The current budget estimate, including all the sub-systems listed above, stands at $3.6 million. The estimate includes a variety of assumptions which are necessary to complete such an exercise, but which limit its accuracy.
The largest items in the current budget are the CCD detector system ($596,000), the short camera ($562,000), the long camera ($327,000), and the collimator ($243,000). Errors in the estimates of lens fabrication and coating costs could have a major impact on the final instrument cost.
Labor costs ($1.2 million) represent only about a third of the total cost of the project. Consequently, a factor of two error in the labor estimates will have a proportionally smaller effect on the total instrument cost. We propose to track and report on the budget on a quarterly basis. This frequency will allow cost to be monitored in a timely way, without consuming large amounts of administrative time to do so.