The hiring push comes as Space Force officials say the service will need to grow significantly in the coming years to meet rising national security demands.
April 14, 2026 6:13 pm
3 min read
The Space Force’s Space Training and Readiness Command plans to hire more than 400 civilians nationwide in the coming months as service leaders push to expand the force.
STARCOM is responsible for training space professionals, developing warfighting doctrine, tactics and techniques, and testing new capabilities. Civilians make up about one-third of its personnel.
Available jobs span a range of functions including cybersecurity, data science, intelligence analysis, modeling, simulation and wargaming, and acquisition and program management across several locations, including Patrick Space Force Base in Florida, Schriever Space Force Base in Colorado and Joint Base Andrews in Maryland, as well as other supporting locations.
“STARCOM exists to forge the world’s most combat-credible space force and that mission depends on the strength of our total workforce,” Maj. Gen. James E. Smith, STARCOM commander, said. “These new teammates will be vital to helping us expand the pipelines. We’re looking for talented civilians who are ready to join us in developing Guardians and validating systems that will secure our nation’s interests in, from and to space.”
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The command will host a career fair April 21 at Patrick Space Force Base, with additional hiring events planned in Colorado and California.
The hiring surge comes as the command is expanding its footprint in Florida — it recently opened a headquarters annex at Patrick Space Force Base that can accommodate more than 200 personnel.
The push to hire more civilians also comes as Space Force officials say the service will need to grow significantly in the coming years to meet rising national security demands.
“To confront the threats of today and tomorrow, doubling the size of the United States Space Force is a national security necessity,” Chief Master Sgt. of the Space Force John Bentivegna told Congress in February.
Bentivegna told the House Appropriations Committee in March that STARCOM will play a central role in training and developing personnel as the Space Force expands.
“The scouting of the talent that will be coming into the service, the technical training, the professional military education — all of that will be the responsibility of Space Training and Readiness Command,” Bentivegna said.
Under President Donald Trump’s proposed $1.5 trillion defense budget, the Space Force could receive a nearly 80% funding boost in 2027. The service’s budget has surged in recent years, rising from $15 billion in 2020 to nearly $40 billion in 2026, partly due to a reconciliation bill passed into law last July. Now the White House is requesting $71 billion for the new military branch.
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The service currently employs about 5,000 civilians, but lost nearly 14% of its civilian workforce amid the Trump administration’s push to shrink the size of the federal workforce, including a significant number of acquisition professionals.
“I think it’s fair to say there is a shortfall. We’ve identified what we think is a baseline need back to the system. And if there’s a lamp that I can turn on that says, ‘Now hiring,’ — we’re ready. We recognize that it’s something we have to address,” Chief of Space Operations Gen. Chance Saltzman said.
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