BUILDING SPACE FORCE: President Donald J. Trump and his Administration are laying the groundwork to build Space Force as the sixth branch of the United States military.
- On June 18, 2018, President Trump directed the Department of Defense to immediately begin the important process of establishing Space Force as the sixth branch of the armed forces.
- The Department of Defense issued a report, pursuant to the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2018, describing the following five actions that can be taken immediately to begin building the Space Force:
- Accelerate space technology and development initiatives, which were modernization priorities laid out in President Trump’s National Defense Strategy;
- Establish a Space Development Agency charged with developing and fielding new next-generation capabilities for national security space development;
- Establish a Space Operations Force of professionals who will form a new community of experts working to lead America’s national security space efforts into the future;
- Establish an operating structure and accountable civilian oversight for Space Force; and
- Create a United States Space Command, a unified combatant command, to improve, evolve, and plan space warfighting.
DEFENDING AMERICA’S INTERESTS: President Trump knows that space is integral to our American way of life and economic prosperity, and is a vital domain for national defense.
- With Space Force as a sixth branch of the United States military, America’s interests in space will receive the focus and investment that the domain deserves.
- As the world’s space development leader, the United States relies on space for everything from popular commercial systems to critical military and intelligence systems.
- Space is also invaluable to American private industry, which is developing revolutionary technologies that will utilize space for exploration, resource extraction, and tourism.
- Unfortunately, potential adversaries recognize the importance of space to our country and are actively developing ways to deny our use of it in a crisis.
- The Director of National Intelligence has warned that multiple countries, including Russia and China, are developing both destructive and nondestructive antisatellite weapons that could come online within a few years.
- The United States national security community recognizes the necessity of developing new technologies for space to defend against an increasing array of threats.
LEADING INTO THE FUTURE: Under President Trump, America is reclaiming its heritage as the world’s greatest space-faring Nation and is leading space development into the 21st century.
- President Trump has signed three Space Policy Directives in the last year, each of which strengthens our economic prosperity and national security.
- In 2017, President Trump established his National Space Council, a body of senior officials charged with developing modern policies for commercial and international space utilization.
- On March 23, 2018, President Trump announced his National Space Strategy, which recognizes that America’s competitors have turned space into a warfighting domain, and charts a whole-of-government approach to maintaining America’s leadership in space.