President Donald Trump’s decision once again to move U.S. Space Command out of Colorado drew immediate condemnation across party lines from the state’s congressional delegation on Tuesday — and raised the specter of a legal challenge.
More than seven months after his return to office, Trump’s long-expected announcement that his administration would move the command to Alabama reversed a Biden-era decision to keep its headquarters in Colorado Springs. A military review previously had recommended the Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville, Alabama, but the Republican president also invoked politics by saying one of the considerations was that voters in Colorado largely vote by mail.
Trump punishes Colorado for voting against him by moving Space Command (Editorial)
Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser said he was planning a legal challenge to try to stop the relocation. And in a joint statement, the state’s entire congressional delegation said the president’s decision “will directly harm our state and the nation.”
Space Command, the lawmakers stated, is “already fully operational” in Colorado Springs and relocating it “would not result in any additional operational capabilities.” The move “sets our space defense apparatus back years, wastes billions of taxpayer dollars, and hands the advantage to the converging threats of China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea,” the delegation wrote.
Trump spoke from the White House and was surrounded by members of the Alabama congressional delegation, along with Vice President JD Vance and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. In citing Colorado’s mail voting system as one of the factors, Trump seized on a longtime fixation.
He has long criticized the practice and has cited it as a major reason he lost the 2020 election to Democrat Joe Biden. He has not provided evidence of fraud emanating from mail-in ballots.
“I will say I want to thank Colorado,” Trump said Tuesday. “The problem I have with Colorado … they do mail-in voting, they went to all-mail-in voting, so they have automatically crooked elections. And we can’t have that when a state is for mail-in voting — that means they want dishonest elections, because that’s what that means.”
He called Colorado’s mail-in voting system a “big factor” in his Space Command decision.
Gov. Jared Polis called it “the wrong decision” in a statement.
“Colorado Springs is home to a proud military community and a thriving aerospace ecosystem, and significant national security missions and units, all of which are critical to U.S. Space Command,” he said. “Coloradans and Americans should all be provided full transparency and the full details of this poor decision.”
In recent weeks, members of Alabama’s congressional delegation have said in public remarks that the relocation of Space Command to the Redstone Arsenal was all but certain, citing conversations with Trump or the White House.
At the same time, Colorado representatives have been pushing to keep the command in Colorado Springs. In early April, the four Republicans in its congressional delegation sent a letter to the White House outlining their desire to see the command remain in Colorado.
On Tuesday, Colorado’s delegation, made up of eight members of Congress and a pair of U.S. senators, warned in the new statement that many of the people who work at Peterson Space Force Base — where the command has been headquartered for more than half a decade — “will leave the industry altogether, creating a disruption in the workforce that will take our national defense systems decades to recreate.”
“We are united in fighting to reverse this decision,” the statement says. “Bottom line — moving Space Command headquarters weakens our national security at the worst possible time.”
$1 billion economic impact
The Denver Metro Chamber of Commerce estimates that Space Command supports nearly 1,400 direct jobs and has a $1 billion impact on the Colorado Springs economy. The state has a significant Space Force presence, hosting half the bases with its major operations, including Peterson as well as Schriever Space Force Base in the Colorado Springs area and Buckley Space Force Base in Aurora.
Nationally, the Space Force branch, which is separate from Space Command, has more than 14,000 military and civilian members, who are called Guardians.
The Colorado Space Coalition, a business-oriented group led by the chamber and the Metro Denver Economic Development Corporation, lambasted Trump’s decision Tuesday, saying the relocation is “unnecessary and risks disrupting a mission-critical command at a time when national security demands stability, speed and excellence.”
“Colorado’s aerospace ecosystem is unmatched in talent, infrastructure and innovation, and has proven time and again it is the optimal home for Space Command,” the coalition wrote in a statement.
Huntsville Mayor Tommy Battle said the command’s 1,400 or so jobs were expected to transition to Redstone Arsenal over the next five years.
Colorado Springs Mayor Yemi Mobolade expressed disappointment over the move. The president’s decision, he said, “threatens operational continuity at a time when space-related threats are only increasing.”
“U.S. Space Command reached full operational capability in 2023 because of the unmatched talent here in Colorado Springs, much of which will not relocate,” Mobolade said. “Losing that expertise in relocation risks mission success and wastes billions in taxpayer dollars.”
Weiser came out swinging Tuesday morning, even before Trump made the relocation announcement official.
His office, he said, was prepared to challenge Trump’s decision in court, though he did not elaborate on the legal rationale for a lawsuit.
“Moving Space Command Headquarters to Alabama is not only wrong for our national defense, but it’s harmful to hundreds of Space Command personnel and their families,” he said in a statement.
But Hegseth said at the afternoon press conference that Trump “is restoring (Space Command) to precisely where it should be based.”
“And you, through the Air Force, independently identified that Huntsville, Alabama, was the right place to put it,” he said, turning to the president.
U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet speaks during a community celebration to welcome the U.S. Space Command home to Colorado Springs on Aug. 7, 2023, at America the Beautiful Park in Colorado Springs. (Christian Murdock/The Gazette via AP)
A political hot potato
The permanent location of Space Command headquarters has been a political hot potato since the end of Trump’s first administration.
Space Command, which is responsible for the nation’s military operations in outer space, was established at Peterson Space Force Base (then Peterson Air Force Space) in Colorado Springs in 1985 but was later folded into another military division.
It was revived as a standalone command in 2019 under Trump. But in the waning days of his first tenure in the White House, the president decided to move it to the Army’s Redstone Arsenal — pending an environmental review.
That review was completed approximately nine months into President Biden’s term in 2021 and found no significant impact with Alabama as the command site. But the administration did not act on the decision.
Instead, in mid-2023, the Biden White House said it would keep the headquarters at Peterson, citing the time that would be lost relocating staff to Huntsville and a potential disruption in readiness.
At the time, Alabama Sen. Tommy Tuberville called Biden’s decision shameful and vowed that the fight over the command’s home was “absolutely not over.”
On Tuesday, Tuberville said Redstone Arsenal was the right place for Space Command.
“We have 40,000 people there. We have the FBI here. We have missile defense there,” he said. “We have NASA, Blue Origin and SpaceX. It is the perfect place for Space Command.”
Space Command’s functions include conducting operations like enabling satellite-based navigation and troop communication and providing warning of missile launches.
Huntsville, nicknamed Rocket City, has long been home to Redstone and NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center. The Army’s Space and Missile Defense Command is also located in Huntsville, which drew its nickname because of its role in building the first rockets for the U.S. space program.
In January, when Trump began his second presidential term, speculation bubbled up again that he likely would move Space Command east. Even U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert, an avid Trump supporter, urged the president to keep the facility in Colorado Springs, citing a minimum $2 billion price tag for relocation.
An employee leaves the state-operated U.S. Space & Rocket Center, which serves as the visitor center for the nearby federally funded NASA Marshall Space Flight Center, in Huntsville, Alabama, on Jan. 8, 2019. (AP Photo/David Goldman)
In April, the Defense Department inspector general issued a report that concluded it could not determine why Colorado was chosen over Alabama. The inspector general’s report, issued April 11, said this was partly due to a lack of access to senior defense officials from the Biden administration, when the review began.
The Air Force in early 2021 had identified Redstone Arsenal as the preferred location for the new Space Command. The city was picked after site visits to six states that compared factors such as infrastructure capacity, community support and costs to the Defense Department.
On Tuesday, Trump said the decision to place the command in Alabama was “wrongfully obstructed by the Biden administration.” In a moment of levity, the president indicated that he was glad the long-awaited decision was behind him.
Turning to members of the Alabama congressional delegation, he asked them if they were done trying to lobby him on Space Command.
“You are going to leave me alone now,” Trump said. “You’re not going to call me anymore and talk about this subject, right?”
Staff writers Seth Klamann and Nick Coltrain and the Associated Press contributed to this story.
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Originally Published: September 2, 2025 at 8:39 AM MDT