{"id":52898,"date":"2026-05-01T19:20:16","date_gmt":"2026-05-01T19:20:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/52898\/"},"modified":"2026-05-01T19:20:16","modified_gmt":"2026-05-01T19:20:16","slug":"trump-nominates-new-chief-of-space-operations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/52898\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump nominates new chief of space operations"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"Paragraph-sc-1tqpf5s-0 bFwqVI body-paragraph body-paragraph\">President Donald Trump nominated Lt. Gen. Douglas A. Schiess as the next chief of space operations for the U.S. Space Force, the service <a href=\"https:\/\/www.spaceforce.mil\/News\/Article-Display\/Article\/4475197\/lt-gen-douglas-a-schiess-nominated-to-be-next-us-space-force-chief-of-space-ope\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.spaceforce.mil\/News\/Article-Display\/Article\/4475197\/lt-gen-douglas-a-schiess-nominated-to-be-next-us-space-force-chief-of-space-ope\/\">announced<\/a> Friday.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph-sc-1tqpf5s-0 bFwqVI body-paragraph body-paragraph\">His nomination now goes to the Senate for confirmation. If approved, Schiess would become the Space Force\u2019s highest-ranking officer and only the third person to hold the title of chief of space operations.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph-sc-1tqpf5s-0 bFwqVI body-paragraph body-paragraph\">He would take over for <a href=\"https:\/\/www.militarytimes.com\/news\/your-military\/2025\/12\/12\/space-force-unveils-new-themes-for-weapon-systems-to-boost-identity\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.militarytimes.com\/news\/your-military\/2025\/12\/12\/space-force-unveils-new-themes-for-weapon-systems-to-boost-identity\/\">Gen. Chance Saltzman<\/a>, who is expected to retire this year after serving four years in the role.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph-sc-1tqpf5s-0 bFwqVI body-paragraph body-paragraph\">\u201dIf confirmed, I will focus on sharpening our lethality and accelerating the delivery of space capabilities to the warfighter, keeping the Space Force ahead against any adversary,&#8221; Schiess said in a statement.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph-sc-1tqpf5s-0 bFwqVI body-paragraph body-paragraph\">Schiess is currently the deputy chief of space operations, a role in which he\u2019s responsible for developing and implementing policies for the service\u2019s global operations, sustainment, training and readiness. He transferred from the Air Force into the Space Force in 2022.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph-sc-1tqpf5s-0 bFwqVI body-paragraph body-paragraph\">Secretary of the Air Force Troy Meink described space as an \u201cincreasingly contested domain.\u201d Recent U.S. military operations in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.militarytimes.com\/opinion\/commentary\/2026\/03\/23\/a-web-of-sensors-how-the-us-spots-missiles-and-drones-from-iran\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.militarytimes.com\/opinion\/commentary\/2026\/03\/23\/a-web-of-sensors-how-the-us-spots-missiles-and-drones-from-iran\/\">Iran<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.militarytimes.com\/news\/your-military\/2026\/01\/22\/space-forces-southern-activated-amid-western-hemisphere-focus\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.militarytimes.com\/news\/your-military\/2026\/01\/22\/space-forces-southern-activated-amid-western-hemisphere-focus\/\">Venezuela<\/a> \u201chave underscored Guardians\u2019 ability to deliver combat-ready, asymmetric advantages from space,\u201d the statement reads.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph-sc-1tqpf5s-0 bFwqVI body-paragraph body-paragraph\">Schiess has <a href=\"https:\/\/www.militarytimes.com\/space\/2025\/09\/26\/china-remains-no-1-threat-in-space-space-force-general\/?contentFeatureId=f0fmoahPVC2AbfL-2-1-8&amp;contentQuery=%7B%22includeSections%22%3A%22%2Fhome%22%2C%22excludeSections%22%3A%22%22%2C%22feedSize%22%3A10%2C%22feedOffset%22%3A45%7D\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.militarytimes.com\/space\/2025\/09\/26\/china-remains-no-1-threat-in-space-space-force-general\/?contentFeatureId=f0fmoahPVC2AbfL-2-1-8&amp;contentQuery=%7B%22includeSections%22%3A%22%2Fhome%22%2C%22excludeSections%22%3A%22%22%2C%22feedSize%22%3A10%2C%22feedOffset%22%3A45%7D\">previously warned<\/a> that China remains America\u2019s top threat in space and is catching up to the capabilities of the U.S. military at an \u201cincredible pace.\u201d <\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph-sc-1tqpf5s-0 bFwqVI body-paragraph body-paragraph\">\u201cChina is definitely our biggest threat,\u201d he said during the annual Air &amp; Space Forces Association conference in September. <\/p>\n<p class=\"default__BioWrapper-sc-cy7r53-0 eATlTY a-body2\">Nikki Wentling is a senior editor at Military Times. She&#8217;s reported on veterans and military communities for nearly a decade and has also covered technology, politics, health care and crime. Her work has earned multiple honors from the National Coalition for Homeless Veterans, the Arkansas Associated Press Managing Editors and others.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"President Donald Trump nominated Lt. Gen. Douglas A. Schiess as the next chief of space operations for the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":52899,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[32449,32445,250,31816,4273,12,32447,32446,32448,74],"class_list":{"0":"post-52898","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-donald-trump","8":"tag-air-force-times","9":"tag-chief-of-space-operations","10":"tag-china","11":"tag-circulated-air-force-times","12":"tag-circulated-military-times","13":"tag-donald-trump","14":"tag-gen-chance-saltzman","15":"tag-lt-gen-douglas-a-schiess","16":"tag-troy-meink","17":"tag-trump"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@people\/116500943554611554","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52898","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=52898"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52898\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/52899"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=52898"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=52898"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=52898"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}