The Long-Term Implications of Current Plans for Investment in Major Unclassified Military Space Programs
Abstract
Under the President's budget request for 2006 and the associated Future Years Defense Program (FYDP) for 2006 through 2011, funding for development and procurement of major unclassified space systems would grow by more than 40 percent next year (to $6.9 billion from $4.9 billion in 2005) and would double by 2011.1 Those planned investments primarily focus on developing new systems some of which their proponents regard as transformational to replace existing space systems. Although the overall budget proposed by the Department of Defense (DoD) for both unclassified and classified space programs including costs for research, development, test, and evaluation (RDT&E); procurement; and operation and support is about 2.5 percent higher for 2006 than for 2005, the investment portion for major unclassified programs is 43 percent higher. Thus, under that proposal, investment spending for such programs would grow from 22 percent of DoD's total space budget this year to 31 percent in 2006.3 At the request of the Chairman of the House Appropriations Committee s Defense Subcommittee, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has examined the long-term implications of DoD s plans for investment in unclassified military space programs. CBO s analysis considers the resource demands that would result from implementing the Administration s current plans through 2024, as well as the sizes and ages of the resulting constellations of satellites. The analysis is based on the 2006-2011 FYDP and CBO s projections of the implications of that FYDP through 2024, given the longer-term goals that DoD has stated for its current programs and plans. This report provides a more detailed description of the space-related programs included in CBO s forthcoming paper on The Long-Term Implications of Current Defense Plans and Alternatives.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Sep 12, 2005
- Accession Number
- ADA446822
Entities
Organizations
- Congressional Budget Office