WASHINGTON — The Pentagon presented an $849.8 billion budget proposal for fiscal year 2025 with $29.4 billion designated for the U.S. Space Force. The $29.4 billion request is $600 million less than the $30 billion the Defense Department requested for the newest military branch in fiscal 2024, a plan that is still undecided as Congress has kept the government funded through several temporary spending bills.
Congress passed the fourth continuing resolution for fiscal year 2024 on February 29, extending funding for Defense and other federal agencies at 2023 levels until March 22.
The Biden administration is proposing a 2025 defense budget as defense spending faces a potential cut set by the Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023, a law passed by Congress last summer that limits discretionary spending for fiscal years 2025 and 2026. Additionally, the act mandates automatic across-the-board cuts if Congress fails to pass full-year appropriations measures by the end of April.
Todd Harrison, defense budget analyst and senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, described the Space Force’s budget as “business as usual” and essentially aligning with the funding projections the Pentagon released a year ago.
“Last year they projected $29.5 billion for the Space Force in fiscal year 2025,” said Harrison.
“This request is pretty close to that.”
Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall stated during a meeting with reporters that the 2025 request is an “acceptable” budget for the Space Force, but not an ideal one. The proposed funding enables key space programs to move forward, but not quite at the pace the DoD would like to maintain an advantage over the Chinese threat according to Kendall.
The backdrop for DoD’s budget request is China’s increased pace of technological innovation in space, which DoD sees as a “pacing threat.” Another concern for the Space Force is enhancing the resilience of U.S. space networks, as the U.S. prepares for the possibility of an armed conflict if, as strategists speculate, the People’s Liberation Army attempts to seize Taiwan later this decade.
Kendall pointed out that much of the new technology in the Space Force’s budget aims to enhance the resiliency of U.S. satellite networks against Chinese and Russian threats, including ground-based lasers, cyber capabilities, and other systems designed to hinder or destroy U.S. military satellites crucial for intelligence gathering, communications, and missile tracking.
“We’re making progress on resiliency and on counter space,” Kendall said. “But I’d like to move faster.”
“We’re doing the best we can with the constraints we face,” he added. “Also, the pace at which we move is the pace at which industry can design and build things.”
Commercial services
While the Space Force budget remained relatively flat, many in the commercial space industry will be disappointed it did not create new funding lines for emerging services like satellite-based Earth monitoring, in-space surveillance, and on-orbit satellite servicing, said Harrison.
DoD is still purchasing many of the same systems from the same companies they have for decades, he said. The budget does not show any real strategy for taking advantage of cutting-edge space capabilities being pioneered by newspace companies, Harrison added.
Space Force officials have noted that the service funds commercial satellite communications and launch services as it has for years. The 2025 budget includes $1.8 billion for National Security Space Launch missions. But those are considered traditional services by the burgeoning newspace industry, which wants defense dollars to go toward more novel offerings.
“When we discuss commercial services, we mean things like utilizing commercial sensors for earth and space domain awareness, using commercial robotics for satellite repair and maintenance, that kind of thing,” said Harrison.
Space Force officials have said opening new commercial services budget lines would require broader approval and oversight from Pentagon leadership and Congress — a heavy bureaucratic effort unlikely in a budget cycle focused on fiscal constraints.
The fastest adoption of commercial satellite technology is taking place in the Space Development Agency, a Space Force organization building a low Earth orbit constellation for military communications and missile tracking. The agency’s 2025 budget includes $1.7 billion to continue the development of SDA’s satellite architecture.
