PETERSON AIR FORCE BASE, Colorado — Space operators can almost feel aloft as they walk alongside dangling model satellites in the atriums of Building One at the headquarters of U.S. Space Command, and the future home of Space Operations Command, or SpOC, at Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado Springs.
The building as of Wednesday afternoon will serve as the home of SpOC, the first of three field commands to be created under Space Force.
Space Force commander Gen. Jay Raymond told the Washington Examiner a day ahead of the SpOC stand-up ceremony that the field command is not just another bureaucratic creation, it’s part of developing Space Force’s culture.
“It’s another beautiful day in Colorado,” Raymond announced as he sat at the head of a conference room table for an interview, four stitched silver stars shining on each shoulder.
“We’re here to stand up Space Operation Command, which really represents the most significant restructure of the national security space, probably since the early 80s,” he said.
The Space Force has intentionally eliminated bureaucratic layers in its structure, flattening the organizational structure and elevating the highly qualified airmen and space professionals now entering the service.
“We’re organizing this in a way that will also get after our culture, to say to the very young airman aerospace professionals that are part of this organization, make decisions and move out,” said Raymond, who traveled from his Pentagon office for the event. “There’s no longer five layers of leadership over the top of you.”
Space Force’s new service component, SpOC, will be responsible for organizing, training, and equipping the Space Force’s space units.
Established Dec. 20, 2019, Space Force is the sixth and newest armed service. Its combatant command, Space Command, was established four months prior and has temporary residence at Peterson while a permanent basing decision is made in late 2020 or early 2021, though Peterson is still thought to be the front-runner.
“They’re very focused on culture, which is not something you can even start to change overnight,” Center for Strategic and International Studies space security expert Kaitlyn Johnson explained to the Washington Examiner.
“They are focused on a lot of these not flashy issues like organization and basing, and construct and getting the right people into the right jobs,” she said.
“They are working with people who have already been trained. They are working with satellites that already exist, but they’re very focused on making it a different service and not just pulling out what was in the Air Force and letting it live on its own.”
Gen. Raymond described the pride in the first 86 Air Force cadets who graduated this April with silver Space Force sashes on their uniforms. The founding father of Space Force sees SpOC as another step in that foundational story.
“We’re building off of a legacy that’s really strong to begin with,” he said. “We’re coming up on 10 months old, and one of the important things that we get to do is to design this force from a clean sheet of paper and build that culture from the ground up. Things that we’re stressing in our culture is a war-fighting culture, space as a war-fighting domain, just like air, land, and sea.”
Raymond recognized that peer adversaries China and Russia are fielding weapons in space and land-based weapons capable of reaching satellites. The commander also stressed that Space Force is designed to field an offensive capability as well.
“It’s important to note that this Space Force is an armed service. It’s not NASA. It’s not commercial space. It is a military space,” he told the Washington Examiner.
“Let me be really clear, really clear: We do not want to get into a fight that begins or extends into space. We want to deter that from happening,” he added.
When asked when the Space Force might field offensive weapons, Raymond demurred but insisted the United States considers space a vital national security interest.
“If anybody were to interfere with those vital national interests, we’ll respond at a place, time, domain, and manner of our choosing,” Raymond said, pausing to emphasize the word “domain.”
Raymond also said the U.S. is prepared now to defend space assets, and the purpose of Space Force is to stay ahead of the threat.
“I’m very comfortable that I can protect and defend our capabilities today,” he said. “The reason why U.S. Space Command is so important, and the reason why the United States Space Force is so important is that we want to go fast to stay ahead of a growing threat.”
