Space Force formally establishes Space Systems Command

By Courtney Albon / August 13, 2021 at 2:42 PM

The Space Force today officially redesignated the Space and Missile Systems Center as Space Systems Command, establishing the new field command as an acquisition hub for the service.

As part of the establishment ceremony, the service also recognized the command's first leader, Lt. Gen. Michael Guetlein, who was promoted just prior to the event.

The Space Force in April revealed the organizational design for SSC, which will build on work in recent years to streamline space acquisition. Guetlein said today that while that design will set a foundational structure, the command must "continue to iterate on the framework and hone our craft."

"My focus over the next coming months will be on the budget and ensuring our national leadership understands the bold steps we must take in force design," Guetlein said. "In 10 years, warfighting as we know it will have changed drastically, and SSC must be postured and empowered to keep pace with this change."

Guetlein emphasized the importance of protecting existing systems while striving for a future architecture that is more resilient -- an effort he said should be a No. 1 priority.

"This will require SSC to make a shift away from being focused on various life cycles of a system to being threat- and mission-focused," he said. "In the coming years, we will need an integrated and networked architecture that is informed by the force design efforts of the Space Warfighting Analysis Center and underpinned by the systems-of-systems engineering of the Space Systems Command."

Calling for "unity of effort" across the national security space enterprise, Guetlein said the space community must also have "unity of vision, unity of strategy, unity of design."

"To be quite frank, I will expect nothing less than world-class innovation and leadership moving forward," he said.

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