The Obama administration kept NASA's annual funding largely consistent with levels of the previous decade, while strengthening efforts to develop commercial space efforts. Funding dipped to $19 billion in 2013 from $22.6 billion in the first year of Obama's term, as long-range exploration efforts were redirected, recovering to $21 billion in his last year in office.
NASA expanded contracts with SpaceX and Boeing to launch commercial payloads into space and ferry crew members to the International Space Station, a service that the U.S. had paid Russia to provide after retiring the space shuttle.
Under Obama, NASA redrafted long-term plans to return human crews to the moon and eventually Mars, cancelling a previous development program in favor of a new spacecraft, Orion, and a more powerful rocket known as the Space Launch System. The first Orion/SLS manned flight is expected in 2023.