Classified Space Programs Poised for Budget Boost.

* Classified space program funding is slated for significant growth, even as some defense officials are pushing for more transparency on capabilities that have been closely guarded secrets, according to one analyst.

President Joe Biden requested $17.5 billion for the Space Force in fiscal year 2022, a 13 percent bump over what was enacted for 2021. About 27 percent of that is for classified efforts, according to Russell Rumbaugh, systems director at the Aerospace Corp.'s Center for Space Policy and Strategy.

"The Space Force continues to grow and consolidate, but it still exhibits several long-standing features of defense space: high classification levels and large programs," he wrote in a recent issue brief, "The FY22 Defense Space Budget Request Analysis."

Total spending on classified defense space programs was first revealed last year. Previously, it was "buried" in other toplines, he noted.

"Because of that new transparency, the Space Force's continued growth is obvious," Rumbaugh said. That includes proposed spending for procurement as well as research, development, test and evaluation.

In the president's 2022 fiscal blueprint, classified RDT&E program spending for the Space Force would increase by 22 percent--a significantly higher rate than the service's overall budget growth, he noted.

Classified procurement would nearly double from $78 million to $142 million, he said.

"While some of these increases may reflect transfers from elsewhere in DoD as with the unclassified funding, those increases are...