You’ve heard of the Space Force. Now there’s a ‘NASA Force’ — but it’s not about making space war

NASA’s ready for industry experts to join the agency under its new NASA Force initiative.

NASA, in partnership with the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM), unveiled the NASA Force website on Friday (April 17). The aim is to “recruit and place high-impact technical talent into mission-critical roles,” according to an agency statement.

The first applications, available here at USA Jobs, are open to aerospace engineers for two-year terms, with the potential for extension. But more opportunities are expected to come soon, agency officials said.

NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman announced his intention to launch the initiative last month, saying the agency needs to rebuild its core capabilities in alignment with the Trump administration’s national space policy. Now the agency is hoping that enthusiasm about the Artemis 2 astronaut mission around the moon, which wrapped up on April 10, will launch a wave of applications.

“Our successful Artemis 2 mission has inspired the world and generated tremendous interest to join our workforce to be part of the ‘golden age’ of innovation and exploration,” Isaacman said in the April 17 NASA statement. (“Golden age” is a callback to a phrase U.S. President Donald Trump dropped during his inauguration address, which has been cited repeatedly in administration materials since.)

The initiative launched shortly after the release of Trump’s 2027 budget request, which proposed cutting NASA’s overall budget by 23% and its science funding by 47% — roughly the same figures the president put out last year, which Congress rejected.

The nonprofit Planetary Society and several members of Congress said that, if implemented, the newly proposed reductions could result in thousands of lost jobs. But senior NASA leadership has said that the cuts would help focus the agency on key endeavors, like its planned moon and Mars missions.

A Politico report suggested that at least 2,000 senior staff left NASA in fiscal year 2026 through “early retirement, buyouts and deferred resignations,” as part of a larger administration push to cut back staff.

With NASA Force, the agency maintains it will have access to the expertise it requires. “NASA Force is about making sure the agency has access to the next generation of innovation and strong partnerships with private sector talent to drive its very ambitious agenda,” added OPM Director Scott Kupor in the same agency statement.