President Donald Trump has ordered the creation of a commission to plan a national Space Academy, placing NASA, defense leaders and the wider space workforce inside a single initiative. The commission will be chaired by NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman and include Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Air Force Secretary Troy Meink, Defense One reported.
Trump signed the executive order at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston during a ceremony where he presented the Congressional Space Medal of Honor to the four crew members scheduled to fly the Artemis II mission around the Moon. The order directs the commission to develop the key details for an academy intended to strengthen the national space workforce.
The proposal could create a new route into military service. The order tells the commission to examine service obligations for graduates, including service in the armed forces, as well as applicant requirements involving citizenship, security clearances, government employment and military status. Those provisions leave open whether graduates would be required to serve in uniform or could instead enter civilian space jobs.
The academy’s proposed mission would extend beyond the Space Force. A White House fact sheet described an institution combining technical education, leadership development and public service for careers supporting the military, civil and broader space enterprise. Trump said the growth of the Space Force and commercial space industry, along with expanded ambitions for the Moon, would require training service members, engineers and civil operators.
The plan would also intersect with existing officer pipelines. The Space Force currently commissions officers through the Air Force Academy, ROTC and Officer Training School. The service has met its uniformed recruiting goals and has discussed doubling the number of guardians, while its civilian workforce has been rebuilding after cuts made during the previous year’s federal workforce purge, Defense One reported.
That record has prompted questions about the academy’s immediate purpose. Todd Harrison, a defense budget and space expert at the American Enterprise Institute, said the order was “out of left field” and argued that NASA, the Space Force and intelligence space agencies already have defined responsibilities. He also questioned the need for a government-run institution when universities already produce aerospace and engineering graduates and the Space Force recruits through its University Partnership Program.
The idea predates the executive order. Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation’s policy playbook for the Trump administration, proposed exploring a Space Force Academy to attract aerospace students, engineers and scientists and develop astronauts. It suggested initially attaching such a school to a major research university before eventually creating an institution comparable to the existing service academies.
The commission has 120 days to submit a report to Trump proposing the academy’s central details. Air Force officials did not provide clarification about the order or how a future academy would fit with existing military commissioning pathways. Establishing the institution would also require congressional authorization and funding, a question Harrison raised in comments reported by Defense One.