The fight over the location of the U.S. Space Command headquarters chugs on after a new report from the Pentagon’s watchdog revealed uncertainty behind the scenes in choosing the permanent spot and several major questions left unanswered.
In a heavily redacted 54-page report, released Tuesday by the Defense Department’s Office of Inspector General (IG), investigators found a break between then-Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall and then-Spacecom Commander Army Gen. James Dickinson over whether the headquarters should stay at Peterson Space Force Base in Colorado Springs, Colo., or be moved to Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville, Ala.
The biggest concern over a move, the IG found, was that roughly 1,000 civilian employees would not relocate from Colorado to Alabama and setting up the needed facilities at Redstone Arsenal would take up to four years, risking Spacecom’s readiness.
The document is the latest piece in a basing decision that has stretched back more than four years to when President Trump, late in his first term, chose Alabama over Colorado for the command’s headquarters.
Trump, who reestablished Spacecom in 2019, had chosen Peterson Space Force Base as a temporary headquarters. But days before leaving office, Trump selected Redstone Arsenal for a permanent spot, announcing that he “single-handedly” chose the location. The Air Force, meanwhile, named the Alabama base as the “preferred location” for a permanent headquarters.
The decision was immediately attacked by Democrats, who accused Trump of picking Alabama for partisan reasons as he enjoys more political support in the state.
But a 2022 Government Accountability Office (GAO) report found the administration’s process for choosing Huntsville, though not always transparent, was largely fair and consistent with military recommendations.
Former President Biden, however, reversed Trump’s decision in 2023 and said Spacecom would stay in Colorado after consulting with then-Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and “senior military leadership,” according to the IG report. Officials at the time said the switch would save time and money, and that it was a national security priority to ensure the headquarters was up and running without delay.
The choice riled Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Ala.), chair of the House Armed Services Committee, who last year demanded that the GAO and Department of Defense investigate the Biden administration decision.
The new IG report found that uncertainty over the final Spacecom headquarters was largely due to Kendall, who “never announced a final decision” on the spot, even after the Air Force completed an environmental assessment in September 2022 that named Huntsville as the “preferred location.”
Kendall continued to back the January 2021 plan to move to Huntsville, but without an official ruling from him in the lead-up to Biden’s July 2023 announcement the command would stay in Colorado, construction at Redstone could not begin, according to the report.
In the same timeframe, Peterson Space Force Base “continued to accelerate its approach [to] full operational capability” for Spacecom, eventually hitting that status in December 2023.
The report also shows a split between what Air Force and Spacecom officials were prioritizing in picking a final location.
Air Force officials “described the cost to the taxpayer as the ‘primary driver’ of its preference” for Redstone to be the permanent headquarters, while Spacecom leadership “prioritized minimizing the risk to readiness,” the document states.
The report highlights the cost of moving headquarters to Alabama would yield $426 million in taxpayer savings due to “lower personnel costs" and cheaper construction.
But Redstone and Spacecom staff also told investigators that there were several issues with making the move, including with the arsenal’s facilities and IT networks, which lagged behind those at Peterson. Getting those areas up to snuff could impact operational readiness as they would take time to do so, the report notes.
What’s more, Spacecom leaders feared a potential loss of up to 1,000 civilians, contractors and reservists working at Peterson if the command moved locations, a concern Dickinson relayed to Kendall in an April 2023 memo.
The Air Force acknowledged the relocation “presented a risk to readiness if civilian personnel did not relocate with the Command,” but officials said Spacecom could mitigate that risk. The report did not note what those mitigation measures might be.
Dickinson later in April 2023 told both Kendall and Austin that the headquarters should remain in Colorado Springs.
The report does not give any conclusions as to Austin or Kendall’s decision-making process, as inspectors were unable to interview the two for the report.
The IG document has already set off Rogers who said it “reveals an astounding lack of transparency and accountability by the Biden Administration.”
“After years of promises about ‘due diligence’ and ‘careful consideration,’ political employees at the White House cut out the Air Force and senior defense leaders to select Colorado over Alabama as the site for SPACECOM headquarters,” Rogers said in a statement on Monday.
Lawmakers in both Colorado and Alabama understandably continue to closely follow the saga given that Spacecom headquarters has an estimated $1 billion annual economic impact and provides roughly 1,400 jobs.
Earlier this year, Ohio threw its hat in the ring for the command, with the state's lawmakers gunning for it to be placed at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton.
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