Building a combat-ready force
U.S. Space Force emphasizes workforce readiness, advanced training as keys to success
Apogee
The United States Space Force is taking a multitiered approach as it prepares for a new era in space defense. With an eye toward the growing counterspace capabilities of China and Russia, the service isn’t relying solely on highly sophisticated, or exquisite, spacecraft to maintain its edge. In addition to collaborating with allies and industry partners, it fields a combat-credible force of specialized, highly trained Guardians, officers and civilians to meet high-tech demands.
Space Force Gen. B. Chance Saltzman, chief of space operations, has long prioritized workforce readiness. “If we have exquisite weapon systems, exquisite systems on orbit to provide joint capabilities, but our Guardians and our operators do not have the skills, the training, the experience they need to make the most out of those systems, then I feel like we are not really fully combat ready, fully ready to do those critical mission tasks,” he told U.S. lawmakers during his September 2022 confirmation hearing.
That call to develop a highly trained fighting force has only escalated. In early 2023, Saltzman outlined the force’s long-term vision, including his aim for a multimillion-dollar training platform to sharpen tactical skills. The Operational Test and Training Infrastructure would serve as “the backbone of Space Force readiness as Guardians prepare for a high-intensity fight,” he told the Senate Armed Services Committee.
“This infrastructure will allow Guardians to execute realistic training against simulated adversaries to validate their tactics,” he said. The service received $340 million to fund the effort through fiscal year 2024. In addition to familiarizing service members with technology and tactics to defend against on-orbit attacks, the infrastructure will expose Guardians to counterspace strategies, cyberwarfare and electronic warfare tactics, including signal jamming, which Ukraine has used extensively to deflect Russian drone and guided-missile attacks.
The Space Force aims to eventually house much of its training operation in the National Space Test and Training Complex (NSTTC). Administered by the Space Training and Readiness Command (STARCOM), the NSTTC will be a network of simulated and live orbital ranges. Training modules will mimic satellites on orbit. Guardians and other personnel will learn to control and maneuver satellites, adjust attitude control, perform rendezvous and docking procedures, calculate a satellite’s trajectory, and resolve technical issues. The training also will cover cybersecurity and defending against data link and ground station attacks. And the complex will enable testing and evaluation of spacecraft and related systems.
The service requested $196 million in fiscal year 2025 for the NSTTC, up from $21.8 million the previous year.
“We’ve got to train. We’ve got to have the ranges,” Saltzman said at a 2023 conference hosted by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a U.S.-based think tank. “We’ve got to develop our tactics, test them and simulate them. And that means that I’ve got to build new infrastructure.”
The NSTTC is operated by Space Delta 11, Range and Aggressors and housed at Schriever Space Force Base in Colorado Springs, Colorado. Its training and testing programs are divided into four categories:
- Electromagnetic Warfare Range, to test “developmental and operational space systems and to train/exercise space operations crews of all services in a live, virtual and constructive environment,” according to STARCOM.
- Orbital Warfare Range, to train operators in on-orbit warfare strategies.
- Cyber Warfare Range, to provide the “integration of Computer Network Operations with air, space and cyberspace domain planning, execution, feedback and monitoring.”
- Digital Warfare Environment, to enable warfighters to “plan and execute space operations in a contested, degraded and operationally limited environment.”
While the Space Force develops the NSTTC, it is introducing training modules to support its mission. At the Interservice/Industry Training, Simulation and Education Conference in Orlando, Florida, in December 2024, then-STARCOM Commander Maj. Gen. Timothy A. Sejba said the service is taking a hybrid approach to technology — combining legacy systems with newer commercial tools.
“The only way we’re going to be able to support the joint force and our allies is to partner with industry differently than we have in the past,” he said, according to Defense News.
To supplement its capabilities, the Space Force is using a 10-year, $12 billion Space Enterprise Consortium contract — a purchasing program that enables the force to accelerate the acquisition process by ordering from more than 750 preapproved companies, Defense News reported.
At the Air and Space Forces Association Warfare Symposium in February 2024, Saltzman reiterated the need for a proficient, combat-credible force. “Looking forward, we know there are substantial organizational, training and equipping challenges that could impact the Space Force’s ability to ensure its systems and operators are ready for full-spectrum combat operations in the space domain,” he said. “Therefore, we must develop and maintain capable, sustainable, adaptive and collaborative architectures to conduct realistic test and evaluation, full-spectrum training, and tactics validation to ensure maximum warfighting readiness.
“Improved readiness will help us better orient space forces toward the high-end fight and ensure our Guardians can win in the contested space domain.”
At the 40th Space Symposium in April 2025 in Colorado Springs, STARCOM leaders discussed the command’s goals and training, and how to involve officers, enlisted personnel and civilians. The shared purpose: to secure the nation’s interests in space, as well as those of allies.
“Our officers are our primary joint planners,” Brig. Gen. Matthew Cantore, deputy commander of STARCOM, said during a panel discussion. “Our enlisted are the service’s primary warfighters … and our civilians give us opportunities for longevity [and] increased technical specification where needed.”
Sejba said that with only 15,000 members in the Space Force — the youngest of the armed services — there isn’t much room for overlap. “You have to make sure you’re hiring the right talent and developing them to perform those roles for the service.”
Training is comprehensive and starts early, Sejba said. He pointed to the yearlong Officer Training Course at Peterson Space Force Base in Colorado Springs, during which new officers receive four months each of space operations, intelligence and cyber instruction. “They’re going to understand the threat, not just for space but for cyber as well,” he told symposium attendees. “They’re going to understand how that threat materializes … both against the space segment from a space operations standpoint, but also from a cyber operations standpoint and against the ground infrastructure.”
Separately, STARCOM offers intermediate- and senior-level education (ILE/SLE) programs for field grade officers to hone their strategic expertise. The Space Force’s main partner in the effort is Johns Hopkins University in Maryland.
“Our ILE/SLE programs that we have for our majors and our lieutenant colonels … that Johns Hopkins University model is what I think we need to scale,” Sejba said. Through a partnership with the university’s School of Advanced International Studies, STARCOM offers a graduate-level alternative to traditional military education, combining joint warfighting concepts with deeper exposure to global strategy and security policy.
Cantore cited the Vosler Academy Fellowship program as an example of a traditional leadership platform that has been overhauled to fit the service’s needs. Program courses have been “completely rebuilt, retooled, giving a unique experience for our NCOs [noncommissioned officers] and specialists … and the results thus far have been fantastic,” he said.
“We need to make sure Guardians have the opportunity to interface with leaders at various levels … so they can make this not just a short-term experience, but a long-term career dedicated to supporting our nation,” Cantore said. “And we will.”
Assigned to STARCOM and based at Peterson Space Force Base, the Forrest L. Vosler Non-Commissioned Officer Academy is responsible for training and educating midtier NCOs. Such programs equip Guardians with substantial technical skills, Sejba said: “They’re going to perform roles on an ops floor that maybe in the past would have been done by an officer.”
War games also sharpen skills. These include Space Flag 25-1, the Space Force’s largest and premier training exercise; the Chalkydri training series; and Schriever Wargame 2025 (SW25). Sejba cited SW25 as a signature training vehicle not only for Guardians but service members across the U.S. and its allies. Participants included Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, New Zealand, Norway and the United Kingdom.
Developed by STARCOM, the Chalkydri series consists of three war-gaming events, each building on the previous one to refine and validate battle management concepts. The first, held over three days in February 2025 with 30 participants from Space Force operational areas, served as an evaluation phase:
- Seminar: Refining battle management functions and information flows.
- Role-Based Simulation: Scenario-based decision-making exercises.
- Distributed Operations Simulation: Using secure chat networks to replicate how Space Force units communicate in real-world command and control environments.
“Our goal is to ensure the Space Force has a data-informed answer on how we approach battle management as a service,” Lt. Col. Amber Dawson said in a STARCOM report about the event. “We’re evaluating different approaches in a structured way so we can make informed recommendations to senior leaders.
“To my knowledge, this is the first time we’ve done a series of battle management-focused wargames like this. It’s a historic effort for the Space Force — one that we hope will define how we operate in the contested space domain for years to come.”
Guardians currently receive basic training alongside Air Force recruits at Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland in Texas, diverging from their Air Force peers at a certain point to focus on Space Force skills. The first seven recruits completed training in October 2020 and the service now graduates about 800 Guardians a year.
After its creation in 2019, the Space Force initially drew the bulk of its Guardians from the enlisted ranks of other services. That paradigm shifted as more Guardians entered the Space Force directly from civilian life.
“Now, most of our service members are coming directly into the Space Force program, so whether they’re officers coming out of college, or whether they’re enlisted, they are coming out of whatever they did prior to joining the Space Force,” Cantore told Apogee.
In December 2024, Saltzman told Air & Space Forces Magazine that creating a specialized Space Force boot camp is a “natural part of the evolution” of any armed service. “At some point you say, ‘Well, we’ve got to train and educate our own people.’
“We’re trying to figure out what’s the right scope, what’s the right scale, what’s the right evolution away from the Air Force training our inductees and getting to a more Guardian-focused environment.”
Apogee is a professional military magazine published by the U.S. Space Command to strengthen U.S. security partnerships in space and provide an international forum to address global space defense challenges.
