United States President Donald Trump announced on Tuesday that the headquarters of US Space Command, the agency he launched during his first term as president to “defend US interests in space”, will be relocated to Alabama.
Here is what is happening and why it matters.
What is US Space Command?
US Space Command – also known as “SpaceCom” – was launched during Trump’s first term as president in 2019 and has its current headquarters at Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado Springs, Colorado. It is a separate body from the US military Space Force.
Space Command handles US military operations outside the Earth’s atmosphere. These missions generally entail safeguarding US satellites from external threats.
Congressional records show that about 1,700 personnel work at Space Command. It employs joint forces from the US Army, Marine Corps, Navy, Air Force and Space Force to carry out its missions. Space Command’s website says it is responsible for “protecting and defending the space domain”.
The US Space Command’s commander reports to the secretary of defence – currently Pete Hegseth – who reports to the president.
Why is Trump moving Space Command to Alabama?
Trump claims he always planned to make the move to the US Army’s Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville, Alabama. On Tuesday, he announced: “The US Space Command headquarters will move to the beautiful locale of a place called Huntsville, Alabama, forever to be known from this point forward as Rocket City,” using a nickname commonly used for Huntsville because of its early role in the US space programme.
“We initially selected Huntsville for the SpaceCom headquarters. Yet those plans were wrongfully obstructed by the Biden administration,” Trump said, flanked by Republican members of Alabama’s congressional delegation at the Oval Office.
The US president added that Huntsville won the race to become the headquarters because “they fought harder for it than anybody else.”
During his Tuesday announcement, Trump slipped in a critique of Colorado’s mail-in voting system. Trump has frequently claimed that mail-in voting has been used to rig presidential elections against him.
“The problem I have with Colorado, one of the big problems, they do mail-in voting. They went to all mail-in voting, so they have automatically crooked elections,” Trump said. Residents can vote by mail or in person in Colorado, but the votes are primarily cast by mail.
While Colorado is a Democratic state, Republican states such as Nevada and Utah also primarily use mail-in voting.
Alabama is also a red state where Trump enjoys support, but he said that did not factor into his decision. “We love Alabama. I only won it by about 47 points. I don’t think that influenced my decision, though,” Trump told reporters and lawmakers at the Oval Office.
So why was Space Command in Colorado?
In 2021, the Air Force chose Redstone Arsenal, Huntsville, as the preferred location for Space Command.
It was selected after site visits across six states, assessing elements such as infrastructure capacity, community support and cost considerations for the Department of Defense. However, an environmental assessment was pending. After this assessment was completed in 2022, the Government Accountability Office, which is the nonpartisan research arm of Congress, released a report saying there were “significant shortfalls” in the Air Force’s selection process for the headquarters.
In 2023, then-President Joe Biden, a Democrat, announced that Colorado Springs would be the permanent headquarters of the Space Command. Colorado had been serving as the temporary headquarters for the command.
On Tuesday, Trump said his initial plans to move the command to Huntsville were “wrongfully obstructed by the Biden administration”.
What are the arguments for Huntsville vs Colorado Springs?
In 2023, the Biden administration decided that keeping the agency in Colorado would avoid a disruption in readiness.
Moving the headquarters would set back progress in US space missions, which are competing with China’s military space rise, the Biden administration argued.
Backing up that assessment, local news outlets reported that Colorado lawmakers had claimed it would take until 2030 to complete the construction of the new headquarters in Alabama, which would result in a long transition.
However, representatives from Alabama, including Dale Strong, the Republican representative for Alabama’s 5th congressional district, disputed this. They claimed that construction in Alabama would only take between 14 and 18 months, Colorado Public Radio reported.
Another argument for keeping the command in Colorado is that Colorado Springs is home to the US Air Force Academy, and the academy now graduates Space Force guardians, who are military and civilian personnel working with the US Space Force. Colorado also has three Space Force bases.
On the other hand, the first rockets for the US space programme were built in Huntsville. The city is home to NASA’s largest centre, the Marshall Space Flight Center, formed in 1960. Huntsville is also home to some of the US’s earliest space missiles, such as the Saturn V rocket, and is the site of the Army’s Space and Missile Defense Command.
In April this year, the Pentagon inspector general released a report acknowledging the “risks to readiness inherent to moving the HQ from its provisional location” to Huntsville. However, he said it would save costs of about $426m because of the lower personnel and construction costs in Huntsville.
How does politics factor into this fight?
Biden’s 2023 decision also came when Alabama Republican Senator Tommy Tuberville was rallying against the Pentagon’s abortion policy by holding up more than 400 military nominations and promotions.
Tuberville was particularly opposed to the Pentagon allowing reimbursement for travel expenses when a service member needed to go out of state to obtain an abortion or other forms of reproductive healthcare. The Senator lifted the blockade on military promotions in December 2023.
US officials from the Biden administration anonymously told The Associated Press news agency in 2023 that Biden’s decision to keep the command in Colorado was not affected by the abortion issue, however.
What have the reactions been to the latest announcement?
After Trump’s announcement on Tuesday, Hegseth lauded his decision, saying: “We are way ahead in space, but this will ensure that we stay LEAPS and BOUNDS ahead because that is the most important domain. Whoever controls the sky will control the future of warfare.”
All of Colorado’s congressional leaders, including four Republicans, released a joint statement, saying: “Moving Space Command 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.”
Alabama leaders, on the other hand, celebrated the announcement. In an opinion piece for 1819 News, a local news outlet in Alabama, Tuberville wrote: “Thankfully, President Trump and Secretary Hegseth are putting our nation’s security first and moving SPACECOM to the place where it will be most effective and provide the most value to taxpayers.
“The state of Alabama is about to show the country the best among us,” Republican senator from Alabama Katie Britt said, according to local outlets.
