President Donald Trump announced Tuesday that Space Command will move from Colorado Springs to Alabama, the latest salvo in a yearslong fight over the command. 

Space Command protects the country’s interests in space, and its headquarters employs 1,700 troops across the service branches. It is separate from the Space Force, the youngest military service branch.

Not so fast? Colorado Attorney General promises action if Trump moves Space Command

“This decision will help America defend and dominate the high frontier,” President Donald Trump said. 

He said it was expected to bring “billions” of investment to Alabama and 30,000 jobs. 

Trump went on to say that Colorado’s mail-in voting that leads to automatically crooked elections and that played a role in moving the command.

He also gave a nod to Alabama’s lobbying efforts, joking that perhaps now they will stop calling him. 

“They really wanted it badly and they got it,” he said. 

Alabama lawmakers have been touting that Trump would move Space Command’s headquarters since Trump was elected. Previously. U.S. Rep. Dale Strong, R-Huntsville, has said the move could bring 3,700 jobs to the state. 

President Joe Biden announced in July 2023 that Space Command would stay in town after the head of Space Command at the time, Gen. James Dickinson, argued that moving the headquarters now would jeopardize military readiness.

After the announcement, officials threw a party in America the Beautiful Park where officials at all levels celebrated the economic win for the state.

Keeping the command was expected to support the Colorado’s thriving aerospace industry. At the end of last year, the industry included over 2,000 aerospace businesses that employed more than 55,000 people.

The industry was also expected to get “supercharged” following Trump’s announcement his administration expects to spend billions to update the nation’s missile defense systems through a project called Golden Dome. In July, the Trump administration expected to spend $175 billion on Golden Dome. So far $25 billion has been set aside for the project. 

Space Command would likely play a role in running a new Golden Dome system that would rely in part missile-tracking satellites and moving it could hurt the readiness of the command, military leaders and Colorado politicians have said in the past. It could also cost $1.2 billion to put in a new headquarters building in Alabama and rebuilding specialized communications infrastructure could cost $2 to $3 billion, the Gazette reported in 2022.

The command was set up in Colorado Springs during 2019 and it achieved full operational capability during December 2023. 

Investing in the command and space capabilities is key military leaders say because America’s main rivals Russia and China are doing the same. 

Since 2015, China’s has grown its presence in space by 1,000%, with 1,094 active satellites as of January 2025, Space Command leader Gen. Stephen Whiting said in written congressional testimony. 

Space is already a key battleground, the Maj. Gen. James Smith, commander of Space Training and Readiness Command, told a graduating class of new Space Force officers last week. 

In April a Chinese commercial company targeted U.S. warships in the Red Sea and in May Russian hackers replaced TV from a Ukrainian satellite with footage of a military parade as a form of intimidation, he said.

When Trump was elected Colorado officials braced for another fight over the location of Space Command. 

At the time, Mark Stafford, president and CEO of Delta Solutions & Strategies, a prime contractor for Space Command, said the company would likely expand its office in Huntsville, but would maintain its footprint in Colorado Springs. The company employs 250 people along the Front Range.

The company is completing a $187 million contract for Space Command to provide military operations, intelligence, logistics, communications and exercises. As a prime contractor, the company employs numerous other companies to complete its work.

The company supports Space Command across its four locations in Colorado and one in California. One of those is a 100,000-square-foot secure building. Previously, Redstone Arsenal had set aside 60 acres of raw land for Space Command.