then Add to Home Screen.
The Space Force will take over all space missions currently performed by nine Air National Guard units Oct. 1, according to a July 30 memo signed by Air Force Secretary Troy E. Meink.
The units are in Alaska, California, Colorado, Florida, Hawaii and Ohio. They provide 60% of the U.S. military’s deployable offensive space electronic-warfare capabilities.
Fourteen Air Guard units across seven states perform some sort of space mission. A 2024 Department of the Air Force study determined the nine covered in the memo “were integral to the mission of the Space Force.”
“The National Guard Airmen who currently support those missions will be afforded the opportunity to transfer into the Space Force, retrain to remain in the Air National Guard or separate/retire from the service,” a DAF spokesperson told NGAUS in an email.
“This is the same approach used for the transfer of our Air Force Reserve space missions and personnel into the Space Force under the Personnel Management Act,” the spokesperson said.
The action is the latest step in a DAF campaign to consolidate space missions in the Space Force without creating a Space National Guard.
It began last spring with Legislative Proposal 480, which asked for congressional approval to transfer Air Guard space units to the Space Force without the required consent of the affected governors.
Lawmakers consented, including a provision in the fiscal 2025 National Defense Authorization Act that gave Space Force officials eight years to make the transfers.
They are moving out in less than eight months.
“What’s the rush?” asks retired Maj. Gen. Francis M. McGinn, the NGAUS president. “Congress provided time to get this right, to make sure this is the best option for the nation, which many still believe it is not.”
In addition, President Donald Trump told the nation last year at the NGAUS general conference that he supported the creation of a Space National Guard.
The transfers now set for October would leave the Guard without the foundation of space units needed for a Space National Guard.
“Right now, we’re concerned about the Airmen in the nine units,” McGinn said. “They don’t have to transfer, and most will not. They need new opportunities. And the units left behind need new missions.”
In fact, surveys of Airmen in Air Guard space units indicate the vast majority have no interest in going to the Space Force.
Part-time Guard space professionals, who constitute 354 of the 578 positions directly affected, may be even less interested now that the Space Force is releasing its plans for part-timers.
During a town hall for the Air Force Reserve’s 310th Space Wing at Peterson Space Force Base, Colorado, Aug. 2, Space Force and Air Force Reserve senior leaders made clear the Space Force’s new part-time personnel model will not mirror traditional Guard and Reserve structures.
Instead, Space Force part-time opportunities will be “role-specific and designed to be episodic.” wrote Tech. Sgt. Frank Casciotta, a member of the 310th SW, in an online story about the town hall for the wing.
The opportunities will “include test and evaluation, training support and education, and headquarters staff roles,” he wrote.
Part-time Space Force assignments will be “designed to offer flexibility to Guardians whose life circumstances may change — not to serve as a career path,” Casciotta added.
Part-time Air Guard space professionals are among the most skilled and experienced in the U.S. military. Many bring civilian-acquired skills and knowledge from their full-time careers in the space industry and other high-tech fields.
—By John Goheen
