Space Force, United States (USSF), military force that forms a separate service within the U.S. Dept. of the Air Force, est. Dec. 20, 2019, by act of Congress. The head of the Space Force is the Chief of Space Operations, and will be a member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff beginning in Dec., 2020. The Space Force is charged with organizing, training, and equipping forces to protect the space interests of the United States and its allies and provide space capabilities, including rocket launch bases, satellites, and ballistic missile launch monitoring, to the armed forces; it relies on the U.S. Air Force for most of its support services. The Space Force was formed through the redesignation of the Air Force Space Command, established in 1982; existing space missions within the various branches of the armed forces are expected to be consolidated in the Space Force over time. The United States Space Command, established earlier in 2019, is a separate combat command.
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