One degree. Six disciplines. Three immersions. The cross-disciplinary leader the space industry is short on.
Engineering, finance, policy, mission ops, science, design. These six disciplines actually decide whether a spacecraft flies. Start with one module, stack toward a Graduate Certificate, and continue toward an ASU master's. A proposed pathway designed so every credit carries forward, subject to institutional approval.
You learn to direct AI to build working decision systems and decide well with the output. The space domain is the proving ground; the build method is what you leave with. See the method.
For ASU reviewers and partners
The full proposal package, decks, financial model, and platform evidence live here.
Use the proposal hub when you need the executive deck, approval pathway, competitive analysis, revenue model, launch timeline, or the built-product walkthrough in one place.
Stackable Credentials
Build Your Credential, Your Way
Every module is designed to count toward your next credential. Start with one, and under the proposed structure stack toward an ASU Graduate Certificate or MicroMasters, then bridge into the full MSTS degree (proposed). One institution, one pathway by design.
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Credits
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Domains
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Space Courses
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Immersions
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Planned Faculty (across 6 departments)
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Months
Program Architecture
Two Programs. One Pathway.
SpaceForge and MSTS share a foundation. Choose where you enter the program based on how deep you want to go.
SpaceForge
The Foundation
Six intensive modules where engineers learn venture capital, business leaders learn orbital mechanics, and everyone emerges fluent in the six languages that move space forward.
Master of Space Technology & Systems (MSTS)
Proposed Master's Degree
The complete 42-credit ascent. Six foundational quarters, four deep-dive MSTS courses on live industry questions, three launch-site immersions, and a research defense in front of practitioners who hire.
Every Entry Point
One Module
3 credits · $4,500 · 7.5 weeks
Test the program. Upskill in one discipline. No commitment beyond 7.5 weeks.
Graduate Certificate
18 credits · $27,000 · 3-4 semesters
Complete all six SpaceForge modules. Proposed as an ASU credential, designed to confer alumni status, subject to institutional approval.
MicroMasters
27 credits · $40,500 · 4-5 semesters
Add the Practicum and Capstone. Designed so all 27 credits carry forward into the ASU MSTS, subject to institutional approval, or hold as a proposed standalone ASU credential.
Industry Fellow
Non-credit · $10,000 · employer-sponsored
Companies embed professionals alongside students. Deep domain experts elevating every team.
The Opportunity
A $1.8 trillion industry by 2035. A widening gap in cross-disciplinary talent.
Traditional space programs teach from a single department. The program is designed for ASU to co-teach every class with three schools in the room — Lead + Two Rotating Guests — drawing from twelve ASU schoolsacross the six-module sequence: Fulton, W. P. Carey, SESE, SCAI, Cronkite, Herberger, SFIS, Sandra Day O'Connor Law, Thunderbird, School of Sustainability, School of Politics & Global Studies, and College of Health Solutions. In the proposed structure, SFIS in the Rob Walton College of Global Futures would issue the Graduate Certificate and MicroMasters and house the full Master’s degree.
The space industry integrates engineering, business, policy, science, and design on day one. So does every class.
$1.8T
Projected space economy by 2035
Source: McKinsey & World Economic Forum, “Space: The $1.8 Trillion Opportunity for Global Economic Growth” (April 2024).
What You'll Do
A Proposed 42-Credit Path. Three Immersions. Industry-Reviewed Work.
42 credits of proposed curriculum
Graduate-level content spanning aerospace engineering, AI strategy, venture finance, space science, operations, and design policy.
3 immersions
Kennedy Space Center. Johnson Space Center and South Texas launch sites. Washington D.C. and Capitol Hill. 20+ site visits across three states.
Professional deliverables
Technical feasibility reports, financial models, working prototypes, and live pitches to industry panels. Every deliverable is critique-ready — faculty score against the same rubric practitioners use to review work in production.
Cross-disciplinary teams
Engineers work with MBAs. Scientists work with designers. Every team mirrors the cross-functional reality of the space industry.
Immersive Experiences
Three Cities. Three Immersions. 9 Credits of Field Experience in the Proposed MSTS.
Three weeks of your program happen on-site: launch pads at the Cape, Mission Control in Houston, and congressional offices in D.C. You meet the people running the rooms, then brief them on the work you came with.
Launch & Hardware
Florida Space Coast
Feel the concrete vibrate during a countdown at Cape Canaveral. Walk through vehicle integration buildings and defense sensor labs. See the full chain from raw hardware to ignition.
Operations & Mission Control
Houston + South Texas
Sit behind the flight director in Mission Control while controllers talk to the ISS crew. Walk the astronaut training complex. Then drive south to watch the largest rocket ever built undergo testing.
Policy & Governance
Washington, D.C.
Brief congressional staffers on space policy you have spent months analyzing. Designed to include briefings with leadership at NASA HQ, the Space Force, and the FAA. Defend your capstone in front of the people who fund and regulate the industry.
Inside SpaceForge
Your Learning Command Center
A production simulator catalog, three AI coaches that read your full academic record (writing, research, study-planner), AI features piped in across analytics and assessment, live federal-procurement intel from a dozen sources, a cross-module knowledge graph, and a verifiable competency record. One login, one dashboard, one place where your work compounds.
What you'll do here — Learning
Draft with a coach watching
AI flags thin arguments and weak structure while you write, before a faculty reader sees the draft
Outsource the lit-review grunt work
Research coach surfaces the 8 papers worth reading instead of the 80 a Google search returns
See how concepts connect
Visualize the bridges between orbital mechanics, FCC spectrum policy, launch ops, and venture math
What you'll do here — Collaboration
Find collaborators automatically
When your work overlaps a classmate's (same contract number, same clause, same orbit) the system flags the overlap and offers an intro
Run a real mission with a team
Mission control simulator puts six disciplines in one room making the same decision under real pressure
Teach what you brought in
Earn credentials for running a peer workshop on the discipline you already know
What you'll do here — Intelligence
Use this week's launches as homework
Real SpaceX, NASA, and FAA events become live case studies as they happen
Track contracts that match your skills
Federal procurement intel filtered to the work your competencies already qualify you for
Know what's not sticking before the test
Predictive analytics flag the concepts you'll need to re-study a week before the deliverable, not after
What you'll do here — Career
Earn industry-recognized credentials
Map SpaceForge competencies to PMP and FAA certifications you can put on your resume
Show employers verified work
Simulation scores and graded deliverables an employer can verify — not just transcripts they can't read
Illustrative preview. spaceforge.asu.edu is a proposed domain, not an official ASU page, subject to institutional approval.
What makes this different
Your professors don't bring slides. They bring questions. You build the answer.
We don't teach you space. We teach you what to do when space breaks — with a lawyer, an engineer, and a scientist in the same room while you figure it out. Three ASU schools co-teach every class. Each session opens with one real, unresolved cross-disciplinary question and closes with an artifact tested against a real stakeholder.
Why now:commercial Earth observation, ground-station-as-a-service, open-source ML, cloud geospatial — capability that was exclusive to states and well-resourced corporations a decade ago is now a credit-card purchase. A hedge fund counts cars in a parking lot from orbit; Bellingcat geolocates a war crime on Twitter; one person directs AI to build the platform you're reading this on. The bottleneck is no longer access; it is cross-disciplinary judgment about what to do with capability that has democratized — on both the consumption and the production side. Single-discipline Masters programs prepare graduates for the world that ended when those things became true.
Decisions with consequences · weekly through capstone
Pick the wrong heatshield in year two. Trace the year-47 debris strike that follows.
Each simulation puts you in the seat of someone who has to make a real call — committing to a deorbit plan, sourcing a hard-to-find component under export-control rules, defending a market thesis to a tough audience. Decisions you make early carry forward into later ones, and the debrief shows you the line from cause to consequence. Curveballs hit on every run; replays are reproducible but feel different each time. Subject-matter advisors weigh in as you play. Simulations span weekly exercises, module finals, and a multi-day capstone.
Coaches with full context on your work
Not a generic tutor. The writing coach reads the criteria you'll be graded against.
Live AI coaching across writing, research, and your study plan — plus features built on top: a pre-submission check against your assignment criteria, targeted flashcards on the gaps you missed, an independence score that travels with your portfolio, a learning-style profile, an early-warning signal when you're at risk of falling behind, end-of-semester narrative summaries, and a resume generator that turns your verified work into recruiter-ready bullets. Every coach knows your modules, your drafts, and the work you've already done.
Cross-disciplinary · multi-stage editorial review
Many disciplines on every question. Reviewed before you read it.
Most space programs are taught from a single discipline and bolt the others on as electives. SpaceForge is built the other way. Every week argues a single question and brings several disciplines to bear on it — so an engineer learns to read a contract, a business student learns to read an orbit, and a policy student learns to read a supply-chain risk. The combinations that show up in the lessons are not the ones you find in the standard textbook sequence. Every lesson clears a multi-stage editorial review before it reaches you: factual checks against primary sources, originality scans, a defensibility check on every comparative claim, and a cross-background read so the lesson lands whether you came from engineering, business, or policy. Each module also pairs with one cross-disciplinary innovation project — Mission Rescue, Intelligence Brief, Shark Tank, $500M Mission Proposal, Constellation Crisis, Space Policy Startup — that pulls the discipline into a real output. Drift gets caught before you read it.
You're Not Joining a Program. You're Founding One.
30 seats. No waitlist. As a founding member, you work directly with the faculty who designed the curriculum, build the alumni network before anyone else, and graduate with a credential shaped by your own feedback.
Later cohorts will inherit a program. You will have built it.