| Nov 21, 2012 |
Europe Space Agency sets 10-billion-euro space budget
|
|
(Nanowerk News) Members of European Space Agency (ESA) on Wednesday approved a multi-year budget of 10 billion euros ($12.3 billion), ESA director general Jean-Jacques Dordain said, hailing this as a "big success."
|
|
Spending levels are largely unchanged compared with the outgoing budget, but "it's a big success in spite of the economic situation," Dordain said after a two-day strategy meeting of the 20-nation agency.
|
|
Dordain had proposed three-year spending of 12 billion euros ($15 billion) but had said last week he would be satisfied with "something around 10 billion euros," meaning that current levels would be maintained.
|
|
In the event, spending will be just over 10 billion euros, he said.
|
|
Many of ESA's members are struggling with constrained budgets, and many proposed space projects have been sidelined in the light of close scrutiny.
|
|
The meeting was the first at ministerial level in four years.
|
|
The budget is averaged out over three years, but many programmes can be longer or shorter than this.
|
|
The budget includes funding for a new launcher, called Ariane 5 ME, which would start to fly in 2017, and work towards a successor, Ariane 6, whose maiden flight would be in 2021 or 2022.
|
|
It also funds ESA's continuing participation in the International Space Station to 2020.
|
