9 billion euros start into space

The European Space Agency accepts the budget in the Hague a meeting of the plenipotentiary ministers of 18 states - members of the European Space Agency (ECA) and Canada. They consider the implementation of the “European space strategy” adopted in 2007, and also accept the budget for the period from 2009 to 2011.

Director Eka Jean-Jacques Dordan expects that, despite financial difficulties, the organization’s budget will be at least 9 billion euros. In addition, according to his forecast, annual contributions of member countries will grow by 3.6%, which will allow the ECA to receive 2.3 billion euros in the period until 2013. “When it comes to space, the investment period is 5-10 years, so the cosmos cannot be dependent on economic cycles,” explains Dordan, whose words are quoted by BBC .co.uk/Hi/Russian/News/Default.stm "Target =" _ BLANK "> BBC .

The European space program is focused on the consumer. Among the priority programs is the monitoring system of the Copernicus environment, its main goal is to create a complete picture of the state of the planet using satellites and ground stations. According to Le Temps, 857 million euros will be allocated for the development of this program.
Another program item is the third -generation meteorological investigators worth 860 million euros. Other 915 million euros will go to the ARTES program, which provides for re -equipment of telecommunication satellites. This also includes the development of the European navigation system "Galileo" - an analogue of the American GPS and the Russian Glonass. According to the plan, Galileo will work in 2013.

Among other projects are the atomic clock on the ISS, which will increase the accuracy of the clock on the planet, as well as the European missile program. In particular, 585 million euros will be aimed at improving the Arian-5 missile carrier. About 2.3 billion euros from 2009 to 2013 are planned to be spent on scientific programs, including the study of Mars, Venus and Titan. Eka is also preparing a rover, which will be launched with the assistance of NASA, but not in 2011, as planned earlier, but in 2016.

The European space budget is the second largest in the world. According to Roscosmos, the costs of space of the United Europe in 2007 amounted to $ 3.57 billion. The American NASA was the leader, it spent $ 18.82 billion on civic exploration of space. Russia with expenses of $ 1.34 billion occupies a modest sixth place, inferior to China, Japan and France, which implements separate projects from ECA. Behind Russia is only India. However, according to the budget approved for 2009, financing the Russian space program will come close to the European one: in 2009, 58.2 billion rubles (about $ 2.3 billion) will be allocated from the federal budget, while only 30 billion rubles in 2008.

11/25/2008 / Andrey Biryukov, the material was published in the newspaper No. 225 dated 11/26/2008.