Historical mass, power, schedule, and cost growth for NASA science instruments

In the early stages of NASA instrument development, science instruments are typically the most nascent part of any NASA mission development. As the building of spacecraft become less challenging for a mature industry, NASA's continual need to push the cutting edge of science requires the revolutionary and evolutionary development of instruments to meet science requirements. Instruments then face substantial issues that can result in significant increases in mass, power, cost, and schedule. Although previous studies have identified such issues, there are few industry standard reserve/contingency design and programmatic guidelines for instruments. This paper compares historical mass, power, cost, and schedule growth to industry reserve guidelines while offering potential recommendations to minimize instrument mass, power, cost, and schedule growth for future missions.