ABOARD A U.S. MILITARY AIRCRAFT—The U.S. Space Force is growing in size and mission as it seeks to stay ahead of the likes of China and Russia. But it will require careful management in the years to come for the new service to both keep up with threats and manage its growth, Chief of Space Operations Gen. B. Chance Saltzman told Air & Space Forces Magazine.
“You don’t need a service unless you have to contest the domain,” Saltzman said. “Somebody’s trying to prevent you from doing your mission actively, with technology and training, and they have their own theories of victory to stop you.”
Saltzman, nearly three years into his four-year term as CSO, discussed the future of the Space Force late last month as he flew back from the service’s first-ever Officer Training Course graduation at Peterson Space Force Base, Colo.
As it prepares for its seventh year as an independent service in 2026, the Space Force is set to have the largest budget in its history, thanks to this summer’s reconciliation bill, and more Guardians than ever. Officials have begun to speak more openly about operating in a domain in which conflict might occur. In short, the Space Force has turned itself from a novelty to many Americans into a widely accepted part of the U.S. military—in Saltzman’s favored analogy, he is turning the Merchant Marines into the U.S. Navy.
“When the Air Force was carved out of the Army, part of it was that they realized if we can’t command the air, we won’t be able to do the other things we need,” Saltzman said. “And so the ability to command the air, to fight in the air, is what drove us into the need for a separate service.”
That same logic applies to the Space Force, he said.
There is a growing consensus about the threat. China is pursuing anti-satellite weapons that can maneuver and possibly grab hold of another spacecraft and is pursuing maneuvers that Saltzman’s former No. 2, Gen. Michael A. Guetlein, likened to “dogfighting in space.” Russia is testing the ability to deploy a nuclear anti-satellite weapon on orbit.
“The PRC has invested in all six categories of counterspace capabilities,” Saltzman said, referring to the People’s Republic of China. “There are three from the ground and three on orbit; It’s kinetic kill capabilities, meaning two things are going to collide and hit one another and try to destroy it. There’s [radio frequency] energy interference. And then there’s directed energy weapons and lasers.
“So we have to understand what they can do to our systems and what tactics we have to mitigate and overcome them to be able to continue to provide our mission in the face of an adversary that’s intentionally trying to deny, disrupt, and maybe even destroy,” Saltzman added.
The growing acknowledgement of adversaries’ capabilities has led to a more direct discussion of what is needed to counter them.
“When I learned to fly satellites, the biggest threat was the space environment,” Saltzman said. “It’s a hostile place because of space weather, because of the sun, because of gravitational attractions pulling things apart. That was the threat. We didn’t talk about combat attrition. We didn’t talk about deliberate interference. We certainly didn’t talk about blowing up satellites.”
Established under President Donald Trump in late 2019, the Space Force is set to take on some of the administration’s most important priorities over the next few years, including likely a large portion of the Golden Dome missile defense initiative and a steadily expanding set of missions.
“I like where we are,” Saltzman said when asked about the future of the Space Force. He said that service’s current initiatives should position it well for the next 10 to 15 years.
Saltzman said that the service will continue to review how its organization and procedures, just like any military service, especially a relatively new one.
“I think at some point you should evaluate, do the models still hold up?” Saltzman said. “Are we too big? Do we have too many missions? Do we need a different kind of specialty?”
Saltzman raised the service’s reliance on the Air Force for its support functions to illustrate the point.
“Right now, we don’t have contracting officers,” he said. “Contracting is a very important function in capabilities delivery, and we use Air Force contracting. So, at some point, how important is it that we grow a separate career path that allows us to have our own organic contracting officers to do this work? Is it civilians? Is it an officer corps? Do we use warrant officers? Do we use senior enlisted?”
“Right now, our scale allows us to take advantage of the Air Force and we’re doing OK,” Saltzman added. “But that could be something we really need to visit pretty quickly for the next three to five years.”
Personnel policies, especially the constraints on hiring more civilians for the defense establishment, have affected the service in other ways as well.
“There’s clearly an emphasis not to grow the civilian infrastructure in the federal government,” Saltzman said. “But we’re not getting the same pushback on Active-duty officers and enlisted.”
That has posed the question whether the service should plan to have more of its positions filled by Active-duty personnel or make its case down the road to take on more civilians.
“We’re just evaluating,” Saltzman said. “I think we’re OK right now, and we’ve got a growth plan that’s still in place.”
Some of those uniformed members will be unique, as the service is adopting a part-time service model, starting first with Reservists and then transitioning Guardsmen whose space missions are set to transfer from the Air National Guard to the Space Force on Oct. 1.
Air National Guardsmen have until Sept. 19 to apply to transfer into full-time—not part-time—positions in the Space Force. Air Force Reserve personnel have until Oct. 10 to apply to become the first part-time Guardians. Part-time Guardians will supplement full-time units, rather than have part-time units that are called into action.
“The traditional model for the Reserves and Guard are that they are organized into units, and those units are called up into Active-duty when the Active-duty can’t meet its mission requirements,” Saltzman said. “We are not going to have any part-time units. All Space Force units will be full-time units. But they will have part-time positions that augment them for various reasons.”
Saltzman previewed some examples of where part-time Guardians might be used.
“The institutional force, meaning our test community, our training community, our aggressors, the people that operate the ranges, those Space Force organizations that don’t have to maintain readiness. … that’s ideal for part-time,” he said. “So we’re going to surge for a test on GPS, we’ll bring some part-time people to help. We’re going to surge on a range activity, we’ll bring some part-time people to help. So we’re going to put part-time positions in all of those organizations and on the staffs where they can contribute. And there won’t be any part-time units that get called up.”
Despite the service’s development, one thing is for sure: the Space Force is here to stay. When the Space Force was established, some analysts questioned whether it was really needed. But few experts are questioning that now.
“Space is important to the military. Space is important to national security,” Saltzman said. “And we have adversaries trying to take those capabilities away. Now you have a service focused on trying to maintain those advantages. It’s as simple as that. … Once we walk through that, nobody challenges the value proposition, like, ‘Oh, we don’t need that.’”
