ENSURING AMERICAN SPACE SUPERIORITY

As of late 2025, the Assistant to the President for Science and Technology (APST) is Michael J.K. Kratsios, who also serves as Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP).

Under the executive order, the APST is the President’s lead coordinator for this space policy. The order authorizes the APST to:

• “coordinate the overall implementation of this order”;
• issue guidance creating a National Initiative for American Space Nuclear Power;
• propose revisions to the National Space Transportation Policy; and
• collect and integrate plans and reviews from NASA, the Department of Commerce, the Secretary of War/Defense, the Director of National Intelligence, and other officials into unified submissions to the President on specified timelines.

The APST also participates in spectrum-policy coordination and international civil space cooperation tasks assigned elsewhere in the order.

In this executive order, “Secretary of War” is not a different job from today’s Secretary of Defense; it is an alternate title for the same position.

On September 5, 2025, President Trump signed Executive Order 14347, “Restoring the United States Department of War,” which authorizes the Secretary of Defense to use “Secretary of War” as a secondary title and allows the Department of Defense to be referred to as the Department of War in non‑statutory contexts. The order explicitly states that all legal and statutory references to the Department of Defense and Secretary of Defense remain controlling until changed by law. So when this space order assigns tasks to the “Secretary of War,” it is referring to the sitting Secretary of Defense under that secondary title.

“Other Transactions Authority” (OTA) is a special legal authority that lets certain federal agencies, including NASA and the Department of Defense, make agreements that are not standard procurement contracts, grants, or cooperative agreements and therefore are not governed by the normal Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) rules.

Key differences from standard contracts or grants:

• More flexible terms: Agencies can negotiate intellectual‑property rights, payment structures, and technical milestones more freely than under FAR contracts.
• Typically used for R&D and prototypes: OTAs are mainly for research, development, and prototype projects, not routine buying of goods and services.
• Less formal procurement rules: Many bid‑protest and competition requirements that apply to regular contracts do not apply, which can speed up awards but also reduces some oversight.
• NASA’s version: NASA’s “Space Act Agreements” under 51 U.S.C. § 20113(e) are a form of OTA used to partner with companies or other entities for space‑related projects.

The executive order itself defines OTA as “the ability of the United States Government to enter into contracts other than standard contracts, grants, or cooperative agreements.”

NASA’s current Artemis schedule already slips the first crewed missions beyond the 2028 deadline in the order, so the directive is aspirational and more aggressive than NASA’s own planning.

As of late 2025:

• Artemis II (first crewed lunar flyby) is scheduled for no earlier than April 2026.
• Artemis III (first crewed landing at the lunar south pole) is scheduled for no earlier than mid‑2027, but NASA officials and outside analyses note this date is at risk due to development delays with the Orion spacecraft, life‑support systems, and SpaceX’s Starship Human Landing System.
• Given the complexity and slippage already seen, many observers expect additional schedule pressure that could push the first surface return close to or beyond 2028.

The executive order’s requirement to “return Americans to the Moon by 2028 through the Artemis Program” therefore aligns with NASA’s high‑level goal of a mid‑ to late‑2020s landing but effectively sets an outer‑bound political deadline for what is, on the ground, a schedule that is already tight and vulnerable to further delays.

Originally, Space Policy Directive‑3 (SPD‑3) said that basic U.S. government space‑traffic services (such as basic space situational awareness and conjunction warnings) would be provided “free of direct user fees.” The new executive order changes that language so these services are instead described as being available “for commercial and other relevant use.”

In practice, this means:

• The federal government is no longer committing that these services must be free of user fees; agencies now have room to charge commercial or other users or to structure cost‑sharing models.
• SPD‑3’s intent that government space‑traffic services support commercial growth remains, but the revision explicitly opens the door to fee‑based or value‑added services instead of a guaranteed free baseline.

The underlying SPD‑3 framework for national space‑traffic management policy, led by the Department of Commerce, is unchanged; only the explicit “free of direct user fees” commitment is removed.

The executive order does not itself provide funding; it sets goals that depend on future appropriations and agency budgets controlled by Congress and, within each agency, by its leadership and the Office of Management and Budget (OMB).

For the main milestones:

1. Return Americans to the Moon by 2028 (Artemis):

   • Funding flows primarily through NASA’s “Deep Space Exploration Systems,” including the Artemis program.
   • Recent federal budget documents show on the order of $7–8 billion per year requested specifically for Artemis in mid‑2020s budgets, within a total NASA budget around $25–26 billion per year, all subject to annual congressional appropriations.
   • NASA must fit the 2028 target “within available funding,” as the order itself emphasizes.

2. Lunar surface nuclear reactor by 2030:

   • This builds on NASA’s Fission Surface Power project, which has been funded at tens of millions of dollars per year within NASA’s Technology and Science accounts and may also involve funding from the Department of Energy.
   • Any full‑scale reactor development and deployment by 2030 would require significantly increased funding, which would have to be requested in future budgets and approved by Congress; the order does not specify amounts.

3. Attracting $50 billion in additional private investment by 2028:

   • This is a policy target, not a federal spending line. The order aims to use regulatory changes, commercial‑first acquisition, and spectrum and infrastructure policies to catalyze private‑sector spending.
   • There is no dedicated federal appropriation for “$50 billion”; the figure refers to outside capital the administration hopes to induce.

Overall, Congress controls the appropriations for NASA, the Department of Commerce, the Department of Defense/War, and other agencies involved. The President (through OMB) proposes annual budgets and can redirect some funds within statutory limits, but the order is explicitly “subject to the availability of appropriations,” meaning none of its milestones are funded automatically.