Space Force: What Is It and How It’s Different From NASA

The U.S. Space Force is now a year old, and many Americans still don’t fully understand its function. The new branch of the U.S. military created by former President Donald Trump is often compared to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), and some critics assume that they do the same thing. The Space Force insists it has its own separate job.

The Space Force is the eighth branch of the U.S. uniformed services and is the first and only independent space-based military branch in the world. It is considered a “sister-branch” to the U.S. Air Force, and in fact, it defers to the Department of the Air Force in some ways. According to a report by Politico, many space force officials are finding that so far, their job amounts mostly to explaining these distinctions to people again and again.

“People get confused between what NASA does and what the military does,” said former Air Force Secretary Heather Wilson. Wilson oversaw the establishment of the Space Force. She said: “I think probably some of the recruiting advertising may have contributed to that somewhat. There was something about maybe your purpose on this Earth isn’t on this Earth.”

In reality, the Space Force has its headquarters in the Pentagon, and functions independently from the other branches there. Its chief of space operations of four-star Gen. Jay Raymond, who is a member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff along with the five other heads of military branches.

The Space Force operates and defends all military satellites and ground stations, while also providing communications, navigation and Earth observation data. This could allow the military to detect foreign missile launches or other threats. All of these tasks essentially amount to applying technology and methods in a way that neither the other military branches nor NASA did before.

Air Force Col. Matt Anderson emphasized the importance of the Space Force’s job in operating the Global Positioning System (GPS). He said: “That’s everything from paying at the pump when you get gas to using your ATM machine, your smartphone that is giving you GPS directions. It’s no secret that Russia and China have made extreme gains in the last couple decades and they have actually shown the ability to threaten some of our assets in space.

Finally, the Space Force defends the United States’ assets in space not just from foreign attacks, but from damage by space junk. The growing amount of human refuse in space poses a risk to delicate satellites and could have more ripple effects on the planet’s ecology in the future. Space Force tracks over 26,000 objects known to be suspended in orbit and ensures that they do not interfere with its hardware.

There are more misconceptions about the Space Force out there, and the branch is having a hard time keeping them at bay. For now, they hope that Americans know the agency is nothing like what they see on the Netflix series by the same name.