Space Forces Central, or SPACECENT, was activated in December 2022 with a small staff of about 30 personnel split between Shaw Air Force Base, South Carolina, and Al Udeid Air Base, Qatar. Benson said that while his team has had an outsized impact during operations against Iran, it needs to grow to meet the expectations placed on any combatant command component.
“It doesn’t matter what service you’re with or what component, the expectations are the same: You have to present combat-credible forces, and you have to lead joint forces in combat,” Benson said. “That takes size to do that.”
Benson declined to specify an exact personnel target, but said his goal is a steady-state headquarters staff at least somewhat comparable to other service components, while acknowledging that even a fivefold increase would not approach the size of the others due to the Space Force’s smaller scale. “Our peers have thousands, so we would not be anywhere near that as a smaller service,” he said. “But I would expect that we’d be about fivefold the size we are today, which is not a large number, but that’s what we need to make sure that we have the requisite staff to do planning cycles, all the intelligence that we need.”
The Space Force now has components within every geographic combatant command and this month added its newest, U.S. Space Forces Special Operations, or SPACEFOR-SOC. Each component presents space expertise to field commanders and deploys to generate space effects including electronic warfare, satellite communications, navigation and timing, and missile warning. Because the components remain small, balancing headquarters staffing with deployed forces is a challenge, particularly for SPACECENT amid ongoing operations in Iran.
Benson described daily operations that include planning sessions with headquarters staff and meetings with CENTCOM leadership, alongside support for 24/7 operations in the Middle East. “There are no days off, really, downrange,” he said. “Everybody’s working as hard as they can.” He identified building SPACECENT’s team of intelligence professionals as a priority, especially for feeding the joint force’s targeting processes. At one point, SPACECENT had only two Guardian representatives in a process that includes more than 1,000 personnel.
Benson said operations over the past year have demonstrated the need for more of everything, from personnel to ground systems such as jammers to systems on orbit. He added that deploying Guardians downrange and supporting from home station has both cemented the importance of space effects and changed how the joint force thinks about space in operations. “Space will forever be a part of every military operation going forward,” he said. “There is no going backwards on that.”
Benson expects SPACECENT to reach the fivefold expansion within roughly three years. He has not set a specific personnel figure, and the pace of growth will depend on the component’s ability to balance headquarters staffing with continued deployed support for operations in the Middle East.
