‘Space troopers’ are real and US Space Command has 300 of them

While the name sounds like something out of a space opera, ‘space troopers’ are a real part of the United States military and actively helping defend U.S. interests in the final frontier. In fact, there are more than 300 of them working with the Joint Task Force-Space Defense, a component of U.S. Space Command that protects satellites from threats on the ground and in space.

Though the members of JTF-SD work in the 21st-century world of satellite defense, their nickname stems from much older technology. Bridget Bonnette, chief of public affairs for the task force, recently explained that its first commander, Army Maj. Gen. Tom James, “saw a similarity in our space defense mission and the operations of traditional cavalry operations.

“Offensive security operations, deep reconnaissance, surveillance and target acquisition, executing screening actions in support of friendly forces,” Bonnette told Task & Purpose. “The term ‘trooper’ is what cavalry traditionally called their mounted and unmounted fighters.” Thus, when JTF-SD was first formed in late 2019, James coined the term ‘space troopers.’

Crews of the National Space Defense Center, which helps the JTF-SD defend satellites, provide threat-focused space domain awareness across the national security space enterprise, Schriever Space Force Base, Colorado, February 4, 2021. (Kathryn Damon/U.S. Space Force)

Though the service members, civilians, and contractors who make up JTF-SD do not ride satellites into battle, their area of operations is much larger and faster than that of any cavalry trooper before them. Satellites in low earth orbit move seven times faster than a bullet; the space domain covers the entire planet, and many satellites, such as the Global Positioning System or satellite communications, are responsible for essential sectors of the economy and national defense.

Space troopers, therefore, have to oversee a battlefield where every factor involved is moving at unfathomable speed across vast distances — and the stakes are always high.

“Is there a growing threat in the space domain? Yes,” James said in October 2019, when the task force was formally recognized. “Space is integral to every military operation today and with this task force, we transition from being the supporter in the fight to …

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