US Space Force

What it is

The US Space Force (USSF) is the sixth branch of the US Armed Forces, the first new military service created since the US Air Force in 1947. Its official mission: "secure our nation's interests in, from, and to space." The Space Force organizes, trains, and equips forces to compete, deter, and win in the space domain, but does not manage aircraft or nuclear-armed ICBMs, which remain with the Air Force. It operates under the Department of the Air Force, much as the Marine Corps sits within the Department of the Navy. Service members are called Guardians, a designation announced in December 2020, tracing to Air Force Space Command's 1983 motto. Core responsibilities: the GPS satellite constellation (~31 operational satellites), missile warning and tracking, space situational awareness, satellite communications, and counterspace operations.

History

The USSF traces its lineage to US Air Force Space Command, established in 1982. Space remained a support domain inside the Air Force for nearly four decades. China's January 2007 kinetic ASAT test, which destroyed the Fengyun-1C weather satellite and scattered more than 3,000 trackable debris fragments into low-Earth orbit, sharpened US recognition that the space domain was becoming a contested warfighting environment. The 2018 US National Defense Strategy formally declared space a warfighting domain. The John S. McCain National Defense Authorization Act, signed December 20, 2019, created the Space Force by absorbing 23 Air Force units and approximately 6,400 uniformed personnel on day one. Four initial enlisted Guardians swore in October 2020; the first enlisted class graduated Basic Military Training in December 2020. General B. Chance Saltzman has served as Chief of Space Operations since late 2022.

Current state

The Space Force counted approximately 9,700 active Guardians as of mid-2026, against an FY2026 congressional ceiling of 10,400. The Trump administration cut 14 percent of USSF civilian workers in early 2025, creating a functional-capacity gap even as Congress approved manpower growth. The FY2026 baseline budget request was US$26.3 billion; reconciliation legislation added US$13.8 billion, reaching US$40.1 billion in total, the largest one-year funding increase in the service's brief history. Major procurement lines include the Next-Generation Overhead Persistent Infrared (Next-Gen OPIR) missile-warning satellite system and the Space Development Agency's proliferated LEO data-transport and tracking layers. The FY26 defense bill added approximately US$1.2 billion to Space Force R&D, split between LEO data transport and space-based missile warning. Separately, Space Systems Command awarded prototype contracts to 12 firms for space-based interceptors under the Golden Dome programme, worth up to US$3.2 billion with a 2028 integration target.

Relationships

The Space Force's direct operational partner is US Space Command (USSPACECOM), a unified combatant command stood up in August 2019; the two institutions divide the "organize, train, equip" function (Space Force) from the "employ" function (SPACECOM), analogous to how the Air Force and combatant air components relate. Prime contractors include Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon, Boeing, and SpaceX, which provides Falcon 9 launches and the classified Starshield satellite service. The accelerating counterspace competition with China and Russia drives most Space Force acquisition priorities: China fields kinetic ASATs, co-orbital proximity-operations vehicles, jamming systems, and directed-energy weapons; Russia maintains comparable capabilities plus an alleged nuclear-armed ASAT programme that concerns allied space operators. More than 35 nations have pledged no destructive ASAT tests; neither China nor Russia has signed. The Space Force provides the sensing backbone for Golden Dome, whose first live-fire test in June 2026 was declared a full mission success. Combined Space Operations Center partners, Australia, Canada, France, Germany, New Zealand, and the UK, integrate with USSF data and operations.

What to watch

• Whether Golden Dome space-based interceptors can meet the 2028 integration target given independent cost estimates ranging from US$175 billion to US$3.6 trillion, and Congress's appetite to sustain a post-reconciliation baseline.
• The civilian workforce gap: the 14-percent 2025 cut has not been reversed, capping capacity as mission scope grows with Golden Dome and expanded LEO tracking demands.
• Chinese and Russian counterspace tests and orbital maneuvers, each of which recalibrates Space Force investment priorities and arms-control positions.
• FY2027 appropriations: the US$13.8 billion reconciliation addition is explicitly a one-year patch; the baseline reverts to US$26.3 billion without new congressional action.