The U.S. Space Force expects to finish work next year on a 15-year strategic roadmap that will outline the systems, infrastructure, and personnel the service needs to counter emerging threats.
Chief of Space Operations Gen. Chance Saltzman said the long-term planning document – dubbed Objective Force 2025 – is nearing completion, but he acknowledged that while he had originally aimed to publish it by the end of 2025, its release will most likely slip into early 2026.
“I think the work of the force design will be done in 2025, and then hopefully published to stakeholders in early 2026,” Saltzman said during a Center for Strategic & International Studies event Tuesday. “I want to publish Objective Force 2025 before the end of the calendar year … and I think the bulk of the work is almost complete.”
The document will establish what systems the service must sustain, phase out, or bring online through 2040, according to Saltzman. Rather than listing every new system the Space Force might require, it charts a path for incremental capability changes over the next 15 years.
“There are systems we are flying today that we will continue to use into 2040, so the objective force will account for that,” Saltzman said. “There are some systems we use today that we will wean ourselves off of … so we preserve that mission capability.”
Saltzman said the plan offers a comprehensive view of needed infrastructure – including bases, squadrons and potential new construction – and will be updated annually based on available resources. He added that the roadmap is intended to be a living document, refreshed regularly and republished every five years.
Saltzman said it will be in final review by December. “We’ll take this to the secretary, obviously, and make sure that the whole staff understands what we’re trying to do,” he said.
Rapid Acquisition Brings New Questions
Separately, Maj. Gen. Stephen Purdy, acting assistant secretary for space acquisition and integration, said the Space Force is refining how it develops and fields systems under the Pentagon’s accelerated acquisition reform initiative, and must determine what level of capability is “good enough” to field quickly.
But he cautioned that work will be difficult and is far from complete. The unresolved issues “center around risk and operational risk,” Purdy said.
Purdy predicts that the debate over risk tolerance will intensify in the coming months.
“I want to deliver as fast as possible … but there’ll be risks there; there’ll be operational risk there,” he said. “There’s not a good answer to that question yet. So, that’s going to be a hot moment of debate here going forward.”
Purdy also said the push for early fielding will bring difficult trade-offs. “[W]hat is the appetite for fast, rapid delivery of capability?” he said. “Because that capability will not be the 100 percent capability. It probably won’t even be the 80 percent; it might be the 40 percent. It might have issues. It might have some bugs.”
He cautioned that while faster development is possible, speed alone cannot determine success.
“These are warfighting systems, and there’s a joint warfighting force that has to produce guaranteed results,” he said.