While residents, business folks, politicians and assorted local authorities and civic leaders await anxiously for the federal government to declare the future home of the United States Space Command, the U.S. Space and Rocket Center is moving SPACECOM’S cousin, Space Force, into the spotlight.

On a night where talk of SPACECOM took a back seat, the Space Force contingent was more than happy to take center stage with the showing of ‘’Always Above,’’ a new planetarium short film produced by Space Force to showcase what the agency is doing in many different sectors.

The film is also known by its Latin name, Sempra Supra.

“The production value is just so very high,’’ David Weigel of the INTUITIVE Planetarium said when introducing the piece.

The two key speakers for the event were retired Brigadier General Damon Feltman, current president of the local chapter of the Space Force Association, and his colleague from Space Force and Air Force Space Command, General B. Chance Saltzman. He serves as Chief of Space Operations of the U.S. Space Force.

“The Space Force Association is the nation’s only 501-C3 nonprofit dedicated exclusively to supporting the Space Force and its missions,’’ Feltman said. “One of those missions that we have inside the Space Force is community outreach and advocacy and informing.’’

Space Force was born in 2019 and Saltzman said most citizens are unsure of the military’s role in space prior to then.

“One of the first questions I usually get is, ‘What was going on in military space before 2019?’ There’s this idea that all of a sudden we needed a Space Force because something, you know, was new and we’re doing things differently. And there’s a little bit of truth to that, but in reality, guys like Damon and I have been flying satellites or doing space operations to one degree or another for decades.

“So military space is not necessarily new. What has changed, though, is the nature of the domain and what it requires in terms of a service focused on the domain. And when I was learning to fly satellites, there were two main considerations. We wanted to make sure we had assured access to space, that we had the launch systems that were necessary to put satellites in orbit. We wanted to have all of these electromagnetic spectrum, the antennas, the ground networks that could make sure we connected with those satellites and harvest the data and exploit them as we needed to, so that assured access to space has been a mission for a long time.’’

Defense from space has evolved, particularly in the area of satellites. Once they’re in orbit, the country has to decide what to do with it. The technology can be as simple as getting a GPS reading regarding distance to the green on a golf course. Basic navigation.

“GPS, satellite communications, weather data,’’ Saltzman said. “In other words, we were putting things in orbit that gave us a global perspective and allowed us to do missions that helped the U.S. economy and certainly helped the national security team, the other armed services.

“That was enough because largely the environment was safe, secure, stable, we call it benign. And then things started to change. Our adversaries started to see the tremendous strategic advantage that we got using space and they started investing in capabilities to deny us those advantages. And so over the last 15, 20 years, we’ve seen heavy investment by some other nations that are starting to threaten our ability to use space the way we want.’’

Saltzman added there’s a third layer to the new generation of a militarized presence in space.

“In addition to assured access to space, in addition to what we call global mission operations, exploiting space capabilities for others’ use, now we have this thing called Space Control. I have to remind people that it’s Space Command, not Space Force. What’s the difference? You know, space to space. The Department of Defense organizes its war fighting activities around 11 combatant commands. One of those is U.S. Space Command.

“It’s responsible for taking guidance and direction from the President and Secretary of Defense for any activities that you would consider war fighting in the space domain in that area above the common eye. So those are authorities that come and they are vested in those combatant commands. And each of those commands are planning the operation. What the Space Force does though, is it provides the forces, it provides the equipment, it provides the training personnel, the combat ready forces, student combat commands to do all the work, to do the activities that are required to meet those objectives of humans and combat by the presence of the Secretary of Defense.’’

Space Force is organized under the Department of the Air Force, but is an independent branch of the military. Think Marines under the Department of the Navy.

And whether or not Space Command, or SPACECOM, is relocated to Huntsville know this: Space Force will have a presence in the Tennessee Valley whether through high school and college ROTC or other means that produces these space warriors called “guardians.’’

“The guardians are the heart and soul,’’ Feltman said. “The guardians do the work.’’