The Trump Administration is looking to dramatically expand the private space industry within the next few years, directing federal agencies to develop new launch and re-entry infrastructure to accommodate a massive surge in launch activity.
President Donald Trump signed a new memo to enable at least 1,000 rocket launches and reentries per year by 2030, up from 178 rocket launches in 2025. The memo is the first update to the National Space Transportation Policy since 2013, and aims to launch “the golden age of space transportation” on U.S. soil.
Private preferences
The updated policy focuses on increasing launch infrastructure in the U.S., directing federal agencies to incentivize the co-development of new launch and re-entry sites with private sector partners. It calls on agencies to identify federal land as potential locations of additional launch facilities or the improvement of existing ones.
The policy also seeks to expedite the permitting process needed for commercial space activity, as well as environmental reviews. The Trump administration had previously proposed a plan to allow the Federal Aviation Administration to waive environmental review requirements for commercial rocket launches and reentries in order to speed up licensing.
The White House also seems to favor the private sector, calling on federal agencies to “refrain from conducting United States Government space transportation activities that preclude, discourage, or compete with United States commercial space transportation activities.”
The memo also calls on NASA to explore commercial robotic access to Mars, as well as commercial spacecraft to send humans to the Red Planet.
That’s a lot of rockets
The commercial rocket business has already experienced rapid growth in the last 13 years, which is mostly dominated by industry giant SpaceX.
In 2013, only 19 rockets launched from U.S. soil. That number continues to increase, with SpaceX driving up the launch cadence by more than 800%, according to Space.com. In the past few years alone, SpaceX has scaled up from 25 orbital launches in 2020 to a record-breaking 165 in 2025.
SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk said his company is seeking to launch more than 30 Starship rockets per day, for a total of nearly 11,000 annual launches, by 2030.
The new policy “meets this moment of explosive growth and positions America to lead the next era of space,” White House science and technology adviser Michael Kratsios said, according to Reuters. It calls for “commercial-first approach enabling Americans on the Moon by 2028 and initial Moon Base elements by 2030, and rapid, resilient launch capabilities for national security,” he added.
Read the full article here
