The Space Force plans to establish a new headquarters staff group focused on force design and analysis that will oversee and guide a number of future-oriented organizations, including the Space Warfighting Analysis Center and the Chief Science Officer.
In a March 31 memo obtained by Air & Space Forces Magazine, Chief of Space Operations Gen. Chance Saltzman writes that the new SF/S9 staff group will be established April 21 and will “support the CSO in execution of the statutory responsibility to serve as the Force Design Architect for Space for the Armed Forces.”
“These responsibilities include but are not limited to forecasting the USSF’s future operating environment, developing and validating service-level operational concepts and doctrine and lessons learned, developing and maintaining the USSF’s force design, and prioritizing the USSF’s science and technology efforts,” Saltzman writes.
Breaking Defense first reported on the memo. A Department of the Air Force spokesperson declined to elaborate on the memo, stating that it “speaks for itself.”
The SF/S9 responsibilities Saltzman lists are in line with his earlier vision to establish a fourth Space Force field command focused on forward-looking concepts and integrating the functions of the Space Warfighting Analysis Center with two new centers—a Wargaming Center and a Concepts and Technology Center. The service debuted the concept for a Space Futures Command as part of a broader Department of the Air Force “re-optimization” initiative aimed at focusing the Air Force and Space Force’s organizations, structures, and processes on countering threats in the Indo-Pacific.
The Pentagon put that re-optimization plan on hold last year amid senior leader transitions and as Air Force Secretary Troy Meink settled into his role and identified his own priorities for the service. Meink has since abandoned some elements of the Air Force’s plan, including the standup of the Air Force’s Integrated Capabilities Command to oversee requirements and capability development in a more holistic way.
On April 1, the Air Force announced it would absorb the ICC’s responsibilities into its headquarters as part of its Strategy, Design, and Requirements Directorate, A5/7.
“By consolidating the core functions of Integrated Capabilities Command (Provisional) directly into Headquarters Air Force, rather than establishing a separate major command, the Air Force streamlines capability development with force design refinement and requirements for force modernization,” the service said.
Saltzman has previously indicated that despite the Air Force changes, plans for a futures-like command for the Space Force were moving ahead, though he said in November that the name would change. In December, Saltzman said in a joint briefing with Meink that while the Air Force had shed a number of the re-optimization initiatives, the Space Force would retain all of the space-related elements of the strategy, to include the new field command.
“We’re keeping all of it,” Saltzman told reporters at the Spacepower Conference. “Because it’s all just a natural part of the Space Force evolution since our inception.”
As recently as late February, Saltzman told reporters that the Air Force Secretary would make a decision by this summer about “exactly what establishment looks like,” and said the service was working through final details, to include a headquarters location for the command.
“We’ve taken a very deliberate approach to make sure we’ve got our mission analysis done,” Saltzman said during a Feb. 24 roundtable at AFA’s Warfare Symposium, adding that Meink is “committed to all of those functions that this new command will be dedicated to: the objective force, defining a future operating environment, handling all the modeling and simulation.”
The Space Force had hoped to have the field command’s structure in place last year to help draft its first “objective force” document, which details what platforms, support, and structure it will need over the next 15 years. The new memo indicates SF/S9 will play a key role in updating that vision and crafting future versions of the document.
Along with the SWAC and the Chief Science Officer, the SF/S9 will oversee the following organizations:
- Space Security and Defense Program, a joint effort between the Defense Department and the intelligence community to improve the resilience of national security space systems
- Assigned and detailed personnel from Task Force Futures
- Space Delta 10, the Space Force’s doctrine, wargaming, and experimentation organization
- Most of the Space Combat Power organizations within System Delta 89, excluding Space Safari and the Rapid Reaction branch
- S9 Analysis Directorate