NASA’s strategy, on a page

A case study in mission alignment and long-range focus

How do you build a strategic plan when your goals stretch across decades, disciplines and even planets?

NASA is one of the world’s most ambitious organisations – balancing deep space exploration, scientific research, aviation innovation and public outreach. Its mission is vast, its stakeholders complex and its work deeply interdependent.

To show how even the most complex organisations can create clarity, we’ve used the Team Alignment Canvas to map out a sample strategic plan for NASA – all on a single page.

Download the NASA Team Alignment Canvas.

Why NASA?

NASA’s mission is as clear as it is expansive: to explore the unknown in air and space, innovate for the benefit of humanity and inspire the world through discovery.

What makes them strategically interesting is the scope of what they manage – from crewed space missions and scientific data to public engagement and cross-sector collaboration. It’s a test case for planning that spans silos, timelines and political realities – and still needs to align people around a shared sense of purpose.

This canvas shows what that kind of alignment might look like in practice.

About this example

This canvas is a case study created by the team at Impact Society. NASA is not a client of ours, and we have not consulted with them – on this project or any other.

Wherever possible, we’ve directly transposed NASA’s published strategic content, including its purpose, values and major priorities. Other responses – such as the BHAGs and their accompanying key results – are illustrative, based on public documents but crafted by us to demonstrate how NASA’s strategy might be captured using our six-question framework.

The intent of this case study is not to claim authority over NASA’s planning, but to demonstrate how the Team Alignment Canvas can bring coherence to bold, multifaceted missions like theirs.