President Donald Trump announced on Tuesday afternoon that Space Command will move its headquarters from Colorado Springs, Colorado, to Huntsville, Alabama.
Trump, flanked by the Alabama congressional delegation in the Oval Office, said his decision would create 30,000 jobs in the state and “probably much more than that,” as well as “hundreds of billions of dollars of investment.”
Both states, and lawmakers representing the citizens who live there, have battled for several years over which location should house the headquarters in the long term, given the significant economic opportunities associated with it. Trump’s announcement on Tuesday is the latest development in the long-running saga that dates back to his first term.
Trump “is restoring it to precisely where it should be based on what the Space Force, the Air Force, your leadership believes will give us a strategic advantage in the future,” Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said during the press conference.
They did not provide details about the time it would take to make the Alabama facility operational or any associated costs.
US Space Command released a statement saying it “stands ready to carry out the direction of the President following today’s announcement of Huntsville, Alabama, as the command’s permanent headquarters location.”
The entire delegation of Colorado legislators in Washington released a joint statement saying the decision “will directly harm our state and the nation,” arguing that moving headquarters “sets our space defense apparatus back years, wastes billions of taxpayer dollars, and hands the advantage to the converging threats of China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea.”
The group said they will “take the necessary action” to “keep” Space Command in Colorado.
Trump’s address was unintentionally preempted by the Department of Defense, which posted a link for a livestream titled “U.S. Space Command HQ Announcement,” which has since been changed.
In July 2023, then-President Joe Biden announced his decision to keep Space Command’s headquarters in Colorado, overturning a last-minute decision by Trump at the end of his first term, which he will, in effect, reinstate.
THE DANGEROUS FOLLY OF RELOCATING SPACE COMMAND TO ALABAMA
Space Command achieved full operational capability in December 2023. A senior Biden official said at the time that keeping the headquarters in Colorado would avoid any disruption in readiness that could occur while relocating. The official also told the Washington Examiner at the time that a new site in Alabama would not open until “the early to mid-2030s.”
Former Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall concluded that it was best to move the headquarters to Alabama, while Army Gen. James Dickinson, former Space Command combatant commander, disagreed.
The root question “came down to a judgment about the operational risk associated with relocating versus the reduced costs of the leading alternative of Huntsville, Alabama,” Kendall said in written testimony ahead of a congressional hearing in September 2023.
“My assessment was that the projected cost savings together with the availability of potential mitigation measures outweighed the operational risks that have been identified,” he said. “General Dickinson assessed these considerations differently.”
The debate over which state should house Space Command has also taken on political weight. Colorado is a blue state, while Alabama is red. Republican lawmakers from Alabama expressed optimism that Trump would move the headquarters to their state after claiming Biden allowed politics to influence his decision to keep it in Colorado.
Trump’s decision will anger the Colorado delegation on Capitol Hill.
One of the most influential lawmakers involved in the debate is Rep. Mike Rogers (R-AL), chairman of the House Armed Services Committee. He and Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) accused Biden of basing his decision on politics and promised to keep fighting to bring Space Command’s headquarters to Huntsville.
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The Air Force identified Huntsville, which is home to the Army’s Redstone Arsenal and Space and Missile Defense Command, as its preferred location in 2021.
A Pentagon inspector general review released earlier this year noted that constructing temporary operational facilities with the same capacity, connectivity, and security already in use in Colorado would take three to four years.
