Space Politics

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Increased funding in India; a new budget coming in Canada

March 4, 2010 at 6:02 am · Filed under Other

India’s latest budget, released last week, features a substantial funding increase for the nation’s space agency, ISRO: 50 billion rupees (US$1.09 billion) for the 2010-11 fiscal year, compared to 31.72 billion rupees ($690 million) in the last budget. That budget includes 1.5 billion rupees (US$32.7 million) to ramp up work on its human spaceflight program.

The Canadian government is expected to release its next budget today, but space was mentioned in yesterday’s “Speech from the Throne” that opened the latest session of Parliament. “Canada has been a spacefaring nation for nearly 50 years,” said Governor General Michaëlle Jean. “Our Government will extend support for advanced research, development and prototyping of new space-based technologies, especially in support of Arctic sovereignty.”

Others, though, are skeptical that there will be significant new initiatives in the new Canadian budget. Marc Boucher at SpaceRef Canada notes the lack of a “Long-Term Space Plan” as was promised 18 months ago, and the likelihood of tight federal budgets for the near future. “While the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) is not expected to see a significant change in its budget this coming year, it is possible that cuts are forthcoming in future budgets which were already scheduled to decline as the government reigns in spending,” he writes.

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2 Comments »

Nachrichten aus der Raumfahrt kompakt « Skyweek Zwei Punkt Null wrote @ March 6th, 2010 at 6:15 pm

[...] Sonnensatelliten Aditya. (PTI, Sify 26., Times of India, Domain B 27.2., PTI 1., India Today 3., Space Politics [...]

Major Tom wrote @ March 6th, 2010 at 11:45 pm

It’s interesting to compare the ISRO budget against NASA’s early budgets. For example, ISRO’s $680 million last year and $1 billion this year versus the $490 million that NASA received in 1958 and $1.8 billion that NASA received in 1959 (in today’s dollars).

It’s also interesting that the ISRO budget is going up $319 million but only a tenth of that is going to the new human space flight effort.

ISRO’s budget is growing like NASA’s early budget, but not nearly as much of ISRO’s budget is going to human space flight. If the trends continue, ISRO will grow some impressive capabilities, but not in human space flight.

FWIW…