{"id":786,"date":"2026-04-20T14:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-04-20T14:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/hyokal.com\/?p=786"},"modified":"2026-04-20T14:00:00","modified_gmt":"2026-04-20T14:00:00","slug":"space-force-establishes-moon-star-coordination-office-to-focus-beyond-earth-orbit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hyokal.com\/?p=786","title":{"rendered":"Space Force establishes &#8216;Moon-Star Coordination&#8217; office to focus beyond Earth orbit"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div>\n<p>WASHINGTON \u2014 The U.S. Space Force is establishing a dedicated acquisition office focused on lunar space, the region between Earth and the moon, as it begins to more formally evaluate requirements beyond traditional Earth orbit.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We&#8217;re launching a Lunar and Star Coordination Office on the acquisition side of the Space Force to focus on exactly that,&#8221; Maj. Gen. Stephen Purdy, senior adviser to the Secretary of the Air Force for space acquisition, said at a space symposium last week.<\/p>\n<p>This move is based on the Trump administration&#8217;s December 2025 executive order. <em>Securing America&#8217;s Space Advantage<\/em>has begun to translate broader policy directions into acquisition priorities. The guidance moves lunar interstellar space from an abstract concept to what officials increasingly describe as the future operating environment for national security.<\/p>\n<aside>\n\t\t<\/aside>\n<p>&#8220;We need to start integrating lunar landing capabilities into the Space Force,&#8221; Purdy said. &#8220;Certainly, NASA&#8217;s Artemis 2 mission has captured our imagination, but we also need to understand the importance of the lunar region to combat and national security.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The office will be led by Jamie Stearns, a veteran program manager with experience at the Space Rapid Capability Office and the Air Force Research Laboratory. The mission is expected to mirror previous Space Force efforts to tackle new mission areas, combining engineering and program management expertise to map existing activities across government and industry and identify where to direct funding.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We created a roadmap, created a technology plan, documented what everyone was doing in government and industry, created a timeline, and looked at where to put our money to get the most benefit,&#8221; Purdy explained of the approach.<\/p>\n<p>The effort will rely heavily on collaboration with NASA, which leads U.S. civilian exploration, especially beyond Earth orbit. Purdy said NASA will be the &#8220;biggest partner&#8221; along with organizations such as the Air Force Research Laboratory and the Defense Innovation Unit.<\/p>\n<p>Senior military leadership has framed this initiative as a natural extension of U.S. space activities. &#8220;Wherever America&#8217;s interests go, the U.S. Space Force will go,&#8221; Gen. Chance Saltzman, the chief of space operations, told reporters last week.<\/p>\n<p>Saltzman said the force&#8217;s role will be focused on providing access and sustaining operations, rather than deploying troops in the traditional sense. &#8220;If our interests move to a moon base, the Space Force is going to have to make sure it&#8217;s safe to get out there&#8230;and we&#8217;re going to have to make sure it&#8217;s sustainable once we get there,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p>    Although the executive order itself does not call for a military presence in lunar space, it does direct the development of persistent U.S. architecture transportation, communications, and navigation systems beyond Earth orbit, with inherent security implications. Once these assets are deployed, they require protection and continuous monitoring. The policy also reflects broader geopolitical considerations, such as China&#8217;s moon ambitions, as factors shaping the planning assumptions. <\/p>\n<p>The U.S. military&#8217;s space tracking network is concentrated in low-Earth orbit and geostationary orbit, with limited visibility further afield. In lunar space, the unpredictable orbital dynamics and much longer distances create more complex tracking problems, complicating what operators call management and difficulty maintaining continuous awareness of objects over time.<\/p>\n<p>Objects active in cislunar space may approach Earth orbit along trajectories that are difficult to detect with existing sensors, raising concerns about blind spots in space domain perception.<\/p>\n<p><h3 class=\"jp-relatedposts-headline\"><em>related<\/em><\/h3>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p>#Space #Force #establishes #MoonStar #Coordination #office #focus #Earth #orbit<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>WASHINGTON \u2014 The U.S. Space Force is establishing a dedicated acquisition office focused on lunar space, the region between Earth and the moon, as it begins to more formally evaluate requirements beyond traditional Earth orbit. &#8220;We&#8217;re launching a Lunar and Star Coordination Office on the acquisition side of the Space Force to focus on exactly &#8230; <a title=\"Space Force establishes &#8216;Moon-Star Coordination&#8217; office to focus beyond Earth orbit\" class=\"read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/hyokal.com\/?p=786\" aria-label=\"Read more about Space Force establishes &#8216;Moon-Star Coordination&#8217; office to focus beyond Earth orbit\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":787,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[1793,112,1791,1795,766,1792,1143,1794,1071,856,1788,543,1789,1790],"class_list":["post-786","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-coordination","tag-earth","tag-establishes","tag-focus","tag-force","tag-moonstar","tag-nasa","tag-office","tag-orbit","tag-sn","tag-solar-system-universe","tag-space","tag-space-force","tag-space-symposium"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hyokal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/786","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hyokal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hyokal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hyokal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hyokal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=786"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hyokal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/786\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hyokal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/787"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hyokal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=786"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hyokal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=786"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hyokal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=786"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}