List of government space agencies

This is a list of government agencies engaged in activities related to outer space and space exploration.

As of 2018, 72 different government space agencies are in existence; 14 of those have launch capability. Six government space agencies—the China National Space Administration (CNSA), the European Space Agency (ESA), the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), and the Russian Federal Space Agency (RFSA or Roscosmos)—have full launch capabilities; these include the ability to launch and recover multiple satellites, deploy cryogenic rocket engines and operate space probes.

The name given is the English version, with the native language version below. The acronym given is the most common acronym: this can either be the acronym of the English version (e.g. JAXA), or the acronym in the native language. Where there are multiple acronyms in common use, the English one is given first.

The date of the founding of the space agency is the date of first operations where applicable. If the space agency is no longer running, then the date when it was terminated (i.e. the last day of operations) is given. In particular the Soviet space program is not listed since it was not organized as a consolidated agency.

List of space agencies

The capabilities of the space agencies are color-coded as follows

Civilian

Name	Initialisms/Acronym	Country	Founded	Terminated	Capabilities of the space agency				Ref(s)
					Astronauts	Operates Satellites	Sounding Rockets capable	Recoverable Biological Sounding Rockets capable
Australian Space Agency	ASA	Australia	2018, 1 July	—	No	Yes	Yes	No	[1][2]
Belarus Space Agency	BSA	Belarus	2009	—	No	No	Yes	No	[3]
Central American Association for Aeronautics and Space (Asociación Centroamericana de Aeronáutica y el Espacio)	ACAE	Costa Rica	2010	—	No	Yes	No	No	[4]
Mexican Space Agency	AEM	Mexico	2010, 30 July	—	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	—
Algerian Space Agency	ASAL	Algeria	2002, 16 January	—	No	Yes	Yes	No	—
Asia-Pacific Space Cooperation Organization	APSCO	International Bangladesh China Indonesia Iran Mongolia Pakistan Peru Thailand Turkey	2005, 28 October	—	No	Yes	No	No	—
Austrian Space Agency	ALR	Austria	1972, 12 July	—	No	No	No	No	[5][6]
Azerbaijan National Aerospace Agency[7]	AMAKA	Azerbaijan	1974, 21 February	—	No	Yes	No	No	—
National Space Science Agency	NSSA	Bahrain	2014, 9 April	—	No	No	No	No	[8]
Belgian Institute for Space Aeronomy	BIRA IASB BISA	Belgium	1964, 25 November	—	Yes	No	No	No	[9]
Bolivarian Agency for Space Activities	ABAE	Venezuela	2008, 1 January	—	No	Yes	No	No	[10]
Brazilian Space Agency	AEB	Brazil	1994, 10 February	—	Yes	Yes	Yes[11]	No	[12]
UK Space Agency	UKSA	United Kingdom	2010, 1 April	—	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
Bolivian Space Agency	ABE	Bolivia	2012	—	No	Yes	No	No	[13][14][15]
Bulgarian Space Agency	ИКИ-БАН SRI-BAS ИСЗВ-БАН STIL-BAS	Bulgaria	1987	—	Yes	Yes	No	No	[16]
Canadian Space Agency	CSA ASC	Canada	1989, 1 March	—	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	[17]
China National Space Administration	CNSA	China	1993, 22 April	—	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	[18]
Colombian Space Commission	CCE	Colombia	2006, 18 July	—	No	Yes	No	No	[19]
Centre for Remote Imaging, Sensing and Processing	CRISP	Singapore	1995	—	No	Yes	No	No
Consultative Committee for Space Data Systems	CCSDS	International Agenzia Spaziale Italiana (ASI) British National Space Centre (BNSC) Canadian Space Agency (CSA) Centre National d’Études Spatiales (CNES) China National Space Administration (CNSA) Deutsches Zentrum für Luft und Raumfahrt (DLR) European Space Agency (ESA) Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas Espaciais (INPE) Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Russian Federal Space Agency (RFSA)	1982	—	No	No	No	No	—
Czech: Ministerstvo dopravy České republiky (Ministry of Transport of the Czech Republic – Space Technologies and Satellite Systems Department[20])	[1] Ministry of Transport of the Czech Republic	Czech Republic	2003	—	Yes	No	No	No	[20]
Danish National Space Center	DRC DNSC	Denmark	1968, 1 January	31 December 2006	Yes	No	No	No
Danish Space Research Institute	DRKI DSRI	Denmark	2005, 1 January	31 December 2006	No	Yes	No	No
European Space Agency	ESA ASE EWO	Austria Belgium Czech Republic Denmark Estonia European Union Finland France Germany Greece Hungary Ireland Italy Luxembourg Netherlands Norway Poland Portugal Romania Spain Sweden Switzerland United Kingdom	1975, 31 May	—	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	[21][22]
Geo-Informatics and Space Technology Development Agency	GISTDA สทอภ	Thailand	2002, 3 November	—	No	Yes	No	No	[23]
Serbian Office for Space Sciences, Research and Development	SERBSPACE	Serbia	2016, August	—	No	Yes	No	No	—
German Aerospace Center	DLR	Germany	1969	—	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	[24]
Hellenic Space Centre (Greek: Ελληνικό Κέντρο Διαστήματος)	ΕΛΚΕΔ HSC	Greece	2019, 9 August	—	No	No	No	No
Hungarian Space Office	MŰI HSO	Hungary	1992, January	—	No	Yes	No	No
Indian Space Research Organisation	ISRO इसरो	India	1969, 15 August	—	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	[25][26][27]
Instituto Nacional de Técnica Aeroespacial	INTA	Spain	1942	—	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	[28][29][30]
Iranian Space Agency	ISA	Iran	2004	—	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	[31][32][33]
Israeli Space Agency	ISA סל"ה	Israel	1983, April	—	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
Italian Space Agency	ASI	Italy	1988	—	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	[34][35]
Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency	JAXA	Japan	2003, 1 October	—	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	[36][37]
Luxembourg Space Agency	LSA	Luxembourg	2018, September	—	No	No	No	No	—[38]
National Space Agency of the Republic of Kazakhstan	KazCosmos KazKosmos	Kazakhstan	2007, 27 March	—	Yes	Yes	No	No	[39]
New Zealand Space Agency	NZSA	New Zealand	2016, April	—	No	No	No	No	—
Korean Committee of Space Technology	KCST	North Korea	1980s	2013	No	Yes	Yes	No	[40][41][42]
National Aerospace Development Administration	NADA	North Korea	2013	—	No	Yes	Yes	No	[43]
Korea Aerospace Research Institute	KARI	South Korea	1989, 10 October	—	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
Lithuanian Space Association	LSA	Lithuania	2007	—	No	Yes	No	No	[44]
Malaysian Space Agency	MYSA	Malaysia	2002	—	Yes	Yes	No	No	[45]
National Aeronautics and Space Administration	NASA	United States	1958, 1 October	—	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	[46]
National Authority for Remote Sensing and Space Sciences	NARSS	Egypt	1994	—	No	Yes	No	No	[47]
National Space Program	NSP	Australia	1986	1996	No	Yes	No	No	[48]
National Centre for Space Studies	CNES	France	1961, 19 December	—	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	[49]
Paraguayan Space Agency (Agencia Espacial de Paraguay)	AEP	Paraguay	2014, 26 March	—	No	No	No	No	—
National Commission for Aerospace Research and Development	CONIDA	Peru	1974, 11 June	—	No	Yes	Yes	No	[50]
Philippine Space Agency	PhilSA	Philippines	2019, 8 August	—	No	Yes	No	No	[52][53]
Comisión Nacional de Investigaciones Espaciales	CNIE	Argentina	1961	1991	No	No	Yes	Yes	[54][55]
Comisión Nacional de Actividades Espaciales	CONAE	Argentina	1991, 28 May	—	No	Yes	Yes	No	[54]
National Institute of Aeronautics and Space	LAPAN	Indonesia	1964, 27 November	—	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
National Remote Sensing Center of Mongolia	NRSC	Mongolia	1987	—	No	No	No	No	[56]
French: Centre national de la cartographie et de la télédétection (Arabic: المركز الوطني للإستشعار عن بعد‎) (National Remote Sensing Center of Tunisia)	CNCT	Tunisia	1988	—	No	No	No	No	—
Uzbek State Space Research Agency (UzbekCosmos)	USSRA (UzbekCosmos)	Uzbekistan	2001	—	No	No	No	No	[2][57]
State Space Agency of Ukraine	ДКАУ SSAU	Ukraine	1992, 2 March	—	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	[3]
National Space Organization	NSPO	Republic of China (Taiwan)	1991, 3 October	—	No	Yes	Yes	No	[58]
National Space Research and Development Agency	NASRDA	Nigeria	1998	—	No	Yes	No	No
Netherlands Institute for Space Research	SRON	Netherlands	1983	—	Yes	Yes	No	No
Norwegian Space Centre	NRS NSC	Norway	1987	—	No	Yes	Yes	No	[59]
Pakistan Space and Upper Atmosphere Research Commission	SUPARCO سپارکو	Pakistan	1961, 16 September	—	No	Yes	Yes	No
Portugal Space	—	Portugal	2019	—	No	No	No	No	[60][61]
Romanian Space Agency	ASR ROSA	Romania	1991	—	Yes	Yes	No	No
Egypt Remote Sensing Center (defunct)	EASRT-RSC	Egypt	1971	1994	No	No	No	No	[47]
French: Centre Royal de Télédétection Spatiale Berber: Ammas Amrrukan n Tallunt (Arabic: المركز الملكي للإستشعار البعدي الفضائي‎) (Royal Center for Remote Sensing)	CRTS	Morocco	1989, December	—	No	No	No	No	—
Roscosmos	ROSCOSMOS РОСКОСМОС	Russia	c.1992	—	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Turkish Space Agency	TUA	Turkey	2018	—	No	Yes	Yes	No	[62][63][64]
Space Research and Remote Sensing Organization	SPARRSO	Bangladesh	1980	—	No	No	No	No	[65]
Polish Space Agency	POLSA POLSA	Poland	2014	—	Yes	Yes	No	No
South African National Space Agency	SANSA	South Africa	2010, 9 December	—	No	No	No	No	[66]
Space Research Institute of Saudi Arabia (Arabic: معهد بحوث الفضاء‎)	KACST-SRI	Saudi Arabia	1977	—	No	Yes	No	No	—
Space Technology Institute (Viện Công nghệ vũ trụ Việt Nam)	CNVT or STI VAST-STI	Vietnam	2006, 20 November	—	Yes	Yes	No	No	[67]
Swedish National Space Agency	SNSA	Sweden	1972	—	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
Swiss Space Office	SSO	Switzerland	1998	—	No	No	No	No	[68][69]
Turkmenistan National Space Agency	TNSA	Turkmenistan	2011	—	No	Yes	No	No	[70]
United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs	UNOOSA	United Nations	1958, 13 December	—	—	—	—	—	[71]
United Nations Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space	UNCOPUOS	United Nations	1959, 12 December	—	—	—	—	—	[72]
United Arab Emirates Space Agency	UAESA	United Arab Emirates	2014	—	Yes	Yes	No	No	[73]
Mohammed bin Rashid Space Centre	MBRSC	Dubai, United Arab Emirates	2006, 6 February (as EIAST) 2015 (as MBRSC)	—	Yes	Yes	No	No	[74]
Syrian Space Agency	SSA	Syria	2014, 18 March	—	No	No	No	No	[75][76][77][78]

Military

List of space agencies with launch capability

Space agency		Country	Founded	Terminated	Capabilities of the space agency				Ref(s)
Name	Acronym				Multiple Satellites Launch capable	Developed and Deployed Cryogenic Rocket Engines	Operates Extraterrestrial Probe	Recoverable Satellites capable
Australian Space Agency	ASA	Australia	1 July 2018	—	No	No	No	No	[1][2]
China National Space Administration	CNSA	People's Republic of China	22 April 1993	—	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	[18]
European Space Agency	ESA ASE EWO	ESA Austria Belgium Czech Republic Denmark Finland France Germany Greece Hungary Ireland Italy Luxembourg Netherlands Norway Portugal Poland Romania Spain Sweden Switzerland United Kingdom	31 May 1975	—	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	[21][22]
Iranian Space Agency	ISA ISA	Iran	2004	—	No	No	No	No
Israeli Space Agency	ISA סל"ה	Israel	April 1983	—	No	No	No	No
Italian Space Agency	ASI	Italy	1988	—	Yes	No	Yes	No	[79]
National Aerospace Development Administration	KCST	North Korea	1980s	—	No	No	No	No
Korea Aerospace Research Institute	KARI 항우연	South Korea	October 1989	—	No	No	No	No
Indian Space Research Organisation	ISRO इसरो	India	15 August 1969	—	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	[25][26][27]
Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency	JAXA	Japan	1 October 2003	—	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	[36]
National Aeronautics and Space Administration	NASA	United States	1 October 1958	—	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	[46]
French: Centre National d’Études Spatiales	CNES	France	19 December 1961	—	Yes	Yes	No	No	[49]
State Space Agency of Ukraine	ДКАУ SSAU	Ukraine	2 March 1992	—	Yes	No	No	No
Roscosmos	ROSCOSMOS РОСКОСМОС	Russia	ca. 1992	—	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
United States Space Force	USSF	United States	20 December 2019	—	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	[80][81][82]

List of space agencies with human spaceflight capability

Space agency		Country	Founded	Terminated	Accomplished tasks by the space agency				Ref(s)
Name	Acronym				Human Space launch capable	Spacewalk capable	Space Rendezvous and Docking capable	Operates Space Station
China National Space Administration	CNSA	People's Republic of China	April 22, 1993	—	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	[18][83]
National Aeronautics and Space Administration	NASA	United States	October 1, 1958	—	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	[46]
Russian Federal Space Agency	ROSCOSMOS RFSA	Russia	December 26, 1991 Dissolution of Soviet Union	—	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	[84]

List of space agencies with extraterrestrial landing capability

Space agency		Country	Founded	Terminated	Accomplished tasks by the space agency						Ref(s)
Name	Acronym				Circumlunar crewed spaceflight	Controlled impact with surface	Uncrewed soft landing	Uncrewed (automated) rover operation	Automated sample return mission	Crewed Moon landing and sample return
China National Space Administration	CNSA	People's Republic of China	22 April 1993	—	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	[18]
European Space Agency	ESA ASE EWO	ESA Austria Belgium Czech Republic Denmark Finland France Germany Greece Hungary Ireland Italy Luxembourg Netherlands Norway Portugal Poland Romania Spain Sweden Switzerland United Kingdom	31 May 1975	—	No	Yes	Yes	No	No	No	Huygens (spacecraft), though launched and orbited by NASA
Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency	JAXA	Japan	1 October 2003	—	No	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	No	Hayabusa
Indian Space Research Organisation	ISRO इसरो	India	15 August 1969	—	No	Yes	No	No	No	No	[25][26][27]
Italian Space Agency	ASI	Italy	1988	—	No	Yes	Yes	No	No	No	Huygens (spacecraft), though launched and orbited by NASA
National Aeronautics and Space Administration	NASA	United States	1 October 1958	—	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes[4]	Yes	[46]
Russian Federal Space Agency	ROSCOSMOS RFSA	Russia	December 26, 1991 (main inheritor of the Soviet space program)	—	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No

^ sample successfully taken by OSIRIS-REx, though not returned yet

Expected and proposed future space agencies

Space agency		Country/Countries	Expected date of formation	Current status	Ref(s)
Name	Acronym
African Space Agency	AfSA	African Union	2023	Proposed in 2015. AU plans to launch the agency by 2019 with a proposed headquarter in Cairo, Egypt. Funded by Egypt. See the stamp issued by Egypt on 19 September 2019.	[85][86][87][88][89]
Armenian Space Agency	ArmCosmos	Armenia	—	Proposed in 2013 with the goal to launch satellites. Negotiating with the International Telecommunications Union to clear the path for its prospective launch.	[90]
Cambodian Aeronautics and Space Agency		Cambodia	—	Proposed in 2016, at progress stage	[91]
Caribbean Space Agency		Caribbean Community	—	Proposed in 2017, at progress stage	[92]
Croatian Space Office	CSO	Croatia		Proposed in 2020, currently operate as NGO Adriatic Aerospace Association A3, at progres stage	[93]
Haiti Space Agency	HSA	Haiti	—	Proposed in 2018, at progress stage	[94]
Latin American and Caribbean Space Agency		Organization of American States	—	Proposed in 2020, at progress stage	[95]
South American Space Agency		South America	—	Proposed in 2011, at progress stage	[96]
Sri Lanka Aeronautics and Space Agency	SLASA	Sri Lanka	—	Proposed in 2009. Immediate goal was to construct and launch two satellites. Sri Lankan Telecommunications Regulatory Commission had signed an agreement with Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd to get the relevant help and resources.	[97]

Budgets

The annual budgets listed are the official budgets for national space agencies available in public domain. The budgets are not normalized to the expenses of space research in different countries, i.e. higher budget does not necessarily mean more activity or better performance in space exploration.^[98][99] Budget could be used for different projects: e.g. GPS is maintained from the US defence budget, whereas ESA's money is used for developing the European Galileo positioning system. The data for authoritarian countries are unreliable. For European contributors to ESA, the national budgets shown include also their contributions to ESA.

Country/ region	Agency	Budget (in millions of US $)	Reference	Year
United States	National Aeronautics and Space Administration	22,629	[100][101]	2020
China	China National Space Administration	11,000	[102]	2018
Austria Belgium Czech Republic Denmark European Union Finland France Germany Greece Ireland Italy Luxembourg Netherlands Norway Poland Portugal Romania Spain Sweden Switzerland United Kingdom	European Space Agency	7,430	[103]	2020
Germany	German Aerospace Center	4,233	[104]	2017
France	National Centre for Space Studies	3,024	[105]	2020
Russia	Roscosmos	2,530	[106]	2020
India	Indian Space Research Organisation	2,000	[107]	2021
Italy	Italian Space Agency	1,800	[108]	2016
Japan	Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency	1,699	[109]	2017
South Korea	Korea Aerospace Research Institute	583	[110]	2016
United Kingdom	UK Space Agency	500	[111]	2017
Iran	Iranian Space Agency , Iranian Space Research Center and Aerospace Research Institute	8	[112]	2019–20
Algeria	Algerian Space Agency	360	[113]	2015
Canada	Canadian Space Agency	246	[114]	2018
Belgium	Interfederal Space Agency of Belgium	224	[115]	2018
Spain	Instituto Nacional de Técnica Aeroespacial	211	[116]	2018
Switzerland	Swiss Space Office	177	[103]	2019
Netherlands	Netherlands Space Office	110	[117]	2013
Sweden	Swedish National Space Agency	100	[118]	2011
Norway	Norwegian Space Agency	97	[119]	2014
Ukraine	State Space Agency of Ukraine	80	[120]
Austria	Austrian Space Agency	75	[121]	2018
Poland	Polish Space Agency	61.5	[122]	2019–2021
Indonesia	National Institute of Aeronautics and Space	55	[123][124]	2019
Brazil	Brazilian Space Agency	47	[125]	2018
Argentina	Comisión Nacional de Actividades Espaciales	45	[126]	2019
Pakistan	Space and Upper Atmosphere Research Commission	45	[127][128]	2018–19
Philippines	Philippine Space Agency	38	[129]	2019
Nigeria	National Space Research and Development Agency	32.3	[130]	2019
Australia	Australian Space Agency	32	[131][132]
Israel	Israel Space Agency	14.5	[133]	2019
South Africa	South African National Space Agency	11.8	[134]	2014–15
Mexico	Mexican Space Agency	8.34	[135]	2010
Turkey	Turkish Space Agency	24.5	[136]	2020
World	All space agencies (Total of listed budgets)	About 60,537

See also

• Committee on Earth Observation Satellites
• Comparison of Asian national space programs
• Lists of astronomical objects
• Lists of telescopes
• SEDS
• Lists of spacecraft
• Lists of astronauts
• Lists of space scientists

References

External links

• Space Law Blog
• Space Agencies Worldwide by UN HDI
• World map showing location of all these space agencies
• Worldwide Space Agencies by UNOOSA