersecurity $1.5M/yr

[#14] Continuous monitoring, red-teaming, insider-mitigation and network security to prevent leaks.

Liaison $1.5M/yr

[#16] Recurring covert engagement and liaison costs with national space agencies (quiet data-sharing arrangements).

Ground Observatory Time $1.0M/yr

[#4] Recurring costs for scheduled time and processed data streams from large optical/IR/radio observatories.

Research And Monitoring $750K/yr

[#22] Long-term archival funding, contingency modelling research and multi-year scientific studies.

Logistics And Transport $600K/yr

[#4, #7, #21] Travel, transport to observatories/ground stations and logistics associated with monitoring and probe support.

Equipment Maintenance And Power $500K/yr

[#3] Power, cooling, maintenance and cloud services for supercomputing, storage, and tape archives.

Amateur Outreach $350K/yr

[#17] Outreach programs to redirect amateur observers, manage rumors and seed community moderation.

Training $300K/yr

[#20] Regular training, exercises and rapid-response readiness drills for ops, legal and PR teams.

Supplies And Consumables $250K/yr

[#21] Office supplies, secure comms airtime, travel to telescopes/ground stations, small replacements.

Remote Sensor Ops $250K/yr

[#5] Operations and maintenance for Foundation-owned mid-sized telescopes and radio monitoring stations.

Archival Maintenance $125K/yr

[#18] Maintenance of air-gapped backups and archival storage for raw observation data.

⚡ Cost Scenarios

📊 Baseline (baseline) $39.1M/yr

84.0% probability / year

Normal year with no major incidents or launches; ongoing monitoring, disinformation and operations only.

no_probe_launch no_public_exposure routine_operations

🚨 Probe Mission $1.3B/yr

5.0% probability / year +$1.3B vs baseline

Authorization and launch of an exploratory deep-space sentinel probe (one-off mission year).

policy_authorizes_inspection funding_approved_for_probe

🚨 Minor Incident $46.1M/yr

10.0% probability / year +$7.0M vs baseline

Localized publicity/leak or independent high-resolution observation requiring emergency cleanup, legal action and PR surge.

independent_observation_publication targeted_data_leak

🚨 Sterilization Deployment $5.3B/yr

1.0% probability / year +$5.2B vs baseline

Activation/deployment of sterilization/neutralization capability in response to active threat or development.

active_development_detected public_safety_directive

👥 Personnel 30 total

Role	Count	Notes
Research Scientist	10	[#1] Planetary scientists, modelers and research leads responsible for analysis and long-term studies.
Engineer / Maintenance	4	[#1] Systems engineers, telescope/probe engineers and maintenance staff for facilities and instruments.
Security Officer / MTF Agent	6	[#1] Physical security and site protection personnel for hardened operations facilities.
Intel/Op / Cyber Analyst	4	[#1] Intelligence, operations planners, cyber specialists and disinformation operators.
Legal / PR / Administrative Staff	5	[#1] Legal counsel, FOIA managers, PR specialists and administrative support for cover stories.
Site Director / Executive Staff	1	[#1] Executive oversight and liaison coordination.

📋 Confidence Notes

Estimates are based on analyst ranges in the notes; recurring costs (staff, operations) are reasonably constrained, but one-time mission and strategic-reserve items have wide ranges and policy dependence (hence medium confidence).

← SCP-9484 ↑ All SCPs SCP-9487 →