{"id":12972,"date":"2019-08-30T00:36:52","date_gmt":"2019-08-29T16:36:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/trump-reauthorizes-u-s-space-command\/"},"modified":"2019-08-30T00:36:52","modified_gmt":"2019-08-29T16:36:52","slug":"trump-reauthorizes-u-s-space-command","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/trump-reauthorizes-u-s-space-command\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump reauthorizes U.S. Space Command"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Air Force Gen. Jay Raymond, Secretary of Defense Mark Esper, President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence participated in a White House ceremony Thursday to reestablish U.S. Space Command. Credit: Official White House Photo by Tia Dufour<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

President Trump reestablished U.S. Space Command in a White House ceremony Thursday, setting up a unified combatant command previously dissolved in 2002 that Trump said \u201cwill defend America\u2019s vital interests in space\u201d amid growing threats to space assets and services.<\/p>\n

The establishment of Space Command is a step short of the Trump administration\u2019s goal of setting up the U.S. Space Force as a sixth branch of the military. That move requires congressional approval.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs the newest combatant command, SPACECOM will defend America\u2019s vital interests in space, the next warfighting domain,\u201d Trump said. \u201cAnd I think that\u2019s pretty obvious to everybody. It\u2019s all about space.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gen. Jay Raymond, the current head of Air Force Space Command, is the first leader of the reborn U.S. Space Command, which was merged with Strategic Command in a Defense Department reorganization after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.<\/p>\n

The new Space Command will be independent of Strategic Command, which also oversees nuclear forces. Raymond will remain in his role at Air Force Space Command.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe scope, scale and complexity of today\u2019s threat is real and it is concerning,\u201d Raymond said during the establishment ceremony Thursday. \u201cThe establishment of a combatant command solely focused on the space domain, demonstrates the United States\u2019 commitment to protecting and defending its space assets against that threat.\u201d<\/p>\n

Space Command is the second new combatant command set up during the Trump administration. The Defense Department set up Cyber Command last year to oversee offensive and defensive cyber operations. Space Command becomes the 11th combatant command in the U.S. military.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur adversaries are weaponizing Earth\u2019s orbits with new technology targeting American satellites that are critical to both battlefield operations, and our way of life at home,\u201d Trump said Thursday. \u201cOur freedom to operate in space is also essential to detecting and destroying any missile launched against the United States.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo just as we have recognized land, sea, air and cyber as vital war fighting commands, we will now treat space as an independent region overseen by a new unified geographic combatant command,\u201d Trump said.<\/p>\n

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Officials unveiled the U.S. Space Command flag at the White House on Thursday. Credit: Official White House Photo by Tia Dufour<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Space Command\u2019s \u201carea of responsibility\u201d is defined as the area surrounding the Earth at or above 100 kilometers, or about 62 miles, above sea level.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur space capabilities underpin the security of our great nation, enable our economic prosperity, provide for our way of life, and secure our way of war,\u201d Raymond said. \u201cIn fact, there is nothing we do as a joint and coalition force that isn\u2019t enabled by space. Our adversaries understand this and are moving fast to develop their own robust space capabilities and to develop weapons designed to deny us the use of space and the advantage they provide.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis afternoon, by establishing United States Space Command, singularly focused on that warfighting domain, we send a very clear message to the world that the United States and our allies will not assume away space superiority,\u201d Raymond said.<\/p>\n

U.S. Space Command will be temporarily led out of Peterson Air Force Base, Colorado. Military officials will pick a permanent headquarters later, with candidate sites identified in Alabama, Colorado and California.<\/p>\n

During a National Space Council meeting Aug. 20, military and Trump administration officials discussed the role of Space Command, and a possible future Space Force.<\/p>\n

Gen. Joseph Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the military will \u201cimmediately\u201d assign 87 units under the command of Gen. Raymond after the establishment of Space Command.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis step will put us on a path to maintain a competitive advantage \u2026 in this critical warfighting domain,\u201d Dunford said Aug. 20. \u201cWhen Gen. Raymond assumes command, he\u2019s going to bring together capabilities that include missile warning, satellite operations, space control and space support.\u201d<\/p>\n

The National Reconnaissance Office, which owns the government\u2019s fleet of spy satellites, will not be a part of Space Command or the Space Force. But the NRO is tightening its relationship with the military to \u201calign U.S. Space Command and NRO into a new unified defense concept of operations at the National Space Defense Center,\u201d said Joseph Maguire, the acting director of national intelligence.<\/p>\n

Maguire described the National Space Defense Center, located at Schriever Air Force Base in Colorado, as the \u201ccenter of gravity\u201d for defending U.S. national security interests in space. The center was formerly named the Joint Interagency Combined Space Operations Center, or JICSpOC, before receiving its new name in 2017.<\/p>\n

\u201cFurthermore, should conflict extend to space, the NRO will take direction from the commander of U.S. Space Command and execute defense operations based on a jointly-developed playbook, and informed by a series of exercises and war games,\u201d Maguire said Aug. 20.<\/p>\n

Maguire said China has deployed a ground-based missile intended to destroy satellite in low Earth orbit, and Russia is working on a similar system that will likely be operational in the next few years.<\/p>\n

\u201cChina is pursuing weapons capable of destroying satellites up to geosynchronous Earth orbit, and Russia has fielded a ground-based laser weapon, which could blind or damage our space-based optical sensors,\u201d Maguire said.<\/p>\n

While Space Command is focused on operations and aggregates units from across the Defense Department\u2019s existing services, the Space Force \u2014 if established \u2014 would be authorized to organize, train and equip military units as a separate uniformed service.<\/p>\n

The Democratic-controlled House of Representatives and the Republican-led Senate both have provisions for a Space Force in their annual defense bills. The next step will be to reconcile differences between each house\u2019s proposed Space Force plan.<\/p>\n

In both congressional bills, the Space Force would become part of the Department of the Air Force, similar to the way the Marine Corps is a component of the Department of the Navy.<\/p>\n

\u201cAlthough the current House and Senate provisions addressing the administration\u2019s proposal differ in several ways, they fundamentally agree on two important points: A new organization is required to retain American dominance in space, and it will reside within the Department of the Air Force,\u201d said Matthew Donovan, the acting Secretary of the Air Force.<\/p>\n

Email the author.<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

Follow Stephen Clark on Twitter: @StephenClark1.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Air Force Gen. Jay Raymond, Secretary of Defense Mark Esper, President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence participated in a White House ceremony Thursday to reestablish U.S. Space Command. Credit: Official White House Photo by Tia Dufour President Trump reestablished U.S. Space Command in a White House ceremony Thursday, setting up a unified combatant […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[2539,2150,257,848,1488,2254,332,328],"class_list":["post-12972","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-donald-trump","tag-jay-raymond","tag-military-space","tag-national-reconnaissance-office","tag-national-space-council","tag-space-command","tag-space-force","tag-space-policy"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12972"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12972"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12972\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12972"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12972"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12972"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}