How much an astronaut is paid?

Short answer

NASA's civilian astronauts are ordinary federal employees, paid on the General Schedule grade-and-step scale with no bonus per flight, per spacewalk or per month in orbit. Military astronauts stay on their service pay instead. The exact bracket appears in each astronaut-candidate vacancy notice and varies with grade, step and locality.

Published: September 24, 2026 · Updated: September 24, 2026 · Edited by Above Ten Thousand · Editorial policy

Commercial Crew Program Crew-4 astronauts Kjell Lindgren, Bob Hines, Samantha Cristoforetti and Jessica Watkins in Water Survival training. 12

A civil-service salary

The astronaut office at Johnson Space Center is a government workplace, and NASA's civilian astronauts are paid like other federal professionals: a grade on the General Schedule, a step within that grade, plus the locality adjustment for the Houston area. Pay rises with time in grade and experience rather than with flights. There is no launch bonus, no hazard premium for a spacewalk and no daily allowance for months in orbit; the salary is identical whether an astronaut is in a simulator, underwater in the training pool or aboard the International Space Station. NASA has historically classified astronaut candidates within the GS-11 to GS-14 band, and the bracket in force is printed in the vacancy announcement each time a class is recruited.

Military astronauts are paid by their service

A large share of the corps comes from the armed forces and remains there on assignment. Those astronauts keep their rank, base pay, allowances and pension track, and NASA reimburses the service rather than issuing a second salary. Two people strapped side by side in the same capsule can therefore sit on completely different pay systems, with different retirement rules and different tax treatment.

Other agencies, and people who are not employees

ESA, JAXA and Roscosmos pay their astronauts on their own internal grade scales, again as career staff rather than per mission, with new recruits entering near the bottom of the professional range and moving up with experience. The commercial end looks different: astronauts employed by companies such as SpaceX or Axiom Space are on private-sector contracts, while the customers who buy the remaining seats are not paid at all. They are the ones paying, at prices negotiated case by case and rarely published in full.