Alabama lands Space Force HQ over Florida
By Jim Turner
Photo via US Dept. of Defense
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. - U.S. Space Force’s permanent command headquarters will touch down in Alabama’s Huntsville Redstone Arsenal area rather than Florida’s Space Coast.
U.S. Air Force Secretary Barbara Barrett’s decision to locate the headquarters in Alabama was made official Wednesday, after Patrick Space Force Base near Cape Canaveral was one of six finalists.
Space Florida, the state’s aerospace arm, and Gov. Ron DeSantis had fought to land SPACECOM since President Donald Trump in 2018 directed the Department of Defense to establish the U.S. Space Force as a branch of the armed forces.
1 KAISERSLAUTERN, Germany – When he first started working at Leghorn Army Depot for the U.S. Army in 1984, he and his fellow employees had less than 100 pieces of rolling stock they worked with, and the mechanical condition of the equipment was not their responsibility.
Now, 36 years later – at that same Army depot in Livorno, Italy – the Army Field Support Battalion-Africa deputy support operations officer says his team is responsible for over 3,000 pieces of equipment, to include their serviceability and operational condition.
“We’ve grown tremendously,” said Massimo Carpina, who started out as a care and preservation servicer and rose through the ranks to eventually become one of AFSBn-Africa’s senior leaders.