Economy

Government Space Budgets


2008 – U.S. National Security Space Budgets – Snapshot

As noted, DoD spending represents a majority of U.S. government space funding, yet there is limited clarity regarding what is included in this funding overall or how the funds are broken down between the individual military services. As a result, the Defense Appropriations bill passed by Congress for FY 2008 called on the Pentagon to develop a Major Force Program (MFP) budget category to aggregate space spending in a single budget line, including not only equipment and services procurement, but also research and technology development programs. The FY 2009 budget request submitted to Congress identified $## billion as related to major joint space-based programs, including Space-Based Infrared Systems, communications satellites, GPS satellites, environmental satellites, Advanced Extremely High Frequency satellites, and related launch vehicles.

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2008 – United States Government Space Budget – Snapshot

NASA and the DoD, the two largest space agencies in the world, dominate the U.S. space budget. The budgets for these two represent ##% of estimated U.S. government space funding. When estimates of all U.S. defense-related space activities are combined, the total is $## billion, or ##% of total U.S. government space funding. This figure includes space budget estimates for DoD, the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO), National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA), and the Missile Defense Agency. DoD space spending, combined with the budgets of these additional defense agencies, plus NASA make up ##% of the U.S. government space budget. In addition to NASA, civil space programs of the Department of Energy, the Federal Aviation Administration, the National Science Foundation, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration provide an additional $## billion of U.S. government space funding.

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2008 – Government Space Budgets – Snapshot

Throughout the world, large-scale space programs, particularly those tied to national scientific or defense programs, are heavily supported by government budgets. Government spending accounted for ##% of global space activity in 2008. The United States accounted for ##% of this global government spending. Space budgets for other governments rose nearly ##% in U.S. dollars, though actual growth was closer to ##% when adjusted for currency fluctuations.

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2007 – RDT&E and IR&D funding

Total independent research and development (IR&D) expenditures are estimated at $## million for 2006, the latest year data was available from the Defense Contract Audit Agency. IR&D expenditures are private enterprise research and development costs incurred while working on government contracts but not reimbursed by the government. These expenditures are estimated by calculating the ratio of space R&D to total R&D within the Defense Department.

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2007 – European Military Space Budget

Military space spending among European countries in 2006 totaled $## billion (€## million), according to the European Space Policy Institute, a research institute founded and supported by European aerospace industry partners. For 2004, Euroconsult estimates non-U.S. space spending at $## billion. Countries included in this estimate are the United Kingdom, France, Russia, Germany, Belgium, Spain, Italy, and Israel. Data on international military space spending is generally held closely and difficult to find in public sources. Until better data becomes available, we will continue to use this 2004 figure as an estimate in our aggregated number.

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2007 – Chinese Government Space Budget

China’s space budget estimates generate much speculation. Obstacles to clarity include secrecy, the complexity of the Chinese budget system, purchasing power parity, and the overlap in civil and military spending. Estimates range from $## billion to $# billion. For the purposes of this report, we are continuing to use a conservative estimate of $## billion for Chinese space spending published by the World Security Institute, a non-profit global-affairs research and journalism organization.

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2007 – Japanese Government Space Budget

Japan has the largest single country international budget, estimated at $## billion. It funds many of its programs through the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA). Exhibit 1v shows JAXA’s budget by program area. Japan also funds two major space programs outside of JAXA, the Quazi-Zenith Satellite System and the Information Gathering Satellite. Additionally, a number of ministries have space budgets of their own.

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2007 – European Space Agency Budget

The largest international civilian space budget is that of ESA. The agency’s 2007 budget was approximately $## billion. This budget is funded by mandatory as well as voluntary contributions by ESA member states, cooperating states and third parties.

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2007 – U.S. National Security Space Budgets

The most recent available estimate of annual DoD space spending continues to be the $## billion estimate released by the Congressional Research Service (CRS) in 2006. Intelligence agencies and MDA are organizationally tied to the DoD; however, their budgets are not included in the DoD space spending estimate. The CRS estimate uses the virtual major force program (vMFP), a budgetary mechanism for grouping space expenditures, as the source for U.S. DoD space budget expenditures.

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2007 – U.S. Civil Space Budgets

NASA was allocated $## billion for FY 2007. This is slightly less than the 2006 operating budget of $## billion. For FY 2008, NASA received $## billion. An agency summary from NASA’s proposed FY 2008 budget is shown in Exhibit 1r. This exhibit highlights the breakdown of NASA funding, and shows increases of ##% to ##% per year through 2012.

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