The U.S. Army’s newly established Space Operations Branch is set to grow substantially in the coming years, with officials projecting an eventual workforce numbering in the thousands. 1 when 600 enlisted soldiers were formally transferred into it. The development was reported by Space Forces Magazine.

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The 600 transferred soldiers were reclassified under Military Occupational Specialty code 40D — Tactical Space Operations Specialists — joining the existing 40A Space Operations Officers. They had previously been temporarily reassigned to space-related units from Air Defense Artillery, Signal, and Military Intelligence fields. Col. Joseph Mroszczyk, director of the Army’s Transformation Integration Directorate for Space Superiority and High Altitude, told reporters Oct. 14 at the Association of the U.S. Army Annual Meeting in Washington that the service’s space operations cadre has nearly doubled since 2012. “When we talk about the branch and the targets, having a couple thousand dedicated folks within the branch, between the enlisted and the officer side, is a significant contribution across the service,” Mroszczyk said. He did not offer a timeline for reaching that level.

Army officials have consistently argued that the service’s space role is distinct from that of the Space Force, which was created in 2019 and drew the bulk of its operators from the Air Force. Where the Space Force focuses on maintaining space superiority in orbit, the Army’s stated role is integrating space capabilities and effects into tactical multidomain operations from the ground. Lt. Gen. John Rafferty, commander of the Army’s Space and Missile Defense Command, told Air & Space Forces Magazine in an Oct. “Training, education, experience, and talent management is how you create great leaders, and that’s how you build great units with great leaders,” Rafferty said. “It became apparent to the Army that in order to capitalize on the momentum, the gains that we’ve made in Army space-delivered capabilities, we need to professionalize the branch and do it fast.”

On Oct. 8, the Army activated a new Multi-Domain Task Force at Fort Carson, Colorado — one of four currently stationed around the world, with a fifth slated for activation in 2028. Each task force incorporates space effects, and Rafferty said that as more MDTFs come online, more space personnel and systems will be required. The service also cited the creation of a new Theater Strike Effects Group at U.S. Army Pacific as an additional requirement for space support. Separately, the Army wants to expand the mission scope of its 1st Space Brigade — headquartered at Fort Carson and distributed across six countries — beyond GPS, theater missile warning, and satellite communications, though officials did not provide specifics on new capability areas.

Mroszczyk elaborated that platforms in that layer — ranging from smaller systems to larger balloons — could host payloads for sensing and communications missions, and potentially serve as launch points for small autonomous systems the Army calls “launched effects.” He noted such platforms could form a complementary layer for Space Force data transport efforts, such as the Space Development Agency’s Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture or the Space Data Network, helping distribute data during a conflict and providing resiliency if orbital systems are targeted. Multiple experiments with stratospheric platforms are planned in the coming year, he said.