AURORA, Colo.—U.S. Space Command will offer “significant relocation bonuses” to its civilians who choose to move to the command’s new home in Huntsville, Ala., after President Donald Trump ordered the headquarters to relocate last September.
“We are trying to do everything we can to incentivize our workforce,” Gen. Stephen N. Whiting told reporters Feb. 24 at AFA’s Warfare Symposium here. “I’ve said to our civilian workforce, I want to make this decision as difficult as it can be for them because we’re putting our money where our mouth is that we need their expertise to sustain our mission.”
To that end, SPACECOM has established a retention bonus for staff before the move gets underway, he said.
Space Command is currently located in Colorado Springs, Colo. President Donald Trump selected Huntsville, Ala., as the permanent headquarters, reversing the decision by former President Joe Biden to keep the command in Colorado.
The move is largely expected to take place in the next three years as the command waits for new state-of-the-art facilities to be built.
“The direction we’ve been given is to move a significant portion of our staff in the next three years to Redstone, even as we’re building the permanent headquarters facility that’ll be designed just for us,” Whiting said. Some 1,400 jobs are expected to move to Alabama.
The command will also hire people locally in Alabama, though he noted the jobs will be open to applicants from across the country who may want to work for SPACECOM in Alabama.
“We, in the near future, will be advertising to hire people right from Huntsville,” Whiting said. “We’ll be hiring new people there who won’t come to Colorado Springs and then move as their functions begin to transfer.”
It is rare for a U.S. military command to move, particularly one with such a large civilian workforce.
Little information has been provided about the new SPACECOM headquarters building that is to be built at Redstone, including when it will be open and how much it will cost.
“You should expect over the next few years that we will be opening multiple temporary facilities,” Whiting said.
Last month, SPACECOM opened its first building at Redstone Arsenal, with around 40 personnel. It is led by a two-star Army general, Maj. Gen. Terry Grisham, who has a Space Force colonel serving as his deputy. Most of that staff has relocated from the current facilities in Colorado Springs, Colo.
Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has pushed to speed up the move. In December, Hegseth visited Redstone to unveil a sign at the location of the new command, which was an empty field.
“We’re going to be able to build this facility in a new and different way than the traditional [military construction] way, trying to do that faster and cheaper to deliver for U.S. Space Command,” Whiting said. “We’ve got to do all that site prep to develop the facility, so that’s going to be a multi-year effort, but our goal is to minimize that time. That’s the real advantage that we want to get to, is that purpose-built facility.”
The new retention bonus Whiting discussed will be paid out over several years, he said. Civilians will also have their move paid for.
“We’re hopeful that these incentives will help us to get a much bigger percentage of the workforce to move than historically,” Whiting said.
The Space Force is moving to bolster its contributions to the long-range kill chains that industry and government officials agree the U.S. will need in a large-scale conflict, leaders said Feb. 24 at AFA’s Warfare Symposium.
