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WASHINGTON — The U.S. Space Force’s proposed $71 billion budget for fiscal 2027 is drawing attention for its investments in missile-warning satellites, proliferated low Earth orbit constellations and other big-ticket systems. Less visible, but increasingly central to the service’s plans, is a major buildout of the ground infrastructure needed to operate those systems during a conflict.
Brig. Gen. Christopher Fernengel, director of plans and programs on the Space Force headquarters staff, said he is frequently asked how the service plans to invest such a large influx of new funding.
Speaking May 28 at the State of the Space Industrial Base conference hosted by NewSpace Nexus in Albuquerque, New Mexico, Fernengel said the overarching objective is to build a larger, more resilient and technologically advanced force capable of maintaining U.S. military advantages in space.
People tend to focus on “kit and widgets,” he said, but the hardware is only valuable insofar as it supports capabilities relied upon by the joint force. Alongside investments in orbital systems, the service is planning significant spending on what it calls resilient operations centers.
Those facilities are intended to ensure military space missions can continue during wartime when command-and-control sites become targets. Military planners worry that adversaries will seek to disrupt space operations through missile strikes, cyberattacks and electronic warfare aimed at ground networks rather than satellites alone. Fernengel noted that space operations centers have already emerged as targets during the conflict with Iran, reinforcing concerns that centralized command centers could become critical points of failure.
As a model for the future operations centers, Fernengel pointed to the 200,000-square-foot Consolidated Space Operations Facility under development in Colorado at Schriever Space Force Base. The Space Force envisions building as many as 10 such operations centers across the United States, creating a distributed architecture capable of supporting overseas combatant commands while preserving continuity of operations if individual sites are disrupted.
Budget documents show approximately $1 billion allocated in fiscal 2027 for four operations centers. The facilities are expected to support missions including the Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture, training activities, and future sensing and targeting capabilities. Three additional centers are proposed at Redstone Arsenal in Alabama; Kirtland Air Force Base in New Mexico, and Grand Forks Air Force Base in North Dakota. The new facilities would support missions in space control, space-based sensing and targeting, and data transport.
The Space Force plans to add roughly 2,800 military personnel and 2,000 civilians in 2027, and Fernengel said the new facilities would create more permanent Space Force presence at installations that currently have limited space operations infrastructure.
That would provide career-development opportunities for guardians supporting regional combatant commands and help integrate space capabilities more deeply into day-to-day military operations, he said. The service hopes to create communities of space operators at multiple bases across the country, Fernengel said, and the centers would allow the Space Force to build a workforce at those locations instead of requiring personnel to relocate simply because there are no follow-on assignments available.
Recent operations have reinforced the need for a more distributed architecture, Fernengel added. During Operation Epic Fury, space capabilities were targeted and destroyed for the first time, underscoring the need to disperse operations and reduce reliance on centralized facilities. The expectation, he said, is that future attacks could come through both physical and cyber means, requiring a network of interconnected operations centers rather than a handful of fixed sites.
Also in the 2027 budget, Fernengel said, are investments in tactical operations centers dedicated to space-based electronic warfare. Those facilities, some based in the United States and others overseas, would support the battle management of electromagnetic warfare missions.