ORLANDO, Fla. — The decision has been a year in the making, but the Space Coast will officially become the home of STARCOM, the training headquarters for Space Force.
Patrick Space Force Base and Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, both former Air Force facilities, were named in May 2023 the presumptive home for STARCOM, which stands for Space Training and Readiness Command. It’s one of three Space Force field command units, similar to an Air Force air command.
Sen. Marco Rubio confirmed the decision was made final posting congratulations on X.
“Great news for Florida! Patrick Space Force Base has received final approval to become the permanent headquarters for STARCOM, bolstering Florida’s growing leadership in space,” Rubio posted on Tuesday.
The Space Coast lost out on getting the Department of Defense’s U.S. Space Command headquarters in 2022, but STARCOM would bring a major addition to Space Force’s already sizable presence as the launch capital of the world.
STARCOM is “responsible for the deliberate development, education and training of space professionals in addition to the development of space warfighting doctrine, tactics, techniques and procedures, and the operational test and evaluation of Space Force systems,” according to an Air Force press release.
Under each field command are several smaller groups known as deltas, similar to Air Force wings. One of STARCOM’s five deltas — Space Delta 10: Doctrine and Wargaming — was also tapped in 2023 to make its way to Brevard County.
Patrick was named the “sole candidate location being considered to host this mission because of its proximity to a Department of Defense modeling and simulation capability with resident space.”
Space Delta 10’s job will be to develop Space Force doctrine and tactics, conduct its Lessons Learned Program, and run war games.
Both Patrick and Canaveral were among the first to be converted to the Space Force. They are already home to Space Launch Delta 45, which supports all launches from Canaveral and Kennedy Space Center. SLD 45, though, falls under a different field command for the Space Force called Space Systems Command.
STARCOM for now is run out of Peterson Space Force Base in Colorado while the Space Force’s overall headquarters is based in Washington at the Pentagon along with other HQs of the nation’s armed forces.
The Orlando Sentinel reached out to STARCOM for details about the timeline and personnel planned for the headquarters’ move to Brevard County, but has yet to hear back.
In a 2021 interview with Air & Space Forces Magazine, after being named STARCOM’s commander, not Lt. Gen. Shawn Bratton said he expected the headquarters to grow to about 250 personnel overseeing about 1,500 under all of its deltas.
Essentially becoming boot camp for the Space Force, Bratton told the magazine he envisioned a future with “on-orbit training where we’re live-flying satellites in a training environment, where we can test and train things that we haven’t done before, I think that would be a huge step forward for us.”
Bratton has since moved on to other duties at the Pentagon and STARCOM’s commander since July 2023 has been Maj. Gen. Timothy Sejba.
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