A top Alabama congressman is predicting U.S. Space Command will announce its pending relocation to Huntsville this month.
In an interview Tuesday with Auburn University’s “Cyber Focus” podcast, Rep. Mike Rogers, chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, said contractors are “ready to turn dirt” the day the announcement is made.
“I expect sometime during the month of April that Space Command will officially be assigned to build its headquarters in Huntsville,” Rogers told Frank Cilluffo, director of the McCrary Institute for Cyber and Critical Infrastructure Security.
“We do expect it to be announced right after the Air Force Secretary is named.”
President Donald Trump has nominated Troy Meink to be Air Force secretary.
Meink, who served as director of the National Reconnaissance Office since 2020, had a confirmation hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee in late March. No date for a confirmation vote has been set.
The U.S. Air Force named the arsenal the “preferred location” in 2021 for a permanent headquarters for the newly formed Space Command.
The command had been temporarily housed at Peterson Space Force Base in Colorado Springs, Colo. – which is still its location after President Joe Biden’s 2023 decision for it to remain there rather than move it to Alabama.
Space Command is charged with defending space and delivering space capabilities to joint and combined U.S. and allied forces. Locating the command in Huntsville would bring at least 1,600 new jobs, AL.com has reported.
Rogers said the president’s call for a “Golden Dome” missile defense system would likely leverage public and private industry in the Rocket City.
Golden Dome refers to Trump’s vision for beefing up space-based sensors and interceptors to counter and deter a variety of ballistic and hypersonic missile attacks.
Numerous defense firms with operations in north Alabama stand to benefit from contracting around Golden Dome, AL.com has reported.
“Obviously, this would be exactly in the wheelhouse of Huntsville,” Rogers said. “They are the leader in missile defense, and they are growing in the space mission.
Rogers also renewed his call for the U.S. to increase defense spending to the neighborhood of 5% of GDP. He described the current level – around 2.9% — as “dangerously low.”
“When you look historically, that 4-5% range … is kind of the healthy area that you can count on your military to be ready to be successful and more importantly, to deter aggression,” he said.
President Trump announced Monday that the Pentagon budget for Fiscal Year 2026 would be “in the vicinity” of $1 trillion. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth later appeared to confirm that in a post on the social media site X, “COMING SOON: the first TRILLION dollar @DeptofDefense budget.”
A $1 trillion Defense budget would represent about 3.3% of U.S. GDP, which was $29.7 trillion last year.
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