Trump signs order to design a U.S. Space Academy at Johnson Space Center

President Donald Trump signed an executive order on 28 August to start building a United States Space Academy, a NASA-led federal school that would mix technical training with a service obligation.

He signed the order at Johnson Space Center in Houston, at the same event where he presented the Congressional Space Medal of Honor to the four astronauts who flew Artemis II earlier this year. NASA released the text as Release 26-069. The White House published the order and a fact sheet the same day.

The order does not open a campus on Monday. It creates the Presidential Commission on the United States Space Academy. NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman chairs it. Deputy Administrator Matt Anderson is executive director. Within 120 days the commission must send the President a report on governance, curriculum, applicant rules, service obligations for graduates, a process for picking a permanent site, pilot programmes, partnerships, the legislative path and an implementation plan. NASA will bear the cost of publishing the order.

Trump's own description was brief. He said the growth of the Space Force, the commercial launch industry and plans that run past the Moon mean the country must train a generation of service members, engineers and civil operators. "It's called the U.S. Space Academy. That's a big deal."

People familiar with Isaacman's Project Athena plan say the academy is meant to sit under NASA, not under the Department of the Air Force. It would not be a fourth service academy in the West Point sense. Tuition would be free. Graduates would owe several years of service. They could choose the Space Force, but most seats would be reserved for NASA and other civilian space posts. That split is the design choice that matters. A service academy feeds officers into a uniformed chain of command. A NASA academy feeds a civilian workforce that also happens to overlap with national security launch and tracking.

Johnson Space Center is the named starting point. The order does not lock Houston in as the permanent home. The commission has to propose a site-selection process. Congress will have to fund whatever campus comes out of that process. Without an appropriation and an authorizing statute, the commission's report stays a report.

The order sits in a short stack of recent space directives. In December 2025 Trump signed an order titled Ensuring American Space Superiority. On 20 August he issued a National Space Transportation Policy memorandum. The academy paper is the personnel chapter of that file. Rockets and medals do not replace a pipeline of people who can fly, build and regulate the next set of missions.

What exists today is a chair, a deadline and a location for the signing photo. What does not exist is a class list, a statute or a dormitory. The 120-day report will show whether the academy is a school with a service contract or a nameplate on an existing NASA training building.