It’s time for the tug of war over the location of US Space Command headquarters to end for the sake of America’s military space mission, according to multiple Colorado Springs, CO-based groups.
The Colorado Springs Chamber & Economic Development Corporation is preparing to file a brief that opposes the state’s lawsuit concerning the Trump administration’s decision to move the combatant command from Colorado Springs to Huntsville, AL.
Two other groups—the El Paso (CO) County Board of County Commissioners and the Colorado Springs City Council—have already co-signed the decision to move on, in the name of protecting the nation’s national security space readiness.
“Colorado Springs City Council strongly supports keeping US Space Command here, but suing the president is not a productive path forward,” Council President Lynette Crow-Iverson said in a statement. “Litigation risks politicizing what should remain a mission-driven national security decision.”
How we got here: The Trump administration announced that Space Command HQ would be moving from its interim home in Colorado Springs to Huntsville five years ago this month—and the decision has been plagued by political drama ever since. After multiple reviews sparked by President Donald Trump telling an Alabama radio show that he “single-handedly” made the basing decision, the Biden administration announced in July 2023 that the command would stay put in Colorado.
After Trump returned to the White House, however, he reversed the decision again in September, sending Space Command staff packing their bags for Rocket City.
Colorado didn’t take the decision lying down. The state’s attorney general sued the Trump administration in October, calling it an “unconstitutional” decision after Trump brought up Colorado’s use of mail-in voting when announcing the move.
What’s next: The pending lawsuit before the US District Court for the District of Colorado isn’t stopping the Pentagon from taking the first steps to relocate the HQ to Alabama. Space Command created a task force late last year to handle the moving logistics, just before Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth visited the command’s future home base in December.
“We are deadly serious in committing to cutting every piece of red tape and bureaucracy to get this headquarters established as quickly as humanly possible,” Hegseth said during the visit.
Correction: This article has been updated to reflect that the brief has not yet been submitted.
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