Donald Trump announces Space Command will move from Colorado to Alabama.

Sept 2025 : While citing the deteriorating law conditions in Colorado, US President has voted vide a mail advocating for his decision. President Donald Trump on Tuesday announced that U.S. Space Command will move from Colorado to Alabama, undoing a Biden-era decision and following through on a plan made in the final days of his first term.

It also ends a bitter war between Alabama and Colorado leaders over the best home for the unit. Each side argued the other benefited from politically motivated decisions by either Trump or Biden to reward states that voted for them. Colorado lawmakers vowed to fight the move.

Trump criticised Colorado’s laws on voting by mail in his Oval Office announcement and said they were a “factor” in his decision. He was joined by Alabama’s congressional delegation, Vice President JD Vance and Défense Secretary Pete Hegseth. “We’re moving forward with what we want to do in the place that we want to have this. And this will be there for hopefully hundreds of years. That’s where it’s going to be”, the President reiterated.

Trump’s Oval Office announcement was pre-empted by the Pentagon, whose website posted a link to the anticipated livestream with the caption “U.S. Space Command HQ Announcement.” The website was later edited to remove a mention of Space Command. POLITICO reported about the planned announcement earlier in the day. The command will head to Huntsville’s Redstone Arsenal in the coming years, departing its location at Peterson Space Force Base in Colorado Springs. Biden cancelled the move in 2023, opting to keep the command in Colorado.

Trump has said previously that he personally chose Alabama over Colorado and other potential sites. Alabama lawmakers had long projected confidence that Trump would return to his original decision to move the command to Huntsville. The president has also repeatedly railed against mail-in voting as fraudulent and reaffirmed a push to end the practice ahead of the 2026 elections. “The problem I have with Colorado, one of the big problems, they do mail-in voting”, he said during the announcement. “When a state is for mail-in voting, that means they want dishonest elections, because that’s what that means. So that played a big factor also.”

Trump noted intense lobbying from Alabama lawmakers. “I don’t think that influenced my decision. But we had a lot of competition for this, and Alabama is getting it, Huntsville in particular”. Colorado’s delegation has argued that moving Space Command would hurt national security. The unit became fully operational in 2023 at the Colorado Springs site, and state leaders contend moving it across the country would hurt the military’s ability to defend U.S. space assets. They also insisted Space Command would lose many of its civilian workers and contractors, who wouldn’t agree to move across the country.

Colorado Republicans, including close Trump ally Rep. Lauren Boebert, said in recent months that the state was still in the mix due to the national security imperative of the space mission. But Alabama leaders pointed to Huntsville’s higher rank in most of the Air Force’s basing criteria as proof they won the competition. Moving to Alabama will also likely prove cheaper than staying in Colorado due to lower costs.

Republican Mike Rogers (R-Ala.), who chairs the House Armed Services Committee, predicted in April that the Trump administration would select Alabama. Contractors are “ready to turn dirt on the day the announcement’s made”, he said. Alabama has also pointed to backing from Biden’s Air Force secretary, Frank Kendall, for moving Space Command to Huntsville. Rogers, who was present for the Oval Office announcement, praised the decision and accused Biden of selecting Colorado because it served him politically.

Colorado’s entire delegation, including Trump allies, vowed to fight the decision. They argued it would weaken their national security at the worst possible time. The lawmakers warned that relocating Space Command would waste money and hurt military readiness, but didn’t specify exactly how they’d challenge the move. “Moving Space Command would not result in any additional operational capabilities than what we have up and running in Colorado Springs now”, the lawmakers said in a joint statement. “Colorado Springs is the appropriate home for U.S. Space Command, and we will take the necessary action to keep it there”.

A Pentagon watchdog report, released in April, noted Kendall supported putting the command at Redstone Arsenal, which the Air Force projected would cost $426 million less due to lower construction and personnel costs. But Space Command leadership, then headed by Gen. James Dickinson, warned against moving due to the risks to readiness.

Team Maverick