President Donald Trump is expected to announce this afternoon that he is reviving a plan to permanently base Space Command in Huntsville, Alabama, according to The Associated Press.
A defense media website said the event is a “U.S. Space Command HQ Announcement.”
The command has been operating from Peterson Space Force Base in Colorado Springs since Trump revived it in 2019. It achieved full operational capacity there in late 2023.
Colorado’s Republican congress members stressed that point in a joint letter to Trump in April, asking him not to move operations.
“Transferring the Command at such a turbulent time would jeopardize our national security, needlessly put American lives at risk, and create an unnecessary waste of taxpayer resources,” Reps. Jeff Crank, Lauren Boebert, Gabe Evans and Jeff Hurd wrote.
They added that the natural security situation has changed since Trump first announced his intent to move the command to Alabama in January 2021. “Moving USSPACECOM would create a self-inflicted vulnerability at a time when foreign adversaries like the People’s Republic of China (PRC), Iran, and Russia are increasingly assertive, and when conflicts in the Middle East demand sustained vigilance.”
The plea from Colorado Republicans seemed to have fallen on deaf ears.
CPR News reached out to Republican lawmakers for comment. A source familiar says some Colorado lawmakers were alerted as early as last week that this decision could come down.
Trump’s decision to move the command marks the latest twist in a saga that has lasted years.
During the final week of his first term in office, Trump decided to award the permanent Space Command headquarters to Huntsville, Alabama, reportedly over the recommendation of U.S. Air Force generals to keep it in Colorado Springs.
After leaving office, Trump told an Alabama radio show that he “single-handedly” decided to move the command to the state. For many Colorado officials, it was proof that he’d made the decision for political reasons, not national security ones. Alabama voted for Trump twice, Colorado supported his Democratic opponents.
Once Biden was in office, Colorado lawmakers urged him to revisit the basing decision, pointing to flaws in the methodology for ranking finalist locations and noting that the key factor of full operational capability was not weighed accurately.
After more than two years of review, in July 2023, Biden reversed Trump’s decision to move the command to Alabama, out of concern it could put military readiness at risk, among other factors.
However, with Trump’s victory last November, many expected him to revisit the basing decision and return to his original selection.
A statement from the Pentagon said the administration followed “a thorough and deliberate evaluation process” and had input from senior military leaders in deciding to keep the command in Colorado Springs.
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