Economy Archives

2005 – Space Insurance

The revenue for space insurance in 2005 was $## million.

2005 – Ground Stations and Receivers

Ground equipment revenues were $## billion in 2005, according to SIA data. These revenues include infrastructure elements such as mobile terminals, gateways, control stations, as well as end-user equipment such as very small aperture terminals (VSATs) and ultra small aperture terminals (USATs), direct-to-home (DTH) broadcast dishes, satellite phones and digital audio radio satellite (DARS) equipment.

2005 – Satellite Manufacturing

According to the SIA, 2005 total commercial and government satellite manufacturing revenue was $## billion. Of this, ## percent of revenue was from government satellites ($## billion) and ## percent was non-governmental ($## billion). This number counts the revenues for the payload in the year in which it was launched, not necessarily the year the revenue was realized. Also, the revenue is totaled in then-year dollars; it is not adjusted for inflation.

2005 – Economy Overview

According to the FAA, the international commercial launch vehicle industry generated $## billion in revenue in 2005. The Satellite Industry Association (SIA) estimates the total launch vehicle industry at $## billion, including government and commercial (See Exhibit 4b). While the SIA does not break out revenue by commercial and government, it notes that, of the ## commercial launches in 2005, ## percent were government customers, and ## percent non-government.

2005 – Government Space Budgets Overview

Non-U.S. military estimates, which are for 2004, include the following countries: United Kingdom, France, Russia, Germany, Belgium, Spain, Italy, and Israel. China’s budget includes both military and civil expenditures. Note that the estimate of China’s space budget is controversial. At a NASA budget hearing in April 2006, much of the discussion was about the possible size of China’s space program and its ability to complete its plans to land astronauts on the Moon in 2017.

2005 – U.S. National Security Space Budgets

Determining the DoD’s space budget is more complex. This report includes budget figures drawn from the DoD’s virtual space major force program (vMFP). In DoD usage, a major force program is a “budgeting mechanism that aggregates related budget items into a single program to track program resources independent of the appropriation process and contains the resources needed to achieve an objective or plan.” There is no major force program for space funding, and, as a result, one of the recommendations of the Commission to Assess United States National Security Space Management and Organization (Space Commission) in 2001 was to create such a space major force program. Rather than create an entirely new, separate major force program just for space, DoD elected to create a “virtual” major force program that would draw space-related budgetary data from the pre-existing major force programs.

2005 – U.S. Civil Space Budgets

NASA’s FY 2006 budget is approximately $## billion. The NASA FY 2006 Budget Request forecasts relatively small (## percent to ## percent) annual increases in the total NASA budget, bringing the total budget to $## billion by FY 2010.