{"id":349247,"date":"2025-12-15T02:05:14","date_gmt":"2025-12-15T02:05:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/349247\/"},"modified":"2025-12-15T02:05:14","modified_gmt":"2025-12-15T02:05:14","slug":"space-force-reveals-themes-for-naming-its-weapons-systems","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/349247\/","title":{"rendered":"Space Force reveals themes for naming its weapons systems"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"pw-incontent-excluded article-paragraph skip\">The U.S. Space Force will soon start naming its weapons, communications and space systems after themes including Norse mythology and ghosts.<\/p>\n<p class=\"article-paragraph skip\">Space Force shared the plans on Thursday, framing them in bright and colorful art pieces that look like something out of card games such as Magic: The Gathering or Yu-Gi-Oh. Chief of Space Operations General Chance Saltzman unveiled the thematic naming schemes during his keynote address at the 2025 Space Force Association\u2019s Spacepower Conference. They will be used to help guardians come up with \u201cpopular names\u201d for each system, rather than dry official designations.<\/p>\n<p class=\"article-paragraph skip\">The seven naming themes are:<\/p>\n<p>Orbital warfare: Norse pantheon<\/p>\n<p>Electromagnetic warfare: Snakes<\/p>\n<p>Cyber warfare: Mythological creatures<\/p>\n<p>Navigation warfare: Sharks<\/p>\n<p>Satellite communications: Constellations<\/p>\n<p>Missile warning: Sentinels<\/p>\n<p>Space domain awareness: Ghosts<\/p>\n<p class=\"article-paragraph skip\">\u201cAfter a lot of feedback and deliberation, we\u2019ve chosen to represent each of our mission areas with specific symbology. These symbols conjure the character of the systems, the importance of their mission, and the identity of the Guardians who employ them,\u201d Saltzman said.<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\tTop Stories This Week\t\t<\/p>\n<p class=\"article-paragraph skip\">According to Saltzman, Space Force guardians helped to come up with the themes. The service took steps to make sure it didn\u2019t run into copyright issues. \u201cWe had to find categories that you could use, like ghosts or constellations or things that nobody could claim ownership of,\u201d Saltzman said, per <a href=\"https:\/\/spacenews.com\/space-force-rolls-out-new-naming-scheme-for-satellites-and-space-weapons\/\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">SpaceNews<\/a>. So unfortunately, Space Force will not be fielding weapons systems nicknamed after Jedi or captains of the Enterprise. There will be no \u201cStar Destroyer,\u201d \u201cBorg\u201d or \u201cNostromo.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"article-paragraph skip\">Saltzman laid out the reasoning behind some of the names. The Norse pantheon, he said, represents \u201cthe power and dominance of orbital warfare.\u201d Ghosts evoke \u201cthe silent presence of space domain awareness.\u201d It\u2019s not clear how specific some of the names will be; for all of the various Norse gods, there are only so many types of ghosts, particularly if Space Force is adamant about avoiding copyrights.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"article-paragraph skip\">The new themes meant to help give guardians more of a connection with the different systems and make some of the more easily identifiable. Space Force compared the plan for popular names to how the other branches nickname fighter jets, such as how the F\/A-18 is a \u201cSuper Hornet\u201d or the F-22 is a \u201cRaptor.\u201d It\u2019s the latest intentional move by the service to try and create a distinct culture for Space Force. It only recently unveiled its own <a href=\"https:\/\/taskandpurpose.com\/military-life\/space-forces-trainees-dress-uniforms\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">unique formal dress uniform<\/a>, now it is working on making its weapons and communications platforms more familiar.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"article-paragraph skip\">Task &amp; Purpose contacted Space Force for more information on how the specific themes were chosen, and why they were revealed with that playing card-style art, but as of press time has not heard back.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"article-paragraph skip\">Some units are already using the themes. Saltzman pointed to the 1st Space Operations Squadron, which dubbed its ORS-5 surveillance satellite \u201cBifrost.\u201d In Norse mythology, the Bifrost is the bridge between Earth and the realm of the gods; the satellite operates in Low-Earth Orbit. <\/p>\n<p class=\"article-paragraph skip\">The \u201cpopular name\u201d schemes comes roughly two years after Space Force <a href=\"https:\/\/arstechnica.com\/space\/2025\/11\/attack-defend-pursue-the-space-forces-new-naming-scheme-foretells-new-era\/\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">laid out<\/a> its rules for official designations. In 2023, Space Force announced its conventions for formal designations, with revision since then. It calls for a two-letter designation, with the first defining its purpose (i.e. E for electromagnetic warfare) and the second letter defining where in orbit or on Earth it will be (for instance, T would be for terrestrial-based systems, while L is for Low-Earth Orbit).\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"article-paragraph skip\">Space Force is currently fielding a mix of satellites in orbit and sensors and jammers on the ground. It also has a space plane, the X-37B, that is currently deployed in space for tests.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"article-paragraph skip\">It\u2019s unclear if there will be additional themes to come, or if Space Force will be issuing booster packs with new cards to help guardians identify each system.<\/p>\n<p>\t\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"300\" height=\"200\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/1765764314_899_250319-N-ML799-1660K.jpeg\" class=\"max-w-[100%]\" alt=\"\"  \/>\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p>Task &amp; Purpose Video<\/p>\n<p>Each week on Tuesdays and Fridays our team will bring you analysis of military tech, tactics, and doctrine.<\/p>\n<p>\t\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Nicholas Slayton is a Contributing Editor for Task &amp; Purpose. In addition to covering breaking news, he writes about history, shipwrecks, and the military\u2019s hunt for unidentified anomalous phenomenon (formerly known as UFOs).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The U.S. Space Force will soon start naming its weapons, communications and space systems after themes including Norse&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":349248,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[79,193],"class_list":["post-349247","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-space","tag-science","tag-space"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/349247","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=349247"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/349247\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/349248"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=349247"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=349247"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=349247"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}