President Trump announced Tuesday afternoon that U.S. Space Command headquarters is moving from Colorado Springs, Colorado, to Huntsville, Alabama.
In 2018 he had signed an order reestablishing U.S. Space Command, after it had been absorbed in 2002 into U.S. Strategic Command. Its main goal is to find ways to defend U.S. interests in space. In 2023, President Joe Biden had decided instead to keep Space Command headquarters in Colorado, where its temporary headquarters was located, overturning Mr. Trump’s first-term decision to move it to Alabama.
Biden had been convinced by the head of Space Command at the time that moving its headquarters would jeopardize military readiness. His reversal prompted the House Armed Services Committee, chaired by Republican Mike Rogers of Alabama, to request the Pentagon’s watchdog investigate the basing decision.
The Defense Department inspector general said in a report that Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville, Alabama, would be the Air Force’s preferred location for the command, but building facilities equal to the ones that were already in Colorado could take three to four years. According to the IG’s report, Army Gen. James Dickinson, then the commander of U.S. Space Command, voiced concerns about the timeline’s impact on the command’s readiness, which contributed to the decision Biden had made to keep the headquarters in Colorado.