The mayor of Colorado Springs, the current but not long-term base for U.S. Space Command, is already looking for more aerospace opportunities just weeks after President Donald Trump announced the military would be moving the command’s headquarters to Huntsville, Alabama.
The debate over where Space Command’s permanent headquarters should be located dates back to Trump’s first term. His Sept. 2 announcement largely seemed like a foregone conclusion by the time he made it.
Colorado Springs Mayor Yemi Mobolade traveled to Washington, D.C. this week for an annual trip that includes private sector, nonprofit, and government officials from his city, though this year’s visit has a heightened urgency with Trump’s recent announcement.
“We are advocating for new opportunities for Colorado Springs,” Mobolade told the Washington Examiner. “We want to understand what’s available, the opportunity in front of us, perhaps opportunities that we’re not taking advantage of, but ultimately, we want to position Colorado Springs and make noise that we’re here.”
Details on the transition remain unknown, and Mobolade is also looking for answers during his trip.
“One of the biggest confusion points from Colorado Springs [is that] many of both our military members who are serving Space Command, but also the civilians, are trying to understand the impact of this decision,” Mobolade said. “That needs immense clarity; what’s moving, what’s not moving, what’s staying because their lives are affected by this decision. So those are things that we still don’t know, and I do believe my community is hungry to have answers to those questions.”
The issue of where Space Command should be headquartered stretches back almost a decade since its inception in 2019. Trump, in the last days of his first term, decided to move the command to Huntsville, only for the Biden administration to reverse that decision in 2023. Alabama lawmakers were critical of Biden’s decision and accused him of playing politics, while the administration said it was better to maintain readiness and prevent the loss of civilian workers.
Colorado officials made similar arguments toward Trump this time, though the president also explicitly said that the state’s mail-in voting laws factored into his decision.
“The problem I have with Colorado — one of the big problems — they do mail-in voting. They went to all mail-in voting. So they have automatically crooked elections, and we can’t have that,” Trump said during the press conference where he announced the move.
While Space Command will be moving from Colorado Springs, it will leave behind a robust aerospace presence.
The North American Aerospace Defense Command and U.S. Northern Command are both based out of Peterson Space Force Base in Colorado. The U.S. Air Force Academy is also in El Paso County, Colorado.
NORTHCOM, which protects the homeland, is also working to stand up Trump’s envisioned Golden Dome: a comprehensive air, sea, and space-based air defense system that can shield the continental United States from an incoming aerial attack.
TRUMP TO MOVE SPACE COMMAND HQ FROM COLORADO TO HUNTSVILLE, ALABAMA
Mobolade said that now that Trump has announced the move, his community can move forward and “align our efforts around how we can continue to grow this ecosystem and prepare ourselves for Golden Dome.”
Andy Merritt, who runs a defense-focused innovation hub called Catalyst Campus, told the Washington Examiner that the Golden Dome will create “all kinds of potential opportunities” for Colorado Springs.