President Donald Trump signed an executive order Friday to begin building a U.S. Space Academy, a new federal institution intended to serve the Space Force, NASA, and the civilian spaceflight industry.
Trump announced the order at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, where he had traveled to award Congressional Space Medals of Honor to the four-person crew of Artemis II. That crew flew around the moon earlier this year in a mission that sets the stage for a planned lunar landing in 2028.
Speaking to a crowd of astronauts, engineers, and NASA managers, Trump compared the new institution to the country's existing military academies. "It's called the U.S. Space Academy," he said. "So you think of West Point, and you think of Annapolis, and you think of the Air Force Academy, and you think of the Coast Guard academies. Great, they're all great. But we're going to have now the Space Force. We're going to have an academy for what the people in this room love the most."
Trump said the academy would "attract, train and graduate the very best of our nation" and that the facility needed to match the quality of the existing military academies. A location has not yet been selected. Trump acknowledged that Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas was pushing for the academy to be placed in his state, joking with the crowd about the pressure he was receiving. "Just leave me alone, Ted, please, leave me alone," he said.
The executive order begins a process, not an immediate construction. It is also not yet clear what access the civilian spaceflight industry will have to the federal institution.
The ceremony at Johnson Space Center also included the presentation of Congressional Space Medals of Honor to Artemis II commander Reid Wiseman, pilot Victor Glover, mission specialist Christina Koch, and Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen. The Congressional Space Medal of Honor was first established in 1969, with Apollo 11 commander Neil Armstrong among the earliest recipients. With the Artemis II crew added, 34 astronauts have now received the honor, including three original Mercury program astronauts.
Wiseman accepted the award on behalf of the crew and addressed the president directly. "We are going to wear them with pride," he said. "But please know, it is not pride for ourselves that we feel, and I truly mean that. It is pride for the grit that our families had when we left this planet. It is pride for this NASA team that sent us on this mission. And it is pride for the international community that stood alongside us, got this vehicle ready, operated it, and cheered us on. So thank you for bestowing this honor on us."
The Artemis II mission circled the moon and returned safely, the first crewed lunar flyby in more than five decades. NASA has set 2028 as the target year for putting astronauts back on the lunar surface.
Trump has shown consistent interest in space as a policy priority during his second term. The Space Force, created during his first term, now anchors a broader push to develop federal space infrastructure, of which the new academy would be a central piece.
