BERLIN (Reuters) -Germany plans to significantly increase funding for the European Space Agency, with Research Minister Dorothee Baer set to pledge up to 5 billion euros ($5.76 billion) at the ESA’s conference in the north-western city of Bremen next week.

“It will definitely be more than three years ago, when it was around 3.5 billion. If we now reach the 5-billion mark, that would be extremely positive,” she told Reuters on Thursday.

The funding is part of a larger strategy on space security that the government presented on Wednesday, with plans to invest as much as 35 billion euros in coming years on space defence.

“We have been resting on a peace dividend for a very, very long time. That’s why it’s good and right that the strategic importance of space travel has now been so clearly

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