U.S. celebrates official Space Force launch
The Associated Press
U.S. President Donald Trump in late December 2019 celebrated the launch of the U.S. Space Force, the nation’s first new military service in more than 70 years.
In signing the 2020 National Defense Authorization Act that includes the Space Force, President Trump claimed a victory for one of his top national security priorities.
It is part of a U.S. $1.4 trillion government spending package — including the Pentagon’s budget.
“Space is the world’s new war-fighting domain,” Trump said during the December 20, 2019, signing ceremony at Joint Base Andrews just outside Washington. “Among grave threats to our national security, American superiority in space is absolutely vital. And we’re leading, but we’re not leading by enough, and very shortly we’ll be leading by a lot.”
The Space Force is not designed or intended to put combat troops in space. Rather, it’s a way for the military to more effectively organize its defense of U.S. interests in space.
Defense Secretary Mark Esper told reporters, “Our reliance on space-based capabilities has grown dramatically, and today outer space has evolved into a war-fighting domain of its own.” Maintaining dominance in space, he said, will now be the Space Force’s mission.
Space has become increasingly important to the U.S. economy and to everyday life. The Global Positioning System, for example, provides navigation services to the military as well as civilians. Its constellation of about two dozen orbiting satellites is operated by the 50th Space Wing from an operations center at Schriever Air Force Base in Colorado.
In a February 2019 report, the Pentagon asserted that the People’s Republic of China and Russia have embarked on major efforts to develop technologies that could allow them to disrupt or destroy U.S. and allied satellites in a crisis or conflict.
“The United States faces serious and growing challenges to its freedom to operate in space,” the report said.
When he publicly directed the Pentagon in June 2018 to begin working toward a Space Force, President Trump spoke of the military space mission as part of a broader vision of achieving American dominance in space.
Instead of being its own military department, like the Navy, Army and Air Force, the Space Force will be administered by the Secretary of the Air Force. The law requires that the four-star general who will lead Space Force, with the title of Chief of Space Operations, will be a member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, but not in the force’s first year. President Trump said its leader will be Air Force Gen. John W. Raymond, the commander of U.S. Space Command. (Pictured: U.S. President Donald Trump shakes hands with Gen. John W. Raymond, after signing his appointment letter as chief of space operations for U.S. Space Command during a ceremony for the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2020 at Andrews Air Force Base, Maryland, on December 20, 2019.)
The Space Force is the first new military service since the Air Force was spun off from the Army in 1947. The Space Force will be the provider of forces to U.S. Space Command, a separate organization established earlier this year as the overseer of the military’s space operations.
The division of responsibilities and assets between the Space Force and Space Command has not been fully worked out.
