White House Releases New Space Transportation Policy

The White House released a new space transportation policy today, the first since 2013. The new policy has a strong emphasis on government support for the commercial space industry and space superiority, but what may get the most attention is the stated goal of 1,000 launches and reentries per year by 2030.

President Trump’s National Space Transportation Policy supersedes the version issued by President Obama in 2013. The dramatic changes in the space transportation landscape during those years is difficult to overstate and is reflected in the ambitious goals, but the core tenet of assured access to space remains.  In 2013, it was access “to diverse regions of space, from suborbital to Earth’s orbit and deep space.”  Today it is “from suborbital and very-low Earth orbit altitudes to the lunar surface, Lagrange points, and deep space.”

In 2013, the focus was helping to nurture the commercial space industry, while now commercial space is the centerpiece. The government’s role is ensuring federal launch and reentry ranges are accessible to commercial users and co-development of infrastructure. The Secretary of War and Administrator of NASA are directed to support the space transportation industrial base to “ensure a vibrant and dynamic competitive market, stabilize domestic supply chains” and “favor commercial space transportation services” to meet government needs.

That includes facilitating new launch and reentry sites and designating priority airspace for space launch corridors, as well as integrating space transportation activities into air traffic control modernization efforts.

The headline grabber, however, is establishing a new goal as U.S. policy:

“By 2030, our space transportation ranges must grow to support more than 1,000 launches and reentries every year.”

SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk has talked about that launch rate, but this embeds it in U.S. policy. By comparison, in 2025 there were 176 orbital launch attempts from U.S. soil (all but one successful), not including Rocket Lab’s launches from New Zealand, or SpaceX’s Starship since those are suborbital. That figure doesn’t include reentries, but it would be a dramatic increase nonetheless in a very short time.

The new policy has a strong national security focus, explicitly stating it is to support “America’s continued superiority in space.” It calls for an evaluation of the “regulatory, programmatic, operational and technological barriers for prompt, responsive, and resilient access to space” including the ability to launch quickly — within 48 hours — and augmentation or rapid restoration of space capabilities in times of “crisis, conflict, or in the event of a launch system failure.”

Supporting the nascent in-space transportation industry is another focus, directing the Secretary of War to consider in-space services when designing military architectures and force structures and exploring “novel, rapid, responsive, and resilient launch architectures, including relocatable equipment.”

NASA is directed to focus on commercial services for lunar surface logistics, robotic and human Mars missions, and ensuring the availability of commercial crew and cargo services to support government needs.

As before, U.S. government payloads must be launched on U.S. rockets unless an exemption is provided or it’s on a no-exchange-of-funds basis for scientific payloads or other specific cases. Requests from foreign governments to launch on U.S. rockets or permit reentries for commercial purposes will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis taking into account a number of considerations including “verifiable foreign direct investment in United States space markets.”

At the same time, the Secretaries of State and Commerce are directed to update export policies to promote and enable U.S. space transportation capabilities abroad.