WASHINGTON — The White House has nominated Lt. Gen. Doug Schiess as the third-ever Chief of Space Operations, setting him up to succeed Gen. Chance Saltzman as the head of America’s youngest military service.
Schiess currently serves as the Space Force’s deputy chief of operations, with overall responsibility for development and implementation of service policy, and acts as Saltzman’s deputy for the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
He was previously double hatted as head of Space Forces–Space, the Space Force’s component command to US Space Command, and head of the command’s Combined Joint Space Force Component at Vandenberg SFB, Calif.
Thus, he has experience both in managing the Space Force’s bureaucracy and in day-to-day operations, exercises and mission planning.
Saltzman’s term at the helm has seen massive growth in the service’s size and budget. In fiscal 2022, the Space Force was appropriated $17.4 billion and comprised about 8,700 active duty Guardians. The service’s FY27 budget request asks for $71.2 billion, and includes a proposed increase in end strength from today’s 10,657 active forces to 13,200.
He also led a charge to normalize the concept of warfighting in space, championing the need for offensive as well as defensive operations on orbit and the establishment of “space superiority” as a central Joint Force requirement ― culminating in the publication last April of the Space Force’s first “Space Warfighting Framework.”
