The Space Force has asked for $71.1 billion for fiscal 2027 — more than double the $31.6 billion allocated in the current fiscal year — as it attempts to scale programs even after last year’s civilian workforce reductions.
Budget surge and where the money would go
The 2027 request totals $71.1 billion, a portfolio that the service and Pentagon officials say is heavily tilted toward new space-based capabilities. About $38 billion of that request is earmarked for research, development, testing and evaluation; nearly $10 billion is for procurement. Service leaders say the request includes 31 national security space launches; $13 billion to develop and field missile warning and tracking capabilities; development of two new GPS satellites and their supporting infrastructure; $5.9 billion for satellite communications systems; $7.7 billion for Airborne Moving Target Indication capabilities; and a $3.1 billion investment in a next-generation space data network tied to the administration’s Golden Dome missile defense program.
Workforce shrinkage: cuts and the immediate fallout
Those program ambitions follow personnel changes the source attributes to decisions taken last year. The Trump administration “stripped the Space Force of 14 percent of its civilian workers,” the reporting says. Space Systems Command—the service’s acquisitions arm—lost roughly 10 percent of its workforce after policies ordered by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. Some departures were handled through a Deferred Resignation Program; other billets were described as permanently lost.
Hiring pressure at Space Systems Command
Space Systems Command’s leadership acknowledges the scale of the personnel challenge. Lt. Gen. Philip Garrant told reporters at the Space Symposium in Colorado that the command is trying to hire 100 civilians a month to rebuild capacity, and that “we've never hired that many people in a month.” He added the most the command has hired in a single month is 66. Garrant framed the surge as necessary “to get the workforce in place to execute all this funding that's coming our way,” and said some hiring is backfilling Deferred Resignation Program departures while other positions cannot be replaced because the billets are gone.
Accounting and acquisition strain, in the comptroller’s words
Jules W. Hurst III, who is performing the duties of the Under Secretary of War (Comptroller)/Chief Financial Officer, warned that obligating such a large increase presents “a tall order.” “One of the major challenges for this budget is to be able to obligate dollars in a timely manner, because it's such a large increase,” Hurst said at a Pentagon press briefing. Hurst was identified in the reporting as a former Ranger-turned-legislative aide for House Speaker Mike Johnson, R.-La. He downplayed the impact of the workforce reductions on critical acquisition efforts, saying the department “haven't been taking away workforce from areas that are involved in critical efforts like the [Defense Autonomous Working Group] or, you know, space acquisition, which is where a lot of this money goes.”
Acquisition leaders sounding an alarm
Service acquisition officials had already been warning of capacity problems. Maj. Gen. Stephen Purdy, acting assistant Air Force secretary for space acquisition and integration, told an event at the Center for Strategic and International Studies on Nov. 20 that the Space Force faced “a looming increase in acquisitions coming down the pike,” and that the service was in a position where it “barely ha[s] enough acquirers to do all of the work that we have now.” That warning underscores the dual pressure of a steep budget increase and a smaller, then-recovering acquisition workforce.
What this means for Space Systems Command, the Comptroller’s office, and acquisition leaders
- Space Systems Command: Will need to sustain an unusually rapid hiring tempo (Garrant’s 100-per-month target) and prioritize which roles can be backfilled versus billets that were permanently eliminated.
- The comptroller’s office: Faces an obligation challenge; as Hurst put it, timely obligating of an order-of-magnitude larger budget is “one of the major challenges” for the request.
- Acquisition leaders and program offices: Must reconcile program pacing—31 planned launches, major investments in missile warning, GPS, SATCOM, AMTI and a next-generation data network—with constrained, rebuilding human capital in acquisition roles.
The record supplied to reporters lays out a clear tension: an aggressive program and procurement agenda tied to presidential directives and a massive budget increase, paired with real limits in the people available to obligate and execute those dollars. Whether the Space Force can bridge from a recent round of civilian departures and a historic hiring tempo to the level of acquisition capacity its $71.1 billion request assumes is the central operational question left standing as officials move from request to execution.
https://www.defenseone.com/threats/2026/04/space-force-workers-budget-increase/413026/
