The Space Force celebrates its fifth birthday Dec 20, but Chief of Space Operations Gen. B. Chance Saltzman is already looking ahead to Year 6.
Saltzman listed seven major initiatives for 2025 in an event at the Center for Strategic and International Studies on Dec. 17, beginning with a campaign for more money.
It’s a “large list for a small service,” Saltzman said. “But we’re used to that by now. This is work that has to get done. It’s critical to the future of the joint force and to the Space Force, critical to the lethality of the joint force and critical to the safety and security of our nation today.”
Bigger Budget
The Space Force grew at a steady, rapid pace in the past five years to reach today’s force of 15,000 military and civilian personnel and an overall budget of about $29 billion.
Yet USSF faces its first spending cuts in the proposed fiscal 2025 budget and advocates are increasingly calling for more resources. The Space Force is taking on more responsibilities, but not getting the funds or people to do it.
Saltzman is taking the lead on fighting for more. “Personally, I intend to employ an advocacy blitz to increase our budget to field timely counter-space capabilities,” Saltzman said. “And I’m going to operationalize the congressionally directed role that I have as the Department of Defense’s force design architect for space.”
Much will depend on who takes over as Secretary of Defense and Secretary of the Air Force. With Republicans poised to control Congress and the White House in 2025, prospects for increased defense spending are rising. But whether the Space Force will get much of a share of any increase is another question.
“I’m not just asking for a top line that goes up because I think all budgets should go up,” he said. “I’m asking for it because there’s new mission associated with this counter-space capability that we need to invest in, and that’s going to naturally [require] an increase in resources.”
Part-Time Guardians
When Congress passed the Space Force Personnel Management Act last year, it allowed the Space Force to manage part-time and full-time Guardians in a single component, without a conventional Guard or Reserve. But the law gave USSF four years to make the transition and iron out all the technical details.
Saltzman wants to move faster. “We’re going to finish the implementation of the Space Force Personnel Management Act,” he declared. Part-time Guardians will join the force by the end of 2025—two years ahead of schedule.
The first part-timers will likely transfer from the Air Force Reserve, with members of the Air National Guard transitioning later; the 2025 National Defense Authorization Act, passed earlier this month, allows such transfers, and the bill now awaits the president’s signature.
On the other hand, President Trump promised last summer to establish a Space National Guard. That would require new legislation and reversing existing legislation. It is possible that moving fast now can forestall that possibility later.
Space Futures Command
Saltzman pledged to stand up Space Futures Command in 2025 and to “publish an objective force for 2025.” The Space Force announced plans for Space Futures, its fourth Field Command, last February to refine the vision and define the needs for the future of the Space Force. It will complement Space Systems Command, which will remain the primary acquisition arm for the force.
Space Futures will also be the a counterpart to the Air Force’s new Integrated Capabilities Command, responsible for setting requirements and unifying and coordinating the force-planning process.
The Air Force stood up a provisional ICC in September but Space Futures has been slower to stand up. Saltzman said he wants the command up and running early in 2025 so they can start work on a study to define the Objective Force by summer; the study will lay out “all the things the service needs to invest in, in order to make sure we have capabilities on the other side,” he said.
Component Commands
The Space Force established its first component inside a combatant command in late 2022 with U.S. Space Forces Indo-Pacific. Since then, the service has created Space Forces Europe-Africa, Space Forces Central, and Space Forces-Space, components to U.S. European and Africa Commands, Central Command, and Space Command.
Space Force components for six remaining combatants will be established in 2025, Saltzman said, promising to “finish” the job at U.S. Northern Command, U.S. Strategic Command, U.S. Southern Command, U.S. Cyber Command, U.S. Special Operations Command, and U.S. Transportation Command.
Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture
The Space Development Agency has purchased more than 450 satellites for its low-Earth orbit Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture. But so far, just 27 of those spacecraft have launched.
In 2025, “we’re going to accelerate Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture to operations,” Saltzman said. Having tested and vetted the system with its “Tranche” demonstrations, the Space Force will launch the first “Tranch 1” satellites as soon as April.
Mission Control
With more and more satellites in orbit, aging ground systems like the Satellite Control Network will struggle to keep up. In 2025, “we have plans to deploy the next generation of mission control capabilities to relieve stress on the satellite control network,” Saltzman said.
Those capabilities include the Satellite Communications Augmentation Resource, a program run by the secretive Space Rapid Capabilities Office. Director Kelly Hammett told reporters at last week’s Spacepower Conference that the new antennae will be fielded in the Indo-Pacific region in 2025.
Launch Tempo
The number of space launches will continue to rocket upward in 2025. Vandenberg Space Force Base in California and Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida are straining to meet increased demand, and leaders say billions in new investment is needed to expand capacity. Saltzman wants to see results in 2025.
“We’re going to further expand the launch support tempo and its capacity in the infrastructure,” he said.
