US Space Command declares ‘full operational capability’

WASHINGTON — US Space Command head Gen. Jim Dickinson today announced full operational capability (FOC) for the command, four years and four months standup in August 2019.

“As the command has matured, challenges to a safe, secure, stable, and sustainable space domain have significantly increased,” Dickinson said in a press release. “Both the People’s Republic of China and the Russian Federation are fielding counter space capabilities designed to hold U.S., Allied and partner space assets at risk. And North Korea and Iran are in the early stages of developing their space enterprise.”

Further, the release noted that the domain has become “increasingly congested with an increase in commercial activity, and the concern of space debris, which has increased by 76 [percent] since 2019 to 44,600 objects.”

SPACECOM declared initial operational capability in August 2021, and Dickinson said that FOC followed today based on an in-depth evaluation of the command’s capabilities — including the ability to execute its mission set on “our worst day, when we are needed the most.” That criteria included:

• Accomplishing the Unified Command Plan mission alongside global campaigning, exercising, and responding to crises.
• Having the right numbers of skills across the human capital.
• Having the infrastructure needed to support command and control across mission and business functions.
• Having the necessary command processes and functions in place.
  Being able to set the conditions and requirements for the future fight.

The declaration comes hot on the heels of a move by Congress, in the just-passed National Defense Authorization Act, put a hold on any spending in fiscal year 2024 on a new SPACECOM headquarters building in Colorado Spring, Colo., until the Pentagon inspector general completes an investigation of President Joe Biden’s decision to locate it there — overturning the previous decision by former President Donald Trump to base it in Huntsville, Ala.

The Alabama delegation in Congress — which includes the Republican chairman of the House Armed Services Committee Rep. Mike Rogers — has long protested Biden’s July decision. The NDAA, which Biden is expected to sign, requires the DoD inspector general to finish its investigation of the propriety of that action by June 20, 2024.

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) likewise is investigating Biden’s move, which came over the head of Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall. Kendall had agreed with Trump’s January 2021 decision to move the HQ to Huntsville, but Dickinson and other top brass disagreed and argued for keeping it in Colorado to avoid disruptions and allow earlier achievement of FOC.

That said, it is unlikely that either oversight body will find any rationale to flip the basing call, as in the end the such decisions are essentially judgment calls about the weight of the various criteria used.

Further, the Defense Department’s FY24 budget doesn’t actually slate any new monies for SPACECOM’s HQ, with the first request for funds to upgrade facilities expected to come in the FY25 request.