Government Space Budgets

United States Government Space Budget


2010 – United States Government Space Budget – Snapshot

U.S. government agency space budgets in 2010 totaled $## billion, a ##% increase from 2009. The combined U.S. defense-related space activities, including the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD), the National Reconnaissance Office, and the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, totaled $## billion, or ##% of U.S. government spending. This figure, when combined with NASA’s budget, accounts for ##% of all U.S. government agency space budgets. The remaining ##% is comprised of space-related spending within a set of other U.S. government agencies such as the Department of Agriculture (USDA), the Department of Energy, the FAA, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), the Department of the Interior (DOI), the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and the National Science Foundation, which collectively budgeted $## billion on space.

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2009 – U.S. Civil Space Budgets – Snapshot

In the United States, most civil space activities are led by NASA. Major activities at NASA in 2009 included continued operations of the Space Shuttle and International Space Station programs, development of the Constellation program, and numerous space and planetary sciences missions. Science activities in 2009 included the successful launch of NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) and Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS). These were the first U.S. spacecraft to orbit the Moon since the Clementine Mission in 1994. NASA human spaceflight milestones achieved in 2009 included the successful completion of five Space Shuttle flights, including the final mission to service the Hubble Space Telescope.

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2009 – United States Government Space Budget – Snapshot

The total U.S. government budget for space activities in 2009, including civilian and military agencies, totaled $## billion as shown in Exhibit 2m. This was $## billion more than the budget for 2008, an increase of ##%. Spending on defense-related space activities, including the Department of Defense, the National Reconnaissance Office, and the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, totaled $## billion, or ##% of overall U.S. space spending. The budgets for the Department of Defense and the National Reconnaissance Office account for the majority of the growth. Civil space spending in the United States totaled $## billion in 2009, an increase of approximately 10% over the 2008 total of $## billion.

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2009 – U.S. National Security Space Budgets – Snapshot

Estimating worldwide government spending on military space activities is difficult because in most cases defense budgets are not fully, or even partially, transparent. The opaque nature of defense programs is complicated by the fact that many space products and applications have dual civilian and military uses, so the funding sources may be mixed between civil and military budgets. However, it is possible to estimate non-US military space spending in the aggregate based on observed trends in national programs and priorities. In 2008, it was estimated that ##% of the worldwide government spending on defense-related space programs occurred in the United States. Estimated U.S. defense space spending in 2009 totaled $## billion, meaning that worldwide military space spending in 2009, excluding the United States, can be estimated at $## billion.

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2008 – U.S. Civil Space Budgets – Snapshot

The United States budget for NASA was $## billion in FY 2008 and the budget request for FY 2009 was $## billion. Consistent with past allocations, the FY 2010 budget request of $## billion represents about ##%, or a little more than half a penny for each dollar in the president’s total budget request of $## trillion. Major 2009 activities will include up to five shuttle missions on the path to the planned retirement of the Space Shuttle in 2010, ongoing coordination of final ISS assembly, and a variety of scientific missions. To provide a more detailed view of the NASA program activity, Exhibit 1n shows a summary by program through 2013 based on NASA’s FY 2009 Budget Request, which includes appropriated funds for FY 2008.

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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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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 – 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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