How much does an astronaut earn per month?

American civilian astronauts are federal employees and are paid under the General Schedule, the same pay table used by any agency engineer. Candidates enter between GS-11 and GS-14, and NASA's most recent job posting listed an annual range of approximately $104,898 to $161,141. Spread over twelve payments, that comes out to roughly $8,700 to $13,400 gross per month, before taxes and not counting the locality pay adjustment applied to the Houston area.

The grade depends on education and prior experience, and advancement happens through steps tied to seniority, not to the number of flights completed.

The European Space Agency hires its astronauts as international staff, with grades typically starting in the A2 band and progressing toward A4 as missions and responsibilities accumulate. Pay follows the common scale used by the coordinated European organizations, is exempt from national income tax, and is adjusted to the cost of living in the country of assignment, almost always Cologne, home of the European Astronaut Centre.

Astronauts who come from the armed forces, both in the United States and in Europe, keep their military pay while assigned to the agency.

There's no mission bonus or per-day-in-orbit pay: six months on the International Space Station doesn't change the paycheck, beyond symbolic per-diems of a few dollars a day, since housing and food are covered by the agency. The financial appeal of the profession isn't in the active-duty salary, but in what it opens up afterward.