Tennessee Proposes Coffee County Site to Host U.S. Space Academy

The state is pitching a ready 49-acre parcel as a way to secure a NASA-led training campus that officials say would grow the regional space workforce and create jobs.

Overview

Governor Bill Lee announced on Wednesday that Tennessee is formally pursuing the U.S. Space Academy and is pitching the publicly owned 49-acre Coffee County Joint Industrial Park in Tullahoma as its candidate site.
The listed parcel is offered at $15,000 per acre on the Tennessee Economic and Community Development site and is presented as developable land with room to expand inside the Tennessee Valley Aerospace Corridor.
State officials emphasize nearby assets that could support the academy’s mission, including Arnold Air Force Base, the University of Tennessee Space Institute, Middle Tennessee State, Tennessee Tech, Vanderbilt and proximity to Huntsville’s aerospace cluster.
NASA is leading the site-evaluation process and has set a formal request-for-information deadline of November 16, 2026, with multiple states including Florida, Alabama, Louisiana, Ohio and Texas also preparing bids.
NASA and the Presidential Commission have proposed an accelerated timetable—groundbreaking by 2027, about 300 students in a temporary location in 2028 and a permanent campus by 2031—but final site selection, funding and implementation remain unresolved and will determine local economic impacts.