President issues National Space Transportation Policy
The policy binds the Secretaries of State, War, Interior, Commerce, Transportation, Energy, Homeland Security, OMB, DNI, NASA Administrator and FCC Chairman, with actions required within 90 to 240 days of the Aug. 20, 2026 memorandum.
National Security Presidential Memorandum 17, dated August 20, 2026 and published in the Federal Register (Vol. 91, No. 163, FR Doc No. 2026-17372), directs the Secretaries of State, War, Interior, Commerce, Transportation, Energy, Homeland Security, the Director of the Office of Management and Budget, the Director of National Intelligence, the Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs, the Assistant to the President for Science and Technology, the Assistant to the President for Economic Policy, the Assistant to the President for Domestic Policy, the Administrator of NASA and the Chairman of the FCC to implement a coordinated national space transportation strategy.
The memorandum sets a 2030 goal of supporting "more than 1,000 launches and reentries every year" and calls for capabilities that reach suborbital, very-low Earth orbit, lunar, Lagrange-point and deep-space regimes.
Key infrastructure actions include: the Secretary of War and NASA must operate federal launch and reentry ranges transparently; within 180 days they must develop and publish range-scheduling criteria; the Secretary of Transportation must identify potential new launch sites and integrate launch management into airspace modernization; the Secretary of Commerce and the FCC must ensure reliable spectrum access and report every two years; the Secretaries of War and Homeland Security must report on securing launch infrastructure; the Secretary of the Interior must identify an additional federal land reentry site within 90 days, with safety criteria evaluated within 180 days and a development plan issued within 240 days.
Within 180 days, the Assistant to the President for Science and Technology must coordinate a space transportation industrial-base strategy that promotes a competitive, resilient industry, strengthens workforce pipelines and is reviewed biennially.
Within 120 days and every two years thereafter, the Secretaries of State and Commerce must update market-access policies consistent with U.S. economic, foreign-relations, nonproliferation and national-security interests.
Further reading