Trump moves Space Command to Alabama, reversing Biden decision

President Trump announced Tuesday that U.S. Space Command will move from Colorado to Alabama, a decision that was “seven years in the making.”

“The U.S. Space Command Headquarters will move to the beautiful locale of a place called Huntsville, Alabama, forever to be known from this point forward as Rocket City,” Mr. Trump said in the Oval Office.

The move to Redstone Arsenal near Huntsville reverses a Biden-era decision to keep the command’s temporary headquarters in Colorado.

Mr. Trump was flanked by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Vice President J.D. Vance, and Alabama Sens. Katie Britt and Tommy Tuberville, among others.

The move will bring more than 30,000 jobs and hundreds of billions of dollars in investment to a state that the president noted he won in a landslide in 2024.

“Most importantly, this decision will help America defend and dominate the high frontier,” Mr. Trump said.

The president created the Space Force as a full-fledged military branch during his first term in 2019.

“So important,” he said. “We were losing the race in space very badly to China and to Russia. Now we’re far and away No. 1 in space.”

The president said the base was moved from Colorado in part because the blue state has mail-in voting, which he has railed against as resulting in “automatically crooked elections.”

He said Space Command will play a “key role” in the creation of the Golden Dome, his proposed missile defense system for the U.S.

He said the original plan for the command to be in Alabama was “wrongfully obstructed by the Biden administration.”

Mr. Vance joked that he lobbied for the center to be moved to his home state of Ohio but that Alabama is ultimately the right place.

“It was a visionary move in the first administration for the president to set up Space Force and I think an equally visionary move to make sure the Space Force is right where it should be in Huntsville, Alabama,” he said.

Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey teased the move in an X post last week.

“Space Command coming to Huntsville? Count on it,” she wrote. “Huntsville was already chosen once before as the home for U.S. Space Command — and for good reason. I remain confident that Alabama is the right place for this mission to take root and thrive.”

In 2021, the preferred location for the command’s permanent headquarters was Redstone Arsenal, but a report released this year from the Pentagon’s inspector general said some were concerned that moving the base from Colorado Springs could affect productivity due to possible staff reductions.

Space Command leadership recommended in June 2023 that the headquarters remain in Colorado. It’s been there since its inception in 1985, but was meant to be temporary.

Some lawmakers weren’t happy with the Biden administration’s decision to keep the base there.

House Armed Services Committee Chairman Mike Rogers, Alabama Republican, said in April that Mr. Trump would move the base.

However, Colorado Republican Reps. Jeff Crank, Lauren Boebert, Jeff Hurd and Gabe Evans said in a statement that Space Command’s “rightful home is in Colorado.”

The Colorado Space Coalition slammed the move as “unnecessary” and said it “risks disrupting a mission-critical command at a time when national security demands stability, speed and excellence.”

The coalition added, “Colorado’s aerospace ecosystem is unmatched in talent, infrastructure and innovation and has proven time and again it is the optimal home for Space Command.”

Redstone Arsenal has housed other federal agencies like NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center and the Army’s Space and Missile Defense Command.