After civilian employee cuts across the Department of Defense last year, the Space Force is now hiring staff to work on the largest military modernization push since World War II. 

“Talent is the single most important ingredient,” said Secretary of the Air Force Troy Meink, who oversees the Space Force. The secretary spoke to an international crowd Wednesday, including military and industry space professionals, during the Space Symposium at The Broadmoor. 

He pointed out that critical communications satellites are now 30 years old and while the U.S. is still the dominant world power, remaining poised to win over the next decade will require new technology.

The Space Force expects to bring on hundreds of new people and make investments in quality of life to ensure the expertise is in place to work on a modernization effort around some of the world’s most complex technologies, he said. 

Meink said he expected to offer pay raises next year between 5% to 7%, improved access to health care, investments in housing and facilities, and to reform the systems for those working to acquire new technology to help ensure they stay in their jobs. 

 He also expected to make a large dent in the Space Force’s $3.5 billion in deferred maintenance projects. 

The Space Force had been growing since its inception six years ago, but that will accelerate from about 200 positions a year to closer to 400 to 500 positions a year, said Gen. Chance Saltzman, chief of space operations. The service could see its budget double to $71 billion, with congressional approval.  

“This is the moment where our nation’s Space Force comes of age. … We owe it to the taxpayers to effectively execute every dollar of that increase,” Meink said. 

The emphasis on staffing follows a push by the Trump administration to cut civilian positions across the Department of Defense last year between 5% and 8%. 

Last May, Saltzman announced the Space Force had lost 14% of its civilian workforce. 

Now the challenge to hire is on. 

Space Systems Command, based in California and tasked with buying and testing new technology, has been charged with hiring 100 people a month, across all of its locations, including Colorado, to handle the influx of new funding, said Lt. Gen. Philip Garrant, who leads the organization. The most it has ever hired in one month is 66. He didn’t specify a total hiring number, but expected it would be less than 1,000. At least 200 of the positions are new. 

To help ensure that those working in acquisitions stay in their positions and build expertise, the Air Force and Space Force expect to model all of their purchasing processes after smaller agencies that do it well, such as the Space Development Agency. The agency is charged with bringing in hundreds of new military satellites in the coming years. 

New portfolio acquisition executives will help cut through levels of review and bureaucracy and ensure that decisions are made in a timely way, Meink said. 

The Air Force and Space Force are also going to move away from exquisite systems that are expensive and difficult to manufacture, but Meink noted that the recent technology advancements have dropped prices dramatically. 

“We are seeing borderline exquisite performance at very low price points,” Meink said.