During a press conference at the White House Tuesday, President Donald J. Trump announced that U.S. Space Command — one of the Defense Department’s 11 unified combatant commands — would be relocating from Peterson Space Force Base, Colorado, to the Army’s Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville, Alabama.

“I am thrilled to report that the U.S. Space Command headquarters will move to the beautiful locale of a place called Huntsville, Alabama,” the president told the media at the conference’s outset, then joked that Huntsville will be known as “Rocket City” from this point forward. 

Trump said the move will result in more than 30,000 jobs for the state of Alabama, as well as hundreds of billions of dollars in investments.  

He also said that Spacecom will play a key role in building the planned Golden Dome for America missile defense system, which comes as a result of a Jan. 27, 2025, executive order signed by Trump calling for a missile defense shield that will defend citizens and infrastructure from any foreign aerial attack on the homeland, as well as guarantee second-strike capability. 

“We were losing the race in space very badly to China and Russia, and now we’re far and away No. 1 in space, and we’re [reestablishing] Spacecom with a mission to protect American space assets and detect any threat to our homeland,” Trump said.   

The president thanked a number of government officials in attendance at the event for their efforts to make the relocation of Spacecom a reality, including Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. 

The secretary praised Trump for the command’s move from Colorado to Alabama. 

“What you’re doing today, Mr. President, is restoring [Spacecom] to precisely where it should be, based on what the Space Force, the Air Force [and] your leadership [believe] will give us strategic advantage in the future,” Hegseth told the president.  

Hegseth added that while he believes the U.S. is winning the space race, the Spacecom move will ensure the country stays “leaps and bounds ahead,” because space is the most important domain.  

“Whoever controls the skies will control the future of warfare; and, Mr. President, today you’re ensuring that happens,” Hegseth said. 

Spacecom was originally created in September 1985 before being disestablished in October 2002, with its forces and responsibilities being transferred to U.S. Strategic Command.    

The command was reestablished in August 2019, during Trump’s first term as president.

  alabama, spacecom, trump