Growth of the Space Force
September 14, 2026
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Gen. Kevin Chilton, USAF (Ret.):
Well, good afternoon everybody. I hope you had a chance to get a bite to eat. The lines are pretty long out there. And now the challenge is, I know right after lunch, to stay awake. So I think you’re not going to have any problem doing that with this panel. We got a great panel this afternoon to talk about a very important topic.
The establishment of the Space Force certainly recognized the reality that space is a warfighting domain. And I think our secretary made that even more clear this morning. As such, we can no longer solely focus on simply delivering supporting effects, but must be prepared to fight through attacks and deliver direct effects.
Over the past seven years, combat operations have proven the value of the new focus on space superiority. At the same time, additional missions and operational demands are stretching the personnel and resources of our smallest service. Meeting these demands requires growing the Space Force with people, training equipment, infrastructure, warfighting capacity, all necessary to deter aggression and to operate through attack and deliver space power at the speed and scale today’s threat environment demands. But doubling the size of the Space Force is easier said than done. Here to speak with us today is this great panel of leaders in our Space Force, and it’s my pleasure to be the moderator of the panel.
General Gagnon, I want to start the discussion with you since you’re the requirements guy, the man on top at Combat Forces Command. And despite the Space Force being the smallest service, it’s important continues to grow. Now, we see that kind of vaguely mentioned in reports, media reports about operations going on that space was critical. Even commanders are coming out and saying that. Can you help describe the change in demand that you’re seeing being placed not only on technology that you have, that you organize and train or equip, but also on your people?
Lt. Gen. Gregory J. Gagnon:
Yeah. Yeah, the demand signal at Combat Forces Command, which is the command that presents forces to all of the commanders of Space Forces across the Unified Combatant Command Plan, is growing exponentially. Of the six geographic combatant commands, all of them are asking me for help. Based on capacity, I can’t say yes to everyone and the joint staff can’t say yes to everyone. So the demand that you see for the Space Force is very real and it is also completely at a scale level unmet.
Our ask for resources in this presidential budget request is to double the size of your United States Space Force. That’s a United States Space Force that can execute inside the joint formation like you’re hearing General Caine and Admiral Cooper talk about on TV. But that’s also a Space Force in the future that delivers new capabilities from our domain. As the air is no longer the high ground, we must move certain sensing and other combat capabilities to outer space. Those capabilities will be executed by the Space Force you need to fund.
The Space Force today is not the Space Force you need. We are asking on the Hill to double the size of your United States Space Force in five years to do new things like expand orbital warfare, expand moving target indicator from space, expand tracking and sensing. But inside those numbers, we talk about doubling the number of people and you all know what that looks like. If you turned around in this room and doubled the number of people in the room, that would make sense to you.
But let me tell you a little bit about the flight path. The flight path is two years ago compared to today, we are already controlling 33 to about 50% more satellites in outer space. In the next three years, with our budget funded, we will command and control over 500% more. That’s a fivefold increase in the amount of kit that will be in outer space. And the people to do that will be the Guardians that we need to double in mass. And with that ask to the Hill, they also need the proper facilities and those proper facilities are in the ask as well. So that is what the growth of the Space Force will look like.
Gen. Kevin Chilton, USAF (Ret.):
And it’s not just in operations and people forget about planning too and all the component commands that have been set up around the regional combatant commands I suspect are not demand at the level that can really support their needs. Is that fair to say?
Lt. Gen. Gregory J. Gagnon:
That’s 100% fair to say. And if you ask the one-star generals or General Bythewood as a three-star general, “Do you need more people?” They would say, “Greg, I’ve already proved I needed more people. You have validated all these unfunded billets inside my organization.” The only way you put a face in an unfunded billet is through money and money comes from the Hill.
Gen. Kevin Chilton, USAF (Ret.):
There you go.
CMSSF John Bentivegna:
Sir, in this discussion, we use the phrase double the size of the Space Force, but I think in this context, numbers are important. Today, there’s less than 11,000 uniformed Guardians that are doing all the amazing things that General Gagnon talked about. So when we say doubling the size of the service, I mean going to 25,000 is doubling the size, but still, for the investment for the underpinning that we do for the joint force, it really is return on investment that you get from that because we’re so small, doubling the size just makes sense to be able to do all the things we have to do. Even though we’re killing it today with just under 11,000 Guardians, we need more.
Gen. Kevin Chilton, USAF (Ret.):
Well, new mission demands more people. And you guys, we learned this morning, have some capabilities and you’re going to grow those. And that’s a new mission area that we did not have before there was a Space Force, by policy. So it makes so much sense to grow the force, in my mind.
But if you’re going to grow a force, I just think back to pilot days, if you can say, “We need more pilots,” then you’re probably going to need more pilot training bases, more instructors, more training aircraft, et cetera. So this is really over to you, General Smith. Can you give us, with the demand for the new training requirements, give us a little sense of how that’s going at STARCOM?
Maj. Gen. James E. Smith:
Yeah, thanks General Chilton and thanks for having me on this panel. Great to be here with these teammates up here.
It was about a year ago at a conference we call Zenith with the CSO, I was briefing all the things we were doing to improve the Space Force from a quality standpoint. And CSO made some comment like, “Great. Why don’t you see if you can double your throughput at all those courses?” So for the last year, we’ve been focusing on how we might do that at STARCOM. If General Gagnon is the requirements owner, we’re the command that has the wonderful opportunity to figure out how we can execute against those requirements.
Really kind of two lines of efforts we’ve been focused on. One is how we get that quantity, but then two is how we get the quality, not just enough to create a pipeline to create more Guardians, we’ve got to have Guardians that have the right skill sets to execute these new missions.
So on the quantity front, we’ve been pushing hard to get after all those levers that you alluded to earlier, more facilities, more instructors, more kits in some cases, like cyber ranges. How can we build out to enable us to get after the growth that’s coming?
To give you some idea of the size of the growth that we’re talking about, there’s a 2X, a 3X, and a 4X that I’ve kind of been thinking about as to how we manage this. 2X is the growth of total number of Guardians. So in 2026, we produced roughly 1,000 Guardians. In 2027, we got to produce 3,000 Guardians. These are rough numbers, but I’ll give you a sense. Of those 3,000, in 2026, we produced 700 enlisted. We got to produce 1,400 enlisted in 2027. And this year we produced 400 officers and we got to produce roughly 1,600 officers next year. So a huge scaling problem.
Kudos to our Airmen partners that are here in the room. We still rely heavily on a lot of Air Force courses, so we’ve been working closely with AATC to figure out how we can increase the size of the pipeline. The good thing is a 4X growth of my officer pipeline is not a 4X growth of the Air Force pipeline just because the scale is so different.
The other thing I would mention on the quantity front, we have some Guardians, maybe some here in this room, that recently volunteered to help us with our instructor challenge. So we needed to get 75 instructors in place ASAP in order to be able to meet the numbers that we’ve been given in 2027. So we have some that are in mid-PCS cycle now, heading down to Maxwell, heading down to Lackland, heading down to our technical schools to ensure we have instructors in place to grow the Space Force that we need.
And then the second piece of that’s the quality piece. Like I mentioned, not just enough to produce numbers, we’ve got to produce numbers that have the right skill sets. So we’ve been working hard to figure out what those courses are and what the content needs to be in order to make sure Guardians are produced that understand a space and the space skills that they need to have.
So I think most people are tracking. We stood up an officer training course about a year ago. We’re just making it through the first year of graduates there. We just rolled out version 2.0 where we looked at the ways we can both streamline it, as well as ensure the content is more appropriate for what we need Guardians to do. We just created our own basic military training course ID down at Lackland. So now instead of a Guardian attending an Air Force course, they actually attend a Guardian course and we’re able to produce Guardians as they come out of basic military training at Lackland.
And then I would also highlight we just this year created a command and control course for all Guardians that are going down range to serve in the components that you talked about earlier. Important that Guardians understand Guardianship, but also important when they’re going to combat and commands that they understand the joint force. So this component course, a C2 course helps them understand that as well.
So at the end of the day, big challenge we’ve been given, but we’re fully postured to execute for FY27 and look forward to having a lot more of these seats full next year with new Guardians in place.
Gen. Kevin Chilton, USAF (Ret.):
General Smith, we’ve seen constipation, for lack of a better word, in the air domain, in the pilot training pipeline where there’s a demand and you just can’t get them through quickly enough because of infrastructure issues, aircraft, aging aircraft, number of instructors. If you’ve got all that you’ve just described, more instructors, more classrooms, chairs, whatever it takes, more training equipment, do you think there’s a chance to shorten the time it takes to get a Guardian prepared, particularly at the officer course level, which I understand is a year long, so that you can feed the requirements more quickly in the field?
Maj. Gen. James E. Smith:
Yeah. Thanks, General Chilton, for that question. We try not to refer to constipation too much in STARCOM. But if we step back for a second and think about what we’ve done on the officer training course, we took three courses. We took the Air Force’s intel course for officers, we took the Air Force’s cyber course for officers, and we took our Space Force 13S, our space operator course. Each of those was six months long. We combined them into one course and we sent every officer through, added some additional acquisition training for them, as well as some Guardianship training. So what we’ve really done is take about 20 months of coursework and put it into a year.
Is that the right answer? Probably not. I mentioned we just rolled out officer training course 2.0. That made some good improvements. However, we are also continuing to look at how we can, try not to use the word constipation again, but how we can relieve this backlog that we may have because the more people we can get through, the better we will be, given this challenge that we have. So I think we’re in a pretty good place, but I think there’s also some work we can continue to do both produce the quantity and the quality of Guardians we need.
Gen. Kevin Chilton, USAF (Ret.):
I thought it was the perfect word, General. I mean, we all understand what I was talking about, right?
Lt. Gen. Gregory J. Gagnon:
Hey, I shared this before, but one of the measures of quality in that officer training course is how quickly they train and get certified when they go to their operational unit.
And about five months ago, I had the opportunity to spend some time with the Guardians up at Buckley. And it was about a month into current combat operations and I talked to the crew commander who was leading a large crew and missile warning. And I asked him how his training was and he said it was good and he was ready. And that young man was probably about 24 years old. He was a Michigan grad and he was leading a crew of about two to three dozen people. And they were handling the extremely large volumes of fires that were taking place in CENTCOM and they were handling it flawlessly as a team and leading. So when people ask me what does readiness look like or what does effective officer training course look like, looks like that young lieutenant.
Gen. Kevin Chilton, USAF (Ret.):
Great. Thank you. Chief?
CMSSF John Bentivegna:
Yeah. In the growth, I’ve had several conversations with STARCOM and Delta 1 specifically, which Delta 1 is a Delta, Colonel St. Romain and Chief Dawson who’s responsible for a lot of training, especially on the enlisted side. But in this growth, they’re talking about the quality, the need to ensure, we have to make sure we hit end strength, but Delta 1 and STARCOM is a filter, it’s not a pump. So the quality, so for the American people to think about, hey, this growth, concerned about it, don’t, because we’re going to make sure that it is quality training and only individuals who should become Guardians are making it through that filter system, so that we have the right individuals on the ops floor. So as General Gagnon said, the amount of responsibility we thrust upon them soon, they are ready and prepared to accept it.
Gen. Kevin Chilton, USAF (Ret.):
Yeah. It’s not just technology, it’s leadership too, as you both point out. It’s great.
Ms. Kolbe, you’re in the installations and logistics side, which is, and I think Eisenhower wrote a book about this, how to win the war is really logistics. It’s not about strategy. It’s a really important part. Can you talk about the stresses that are being put on by the plan to double the size of the force? What does the Space Force need from an installation and even logistics, if you’d like to comment on that, capabilities as we go forward?
Kathryn Kolbe:
Sure. General Chilton, thank you for the question and thank you for the opportunity to be here today with my esteemed colleagues.
As we grow the end strength of the Space Force, we do face significant infrastructure shortfalls. And as we look across the Space Force, we can see those in four categories. The first is weapon system, new weapon systems infrastructure for the many new weapons systems that we’re going to be bringing online in the next five years. The second is space launch infrastructure to keep up with the ever-increasing cadence of space launch. The third is training pipeline infrastructure to keep up with the accessions, the growth of accessions that we’re going to experience over the next five years. And the last category is base operating support infrastructure to provide the services that we need for our Guardians wherever they’re stationed around the world so that they can continue providing the mission support, conducting the mission and get the support services that they need.
One of the things that we’re doing to help move as quickly as possible is standing up an infrastructure delivery authority. We’re partnering with the private sector to leverage their expertise with construction and to be able to exercise the authorities that were granted to us in the FY26 and DAA, so unique authorities that really haven’t been used in the Department of War in the past.
And we’re also creating some more centralized oversight of our construction enterprise while still allowing decentralized execution. So we’re building that now. We think that’s going to be able to help us to move more quickly in the future. In the meantime, we’re building temporary facilities for our operational units, for our training units, and for other requirements as they arise, as we plan, program, design, and construct our long-term facilities and infrastructure.
Gen. Kevin Chilton, USAF (Ret.):
Great. And the person who’s driving those requirements are sitting right here?
Kathryn Kolbe:
Both of these fine gentlemen. Yes, sir.
Gen. Kevin Chilton, USAF (Ret.):
Well, very good. That’s great. Someone’s got to deliver. Appreciate you.
Hey, Chief, let me ask you a question about ratios. And people have written about this, and I don’t know if they really care, but it does stand out that the current percentage of enlisted personnel in the force compared to officers is 52%. So about a little over half of the Guardians are in the enlisted force. Whereas in the United States Air Force, it’s about 80% enlisted, 20% officer. Can you explain the difference? And does it matter?
CMSSF John Bentivegna:
Yeah. So thanks for the question. And General, we get that discussion quite a bit, but I think you need to break down and think about the functions that the service is doing. General Gagnon and I were just having a conversation. When you talk about where the operations are done, where we need enlisted men and women, the subject matter experts on the weapon systems, I think you said the ratio is about one to four officer enlisted, right? So more normalized. Aggregate, when you talk about, hey, right now I think it’s 53% were enlisted, 47% officer.
But for the amount of engineering and acquisition work that the service does, drives when you look holistically what that number looks like. But when you look at the actual execution of the mission on a combat crews and the combat squadrons, it’s a little more normalized. But we have a lot of phenomenal officers doing acquisition engineering work for bringing on all the warfighting capabilities that we’re looking to procure and operationalize as fast as possible. So holistically, you just step back, say the ratio’s off, but I think where it matters, where we need enlisted members to utilize their training and their leadership operationally, we’re in a much better spot what that looks like ratio-wise.
Now, over the growth, when you look at the growth over the POM, over the FYDP, we have more requirements, we are going to grow more enlisted than we are going to grow officer. So I think just a couple years ago it was almost a flat 50/50. Now we’re 53% enlisted and I think that will continue to grow.
Lt. Gen. Gregory J. Gagnon:
And I would highlight that in sort of the five-year plan that we have for the United States Space Force, two thirds of the growth is into Combat Forces Command so that we can generate more combat crews and more force elements for the commanders of Space Forces. And that includes some of the capabilities that you’re all so very familiar with, but it also includes new capabilities. And those new capabilities need a highly specialized, highly trained crew. I would tell you in even some of the most complex things we do in Combat Forces Command, think mission Delta 9, orbital warfare. We do that with an officer enlisted compliment. We do that with a one to four ratio.
CMSSF John Bentivegna:
Yeah. And we talked about the demand signal, kind of what we learned. To General Gagnon’s point, there is an unsatiable desire for Guardian talent, whether it be on the combatant command staffs, on the joint staffs, our ally partners I see in the audience, integrating with our allies. I mean, when you look at the officer enlisted civilian roles and responsibilities, that integration of mission planning, I mean, we need more officers to do that. It’s just we have to get them into the service, give them some experience, and then we can send them off to do the amazing things that we have to do. It’s just we have so much growth potential, so much growth opportunity. I think the numbers are going to look a little skewed. But when you look at actually what we’re asking those officers and enlisted men and women to do, it looks right. We just got to get there and continue to grow.
Gen. Kevin Chilton, USAF (Ret.):
Yeah. Yeah, I remember General Raymond talking about when the Space Force stood up, particularly on the officer side, they were getting 10 applications for every slot that was available. People wanted to come in. And suddenly it mattered, not in every job, but it mattered if you had a degree in astronautical engineering or electrical engineering. And the technical competence of the officer core or background, for lack maybe a better word, grew in the force. We were talking backstage, you told me you don’t recruit enlisted into the Space Force, you do what?
CMSSF John Bentivegna:
We call it scouting.
Gen. Kevin Chilton, USAF (Ret.):
You scout for them.
CMSSF John Bentivegna:
I don’t like to call it recruiting, call it scouting. Scouting for the right talent for the men and women want to join this team and be a Guardian.
Gen. Kevin Chilton, USAF (Ret.):
Yeah. It’s not to deter applicants, but it’s that you know what you need and you’re going after-
CMSSF John Bentivegna:
That’s right.
Gen. Kevin Chilton, USAF (Ret.):
… very talented, young enlisted people.
CMSSF John Bentivegna:
Yeah. Look, so generally, we were talking about the importance of STEM in the space realm, but not necessarily does it mean… Obviously we need men and women in STEM, but when it comes to especially recruiting enlisted men and women, it’s looking for men and women of character and grit. They might not understand orbital mechanics or do RIK, right? But I know that General Smith and STARCOM can teach them that. So I’m just looking to get the right men and women, scout them out who have grit, determination and character, bring them on a team and I know General Smith and Chili will take care of the rest.
Gen. Kevin Chilton, USAF (Ret.):
Great.
Lt. Gen. Gregory J. Gagnon:
Yeah.
Gen. Kevin Chilton, USAF (Ret.):
And General Smith-
Lt. Gen. Gregory J. Gagnon:
If I could give you an example-
Gen. Kevin Chilton, USAF (Ret.):
I’m sorry, General Gagnon and then General Smith, please.
Lt. Gen. Gregory J. Gagnon:
Yeah. Last week, today’s Monday, right? Yeah. You end up flying on the weekend, so you forget what day is Monday. But last week we had the Weapons and Tactics Conference at Combat Forces Command and we had participation from all our elements in the Space Force and our foreign partners. Might not be known to people, but the person in the front of the room running that conference, keeping it on, not just on time, but producing work and promising me an 800% increase in certified tactics by December of next year, 15 months, 800% increase, is a master sergeant who went to weapons school and graduated and is running that for the command. This is not your parents’ Air Force. This is the Space Force. Our enlisted Guardians can do amazing things. We just have to continue to keep pushing the work down.
Gen. Kevin Chilton, USAF (Ret.):
Great. General Smith, did you-
Maj. Gen. James E. Smith:
I was just going to add some context on the numbers I shared earlier, which is relevant to this conversation. If you notice next year it’s 1,600 officers, 1,400 enlisted. That’s the only year where there’s more officers than enlisted. Subsequent years in the FYDP, in the POM, enlisted continues to grow while officers stay relatively steady. So over time, this ratio should change for these very reasons that these gentlemen are talking about.
Gen. Kevin Chilton, USAF (Ret.):
Great, thanks. Well, the growth of the Space Force as a warfighting operation must finally translate into increased capacity as we’ve talked about, new equipment, more people. But from your perspectives, and I’ll throw this out for all of you, we’ve already heard about the need for new infrastructure and logistic launch capabilities is obvious one, but what are some of the key aspects the Space Force must factor in to its growth to further its place as a warfighting service? General Gagnon?
Lt. Gen. Gregory J. Gagnon:
Today, yesterday, and for the last, I think 194 days, there have been Guardians inside the weapons engagement zone overseas. They’ve been delivering their tactical level capabilities into joint operations. There’s no other definition of combat.
Now, I will tell you, as we move ahead and integrate new capabilities into your Space Force, we must deliver the same combat credibility that we deliver from the ground in space. And in order to do so, there are some pieces still missing in our recipe. One of them is a fully constructed live virtual and constructed environment in order to do both tests, but also to do training. Because when combat forces trains for combat, we don’t want the adversary to have a front row seat. We want the ability to do that in a protected environment, so they don’t know about the type of tactics I’m developing, as my master sergeant promised to give me 800% more.
Gen. Kevin Chilton, USAF (Ret.):
Very good. And that was going to lead into my next question on OTTI, but let’s keep going on this thread because that’s a big part of it.
Maj. Gen. James E. Smith:
Sure. Yeah, I agree with General Gagnon on there. We need to go along those lines. We need trainers, that ties into the OTTI, which we can talk about in a second. The other piece though, specific to a factor that we’ve got to consider as a Space Force as we build out is we need Guardian specific, Guardian unique training. We’ve made some good progress in some areas. As I mentioned, we have our own basic military training course. We have created a space test course at Edwards for Guardians to learn test.
But there’s many areas where we still rely on the Air Force. And thank you to the Air Force and our Airmen brothers and sisters who helped train our Guardians. But at the end of the day, I don’t need Guardians who have been trained as Airmen. I need Guardians who’ve been trained as Guardians. Guardianship is different than Airmanship, which is the reason we stood up the Space Force. So we’re working hard to find what opportunities there are where we may create Guardianship courses, the same skill sets, but with a space flavor and a space focus so that the Guardians we grow… I mean, five years from now, every other person you meet in the Space Force is not in the Space Force today. And how did we as the Space Force train them in the last five years so that they understand the space domain and they can help us win in that domain?
Gen. Kevin Chilton, USAF (Ret.):
And when you get to the virtual kind of training and beyond the Green Door kind of capabilities, I would think though you would also like to, and this is one of the beauties of the Space Force and the Air Force being to combine together under the Department of the Air Force, to make sure those systems talk to each other because the integration of space and air power I would think would be a force multiplier.
Maj. Gen. James E. Smith:
Yeah. And don’t take my comments as we need to divorce ourselves from a systems standpoint–
Gen. Kevin Chilton, USAF (Ret.):
Okay, that’s what I was trying to understand.
Maj. Gen. James E. Smith:
Yeah, no, thanks for the opportunity to clarify. This is just like when the Air Force broke off from the Army, they trained people to be smart in the air domain. We need to train people to be smart in the space domain while integrating into the joint force, both the Air Force and every other service.
Gen. Kevin Chilton, USAF (Ret.):
Got it. Okay. Ms. Kolbe, did you want to add anything-
Kathryn Kolbe:
Yes, sir.
Gen. Kevin Chilton, USAF (Ret.):
… to the general warfighting shift here?
Kathryn Kolbe:
Sure. General Chilton, I would say that we see installations, infrastructure, sustainment, and logistics as key foundational enablers of our warfighting capabilities, from building modernized infrastructure to resilient infrastructure and being able to sustain our weapons systems in a contested environment. Those are all priorities for us.
From an operational test and training infrastructure perspective, I would say that we’re working closely with both the acquirers and the operators to understand their requirements and to incorporate them into the operational infrastructure that we are planning, designing, and will build, both in the physical and the digital domains, and also from an enterprise perspective, a connected perspective as you’re talking about, as well as from an individual weapons system perspective.
Gen. Kevin Chilton, USAF (Ret.):
Great, thank you. Chief?
CMSSF John Bentivegna:
Yeah, when you talk about creating a warfighting service, which I think is kind of how you posed the question, I think the training absolutely is something that we need to focus on, from the most foundational to turning civilians into Guardians. You heard the secretary this morning talk about at Air Force BMT, the flight line activities and training you’re going to do. He said it really quick, but he also I think said something about ops centers as well. So same thing on the Guardian perspective, what is the environment we throw them into, because they’re not necessarily on a flight and they’re going to be an operation center. How do they work together as a crew? How do they go crew turnover? How do they work as a team? That’s their operational footprint when they get out of training, that’s going to look like. So our ability to be able to grow and develop all of that so we can stress them and test them of what a Guardian is going to look like.
And then once they get into the service, the OTTI, absolutely. We spend a lot of time, and General Gagnon knows this coming out of the previous SO2, talking about the threat, talking about the vulnerabilities that not only that our adversaries have, but also that we have as a joint force. And allowing them to understand that they can get the reps and sets in an environment where they can do the high-end fight and hone their TTPs and all the WEPTAC, what General Gagnon talked about. We got to give them that environment. Like, sir, I’m sure you spend a lot of time out at Nellis. Where’s the Nellis for the Space Force? We have to be able to do that, I think is important.
The other thing on a warfighting credibility and growing the service goes back to what I said earlier. We have got to grow in competency and capacity. We’ve got to be able to integrate it broadly with the joint staff, with the combatant commands and our allies and partners because they absolutely want subject matter expertise to help better integration. And for us to continue to evolve as a warfighting service, I think that’s another need for the growth and the training and development that we’re doing for that.
Gen. Kevin Chilton, USAF (Ret.):
Great. And OTTI is Operational Test and Training Infrastructure. Couldn’t agree more, that did not exist before you got this new service and now a new mission. It’s even more important to have these training ranges, places where you can train, develop tactics where the adversary can’t see you do them, but that you know and are confident will be effective if the balloon ever goes up. So those are all great things.
Let me talk a little bit about terrestrial support. So Ms. Kolbe, the Satellite Control Network is spread around the world. It’s probably old, it needs upgrading, but probably needs augmenting with these new capabilities coming on and a lot of the different things we’re talking about, we’ve talked about today we need. Can you talk a little bit about the needs for investment in just basic terrestrial infrastructure to support the space domain?
Kathryn Kolbe:
Sure, sir. Thank you for the question. We absolutely, as we grow and scale the Space Force, need to also grow and scale the terrestrial footprint. And this year for the FY27 budget, MILCON budget, we submitted the largest investment in MILCON in Space Force history. If appropriated, we would receive $2.2 billion and that investment would go towards the construction of four consolidated or resilient space operations centers across the country. Those centers would house many new weapon systems. They would house operations, cyber, intel, and sustainment squadrons to support the growth of the Space Force.
We also incorporated, we would continue to look at requirements for the space launch enterprise. In the ’27 budget, we had quite a few requirements to grow the infrastructure at Cape Canaveral, as well as weapon systems infrastructure across the service and the entire globe where we have Guardians based.
So we are defending that budget ask now. We’re hopeful that we will have success and we’re continuing to build out requirements for future years to grow that terrestrial footprint that you’re speaking about.
Gen. Kevin Chilton, USAF (Ret.):
Terrific. Let me follow up and this is for both you and General Gagnon. Typically, our terrestrial infrastructure is in fixed facilities, which I think if we just observe what’s going on in the Middle East today, fixed facilities are being targeted by long range missiles, long range attack weapons. How does this play into your calculus for requirements for the future for you General Gagnon in particular to sustain the survivability? We talk a lot about resiliency and survivability of the on-orbit assets. When you think about the terrestrial assets, what are you thinking there to increase that resilience and survivability, if you think it’s necessary?
Lt. Gen. Gregory J. Gagnon:
I do think it’s necessary and so does the Space Force. Space Force has actually two programs already pursuing a proliferation of the ability to send TT&C to outer space. That’s the satellite commands that you would send up. One of them is called SCAR, which is Satellite Control Augmentation Resiliency, I think actually. So it’s your exact question. So that’s the building of additional sites around the world.
So one of the things you want to do if you want to make things resilient, you want to proliferate how many there are because then it becomes more difficult for the adversary to target them in multiple different countries. So in order to have an effective global network, you need global partners. That’s something America has. That’s something our adversaries don’t have.
The second thing is called JAM. And off the top of my head, I think it’s like Joint Augmented something or other, but it’s using commercial as a TT&C method into US Space Force assets in space. And SSC has been moving forward with this JAM architecture as well. So then the adversary won’t actually know what uplink site is communicating with our satellites. And that, based off of scale and scope, could be tremendously difficult for our adversaries to target. So we have though of this.
Gen. Kevin Chilton, USAF (Ret.):
Yeah, and there’s a big role for our allies and partners around the world, it sounds like.
Lt. Gen. Gregory J. Gagnon:
Absolutely.
Gen. Kevin Chilton, USAF (Ret.):
We say geography matters in the space domain. Terrestrial geography-
Lt. Gen. Gregory J. Gagnon:
Yes, sir.
Gen. Kevin Chilton, USAF (Ret.):
… matters, for sure. Did you want to add something, General Smith? No?
Maj. Gen. James E. Smith:
No.
Gen. Kevin Chilton, USAF (Ret.):
Okay. I’m sorry.
Kathryn Kolbe:
I would just add that we are absolutely looking at geographic dispersal to create resiliency in our Space Force infrastructure and we’ll continue to do that, as well as hardening of our assets to be able to survive in a contested environment.
Gen. Kevin Chilton, USAF (Ret.):
Great, thanks. Well, yeah, Chief, please go ahead.
CMSSF John Bentivegna:
Yeah, the only thing I would add on that, and just going back again to our international partners, and General Gagnon mentioned it, as we talk to our partners trying to grow their nascent space capabilities and some of the discussion is, “Hey, what are the systems we should buy? And how do we develop a professional space cadre?” And those are all good initiatives. But sometimes when you end up partnering with the United States, it’s just “You got a patch of land that we could put a sensor or a station on?” Because you said geography is everything in the space domain. So sometimes it’s just building those relationships so we can partner with our allies that, “Hey, we need to be able to put part of the NCN site or expansion, whatever we’re going to do there.” Which is vitally important because geography, to your point, is global and it’s everything.
Gen. Kevin Chilton, USAF (Ret.):
Great. Thanks. Well, we’re running out of time here, so I’m going to give you each 45 seconds for final thoughts. Chief, let’s start with you.
CMSSF John Bentivegna:
For the Guardians that are in the audience, all this discussion about growing a service, you know the amazing work you’re doing, you know how hard that you are working, you know how you are valued by the joint and coalition force. And we’ve heard you and we are moving out and from the leaders that sit up here, we’re advocating to get you the resources and the time you need so we can do the investments.
For those of you who are helping us with a budget, I hope you listen to what we’re saying. We really need help. 27’s got to come through for us to build the future that the nation is demanding of us because the Guardians are doing amazing stuff.
Gen. Kevin Chilton, USAF (Ret.):
Thanks, Chief. Ms. Kolbe?
Kathryn Kolbe:
Yes, sir. I would just close by saying if there’s one thing I would like the audience to walk away with is that installations, infrastructure, sustainment, and logistics are a key enabler for warfighting capability for the Space Force. That is our focus and we will continue to work to improve those resources to provide enhanced warfighting capability. And we are moving as quickly as we can. We will leverage all the legislative authorities that we can that have been made available to us. And we plan to partner closely with the private sector to leverage their expertise and innovation to get to where we need to go.
Gen. Kevin Chilton, USAF (Ret.):
Thank you. Thank you. General Smith?
Maj. Gen. James E. Smith:
Yeah, thanks, sir. Two things. One, we will absolutely succeed at meeting and executing the task we’ve been given to grow in size, thanks to the partnership across the Space Force and really the joint force in helping us make that happen.
And then second, we all need to remember that’s not the goal. The goal isn’t to grow. The goal is to create a force that can deter and win if necessary. So while we must succeed at doubling, ultimately we must succeed at the greater mission, which is ensuring our nation and protecting our nation’s interest from and to space. Thanks.
Gen. Kevin Chilton, USAF (Ret.):
Well said. General Gagnon.
Lt. Gen. Gregory J. Gagnon:
Yeah. Space superiority is a joint priority, but they’re asking you, all of you, to lead it and deliver it. Space superiority starts with space control. Space control and combat power starts with training and rehearsal.
Today, 60% of Combat Forces Command lacks a full simulation trainer. In the next two to three years, in the next 36 months, we have worked a roadmap with our teammates in STARCOM and SSC to close that gap by over half. That is critical capability that might not be seen in outer space. It might not be seen on a runway. It’ll be inside those resilient ops centers that Kathryn’s going to build, but that is the special sauce that will deliver combat credibility to the joint force and in turn, continue to deliver the high ground for America.
Gen. Kevin Chilton, USAF (Ret.):
Thank you. Absolutely ambitious, inspiring, and in need of a fiscal year ’27, ’28, and ’29 budget. So hopefully we will see that because in my view, continuing resolutions just set us back in this area. And this is an area that clearly needs additional funding, additional growth, both in capability, infrastructure, and personnel to get what needs to be done for national security of the United States of America.
Chief, Ms. Kolbe, General Smith, General Gagnon, thanks for your time on stage. How about a round of applause for this great panel?