{"id":585193,"date":"2026-04-15T06:30:11","date_gmt":"2026-04-15T06:30:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/585193\/"},"modified":"2026-04-15T06:30:11","modified_gmt":"2026-04-15T06:30:11","slug":"space-forces-starcom-to-hire-more-than-400-civilians-amid-push-to-expand-the-force","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/585193\/","title":{"rendered":"Space Force\u2019s STARCOM to hire more than 400 civilians amid push to expand the force"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"font-size:smaller; color:#666666; margin-bottom: 1rem;\">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.<\/p>\n<p>                                                    <a href=\"https:\/\/federalnewsnetwork.com\/author\/anastasia-obis\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Anastasia_headshot_edit-112x112.jpg\" alt=\"\"\/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>                            <a href=\"https:\/\/federalnewsnetwork.com\/author\/anastasia-obis\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Anastasia Obis<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\n                                    April 14, 2026 6:13 pm                                <\/p>\n<p>3 min read<\/p>\n<p>The Space Force\u2019s Space Training and Readiness Command plans to hire more than 400 civilians nationwide in the coming months as service leaders <a href=\"https:\/\/federalnewsnetwork.com\/defense-news\/2026\/02\/space-force-needs-to-double-in-size-top-enlisted-leader-says\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">push to expand<\/a> the force.<\/p>\n<p>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.<\/p>\n<p>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.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSTARCOM exists to forge the world\u2019s most combat-credible space force and that mission depends on the strength of our total workforce,\u201d Maj. Gen. James E. Smith, STARCOM commander, said. \u201cThese new teammates will be vital to helping us expand the pipelines. We\u2019re looking for talented civilians who are ready to join us in developing Guardians and validating systems that will secure our nation\u2019s interests in, from and to space.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>]]><\/p>\n<p>The command will host a career fair April 21 at Patrick Space Force Base, with additional hiring events planned in Colorado and California.<\/p>\n<p>The hiring surge comes as the command is expanding its footprint in Florida \u2014 it recently opened a headquarters annex at Patrick Space Force Base that can accommodate more than 200 personnel.<\/p>\n<p>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.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cTo confront the threats of today and tomorrow, doubling the size of the United States Space Force is a national security necessity,\u201d Chief Master Sgt. of the Space Force John Bentivegna told Congress in February.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>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.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe scouting of the talent that will be coming into the service, the technical training, the professional military education \u2014 all of that will be the responsibility of Space Training and Readiness Command,\u201d Bentivegna <a href=\"https:\/\/appropriations.house.gov\/schedule\/hearings\/hearing-quality-life-military\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">said<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Under President Donald Trump\u2019s proposed $1.5 trillion defense budget, the Space Force <a href=\"https:\/\/federalnewsnetwork.com\/defense-news\/2026\/04\/fiscal-2027-budget-request-expected-to-back-space-forces-push-for-rapid-growth\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">could receive a nearly 80% funding boost<\/a> in 2027. The service\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n<p>]]><\/p>\n<p>The service currently employs about 5,000 civilians, but <a href=\"https:\/\/federalnewsnetwork.com\/workforce\/2025\/11\/deep-personnel-cuts-jeopardize-space-forces-ability-to-implement-hegseths-acquisition-reforms\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">lost<\/a> nearly 14% of its civilian workforce amid the Trump administration\u2019s push to shrink the size of the federal workforce, including a significant number of <a href=\"https:\/\/federalnewsnetwork.com\/workforce\/2025\/11\/deep-personnel-cuts-jeopardize-space-forces-ability-to-implement-hegseths-acquisition-reforms\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">acquisition professionals<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI think it\u2019s fair to say there is a shortfall. We\u2019ve identified what we think is a baseline need back to the system. And if there\u2019s a lamp that I can turn on that says, \u2018Now hiring,\u2019 \u2014 we\u2019re ready. We recognize that it\u2019s something we have to address,\u201d Chief of Space Operations Gen. Chance Saltzman said.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>If you would like to contact this reporter about recent changes in the federal government, please email anastasia.obis@federalnewsnetwork.com or reach out on Signal at (301) 830-2747.<\/p>\n<p class=\"article-copyright\">Copyright<br \/>\n                            \u00a9\u00a02026 Federal News Network. All rights reserved. This website is not intended for users located within the European Economic Area.\n                    <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The hiring push comes as Space Force officials say the service will need to grow significantly in the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":585194,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[99543,111575,98838,256158,159714,79,193,11716,4419,4420],"class_list":{"0":"post-585193","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-space","8":"tag-chance-saltzman","9":"tag-dod-civilian-workforce","10":"tag-james-smith","11":"tag-john-bentivegna","12":"tag-joint-base-andrews","13":"tag-science","14":"tag-space","15":"tag-space-force","16":"tag-space-training-and-readiness-command","17":"tag-starcom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/585193","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=585193"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/585193\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/585194"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=585193"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=585193"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=585193"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}