The expansive $1.5 trillion Department of Defense budget proposal for next year features $250 million for a new space operations center on Schriever Space Force Base. 

The center is one of four in the budget, which also proposes a building at Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville, Ala., a building at Kirtland Air Force Base in Albuquerque, N.M., and a building at Grand Forks Air Force Base in N.D., budget documents said. Each building is slated to receive the same construction allocation, bringing the total investment to $1 billion.

The new buildings will support space control, space-based sensing and targeting and data transport, according to Air and Space Magazine, which first reported the story. Schriever is also home to units focused on GPS, satellite communications and missile defense analysis.

In 2021, the military contracted with Hensel Phelps Construction to build a new consolidated space operations facility at Schriever for $132 million. The building is expected to be mission-ready and operational by fiscal year 2028, a Space Base Delta 41 spokesperson said in a statement.

“Continued investment in military space operations reflects the growing importance of the space domain to national defense and daily life, and underscores the need for resilient, responsive capabilities to meet an ever-evolving domain,” the spokesperson said.

Space Delta 8, a unit responsible for satellite communications, has also received investment focused on modernizing its operations floor, he said.

Lt. Gen. Doug Schiess, deputy chief of space operations for operations, touched on the need for more room for guardians to work as the young military branch brings on new programs, during a public appearance in April hosted by the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies.

“We just need to make sure we have more resiliency at where we do operations from and where we go with new programs,” Schiess said.

He said he would also like to see more complete planning for new programs that includes additional staff to operate new technology, the required training staff and simulators, a plan to provide intel and the space to host the programs. This will increase the costs of some programs from the beginning, but it will ensure they can be sustained, he said.

Some existing systems didn’t get this complete support plan and so the Space Force also needs to address that issue, Schiess said.

Such planning seems key, as Congress considers more than doubling the Space Force budget up to $71 billion.

The Space Force is also slated to add 2,800 new guardians in 2027, a news release said. The proposal sets aside 12,795 full-time positions and 405 part-time positions, the budget said.

The Space Force office tasked with buying and testing new technology, Space Systems Command, is already working to hire 100 people a month, across all its locations, including Colorado, to handle the influx of new money, said Lt. Gen. Philip Garrant, who leads the organization.