The space industry sales are poised to follow their growth trend that began in 2002, according to the Aerospace Industries Association (AIA).

John Douglass said during the association’s annual year-end review and forecast luncheon on Dec. 8 that the sales in the aerospace industry’s space segment are estimated to reach $38.3 billion by year’s end and are forecasted to reach $40.9 billion in 2005, about 24 percent of the $172.8 billion expected in sales for the overall aerospace industry next year.

The significant drivers in that growth will be spending from both the National Aeronautics and Space Admin-istration (NASA) and the U.S. Defense Department as well as some growth in the commercial sector, David Napier, AIA’s research director told Satellite News in a Dec. 9 telephone interview.

“NASA’s spending has essentially been flat for quite a number of years,” Napier noted. “But we are expecting growth [in NASA spending] and part of that is because Congress did give them an extra $800 million this past fiscal year, so there is some growth coming. Congress is giving them more money so we expect to see more sales.”

Napier noted that other agencies also would be contributing to the sales in the space segment. “We are predicting about a $1.5 billion increase in sales by NASA and other federal agencies” from an estimated $16.1 billion in sales in 2004 to $17.6 billion in forecasted sales in 2005, Napier said “There are other agencies that have space-faring kind of spending such as the Energy Department, the National Oceanic and Atmosph-eric Admin-istration, the Commerce Department, the National Science Foundation and others. Those are relatively small in the grand scheme of things, but they are increasing.”

Another aspect driving the increase in NASA’s spending is President Bush’s vision of returning to the Moon and moving onto Mars, Napier said. “For the first part of this year, there was not a whole lot of buy-in among the Congressmen,” Napier noted. “They were talking about cutting the NASA budget all year long. Then [Bush] got re-elected and $822 million was increased in the [NASA] budget.”

The second big driver is the Defense Department, Napier noted. “That’s probably where there is a lot of space sales increase,” he said. However, the association did not explicitly detail how the money is being spent on space-related activities. The Defense Department reports “one number to NASA as their space spending,” Napier said. “That’s what I use as my basis for sales.”

With regard to the commercial side of the sales equation, Napier commented ” there is going to be some slight recovery” but didn’t offer a more details on the likely commercial segments that would be driving sales growth.

(Matt Grimison, AIA, 703/358-1076)