Based on "Rapid Cost Assessment of Space Mission Concepts through Application of Complexity-Based Cost Indices" from NASA [50],
Venus Vibes Mission (including margin) achieves a cost index of 150, which yields a total cost of $1.8 B according to the following figure.
Earth stations
The cost of using the DSN can be divided in two phases: voyage and scientific operation.
During the voyage, we only need to communicate with the carrier spacecraft twice a week [41].
During the scientific phase, we need a continuous link in order to gather the datastream transmitted uninterruptedly.
This document shows the detail [42]. The total cost of operating the earth stations will be 6.2 million dollars.
