2024 USAF & USSF Almanac: U.S. Space Force

Lt. Gen. Stephen L. Davis, the Department of the Air Force’s top internal watchdog, has been nominated to lead Air Force Global Strike Command, which oversees the service’s bombers and intercontinental ballistic missiles. 

The Senate voted to confirm Space Force Gen. Michael A. Guetlein to his new job as “direct reporting program manager” for President Donald Trump’s Golden Dome missile defense initiative on July 17. 

The Senate Armed Services Committee this week released the full text of its version of the 2026 defense policy bill—often referred to as the National Defense Authorization Act—that would allow the Air Force and Space Force to spend billions of dollars more than the services had sought for next year.

The Space Force is promoting new noncomissioned officers at a breakneck pace, as the service announced another year of sky-high rates for junior NCOs.

The House Armed Services Committee on July 15 passed its draft of the 2026 defense policy bill, 55-2, in a late-night vote following nearly 14 hours of debate over hot-button issues ranging from President Donald Trump’s desire to use a Qatari jet as Air Force One to cutting military aid…

Combining the National Reconnaissance Office with the Space Force's Space Systems Command could help turbocharge national security space acquisition, argues Mark Berkowitz, the Trump administration's nominee to be assistant secretary of defense for space policy, in a newly published essay he coauthored.  

The Air Force and Space Force are both set to have new No. 2 officers. Gen. Thomas A. Bussiere has been nominated for Air Force Vice Chief of Staff and Lt. Gen. Shawn N. Bratton has been nominated to receive a fourth star as the Vice Chief of Space Operations.

A decade and a half after awarding a contract for a new ground control system to manage its GPS satellites, the Pentagon has finally gotten its hands on the thing. The Space Force officially took ownership of the GPS Next Generation Operational Control System, or OCX, the service announced this week.…

Space Force leaders have touted their “surveillance-as-a-service" TacSRT program as a success story, leveraging commercial firms to deliver information to users on timelines far faster than typical space intelligence assets. Now, lawmakers want the service to put more heft behind the effort—starting with actually funding the program in fiscal 2026.