Phobos Options

[Guest_Sunspot_*]

http://www.esa.int/SPECIALS/Mars_Express/

These images, taken by the High Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC) on board ESA’s Mars Express spacecraft, are Europe’s highest-resolution pictures so far of the Martian moon Phobos.

http://www.esa.int/SPECIALS/Mars_Express/SEM21TVJD1E_0.html

[Explorer1]

In the long term yes, but that would all be spread out over the next 8-10 years. Since these Phobos flybys are in the next 2 years, the costs of the primary Exomars mission would be being spent right now if not for the delay.
The peak cost is the period before and during a primary mission, from what I read in NASA budgets (like the charts and tables here which show a sort of bell curve and a long 'tail' of minimal expenses for extended missions). I'm assuming the logic works the same with ESA missions.
Sorry to get a bit into the weeds on this, but there should be no excused to cancel scientifically significant flybys of a very interesting object!

[djellison]

The peak cost is the period before and during a primary mission

Spacecraft get cheaper once you launch them.

Look at New Horizons, MSL, OSIRIS REX, Juno etc in the amazing TPS Google Doc.

The moment you launch them - the cost plummets by a factor of about 4+

The two years of prime mission for MSL averaged ~$80M
The six years before that averaged >$300M.

Put another way - the ExoMars rover is going to be more expensive now than when it's actually operating. It's going to be more expensive over the next 5 years than had it launched on time and was operating in the same time frame.

But again - I agree - the cost of operating MEX is in the weeds compared to the new costs for ExoMars. I fully expect MEX to keep going. Remember - we've had the same "The budget goes to zero in a year" for many other Mars missions that have carried on for year and years thereafter as the budget was found. MSL, Odyssey, MER...all saw similar fiscal outlooks at certain points.