Space Force Asks For Increased Personnel & Training
- Jessie Desmond
- 1 day ago
- 2 min read
On March 3, 2026, at the Senate Armed Services subcommittee hearing, General Shawn Bratton, vice chief of space operations, told the subcommittee that Space Force must protect the joint force from space enabled attack. To do this, readiness exercises are required, infrastructure and end strength must be aggressively increased, and personnel needs to double in size to meet operational needs.
General Bratton also reported that Space Force had successfully put in orbit 2 global positioning system spacecraft (GNSS) to increase navigation and timing (PNT), 2 geosynchronous spacecraft to increase domain awareness, 42 transport layer spacecraft to support missile warning capabilities, and with the help of commercial partners, Space Force made 170 successful launches in 2025. Space Force has approved the early use of new radar, upgraded optical surveillance, and accepted additional systems in domain awareness, electromagnetic warfare, and missile warning systems.
According to National Review, Space Force is leading the war in Iran by disrupting Iran's sensory, communication, and response capabilities by jamming radar systems, interrupting command-and-control networks, and scrambling signals to drones and missile-guidance systems.
According to Air & Space Forces Magazine, Space Force won a nearly $14 billion boost to its 2026 fiscal budget for a total of approximately $40 billion. Senior leaders say that the 2027 fiscal request will be substantial and that President Trump has floated the idea of a $1.5 trillion total 2027 defense budget. Nothing is final yet, so more on this as it becomes announced.
Additionally, Space Force is reopening a $1.4 billion program to build mobile ground stations to track and command space craft, according to Space News. The Satellite Communications Augmentation Resource (SCAR) program was launched in 2022 to ease pressure on the military’s aging Satellite Control Network. This network will be a government-owned system of ground stations that perform tracking, telemetry, and commanding for military satellites. It is unknown if this means an increase of personnel at pre-existing Air Force Stations with radar capabilities, which we see across the state of Alaska.
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