The report calls for a
new unified combatant command, U.S. Space Command, which will be led by a four-star general responsible for overseeing space operations. It also creates a Space Development Agency, which will be a joint rapid procurement agency for space assets.
However, it’s not immediately clear whether these new organizations will replace or be a complement to similar, already existent ones in the long term — an uncertainty that could have major implications for the Air Force, which owns and operates most of the military’s space infrastructure.
Shanahan imagines the Space Development Agency will be “carved out” from the Air Force’s Space and Missile Systems Center — meaning some resources and programs currently in SMC could be transferred to the Space Development Agency, but that the center would still exist independently.
But whether SMC will eventually shift from Air Force ownership to Space Force control remains unknown.
On the new U.S. Space Command, Selva noted that some forces from Air Force Space Command would move from the Air Force to Space Force but left the door open on whether the Air Force would be allowed to retain some of its space capability.
“The first steps are to make sure that you do no harm to the missions that are being accomplished today,” he said. “We have to sit down and determine how we’re going to migrate those missions from where they are to where they [will] land. All of that will be subject to the consent of Congress.”
One priority stated in the report was to “grow the number and quality” of space personnel to meet the needs of the U.S. Space Command, something that could also increase. However, Shanahan noted at multiple points that
President Donald Trump and Mick Mulvaney, head of the Office of Management and Budget, have explicitly directed the department to not add any overhead.
“People get an allergic reaction to adding overhead or unnecessary bureaucracy,” he said. “I’ve been with the president at multiple times. He always hammers on me: ‘Are you taking cost out? Are you reducing unnecessary regulations? Are you reducing bureaucracy?’ ”
By not having a firm plan in hand, the Defense Department could be opening itself to a smaller, more limited version of the Space Force that still allots the Air Force a great deal of say-so on space.
Mackenzie Eaglen, a defense analyst with the American Enterprise Institute, noted that there’s still “time for the Goldilocks position to prevail” — meaning a middle ground between Trump’s Space Force proposal for a brand-new service and a more modest set of organizational changes.
There are a lot of steps the Pentagon will need to take before a Space Force is set up, and during that process, as department officials put together the budget and its strategic priorities, there are multiple off-ramps where the effort could be undone, delayed or watered down, she said.
This won’t necessarily be a partisan, political fight, but “over time, bureaucracy does what bureaucracy does,” and the Trump administration could still claim a win for enacting big changes to the military space enterprise by standing up U.S. Space Command and emphasizing a faster acquisition process, she added.
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