The Space Force recently announced via the Space Force Instruction 10-401, Space Operation Planning and Execution stating Space Force Guardians are always available for deployments. Guardians will no longer follow the former Air Force system of X bands for deployments. Instead, the Space Force will have Guardians without a deployment cycle which means Guardians can deploy at any time based on the needs of the service.
The Air Force has worked to create a system that allows longer dwell times, especially in career fields that are on a higher ops tempo for deployments with many iterations of deployment programs. But with the war in Afghanistan over and the new mission set focused on Space that can predominantly be done by monitoring assets from control terminals in the U.S, Space Force leaders are choosing the best way forward is to eliminate deployment windows for Guardians.
The Air Force deployment model the Space Force adopted after their creation had two systems – one for higher ops tempo career fields deployments and one for standard ops tempo deployments. The higher ops tempo was called Posturing Bands (P-Bands) and had a one to two dwell ratio. One deployment band with two posturing bands home. In contrast, groups with standard ops tempo deployments were in X-bands with a one to four dwell ratio. One deployment and four bands home. The Space Force adopted the bands the Air Force was using, putting Guardians in the five different groups for X-bands. The Air Force has recently adopted a new system to replace deployment bands with the Air Force Force Generation.
Now Guardians are always eligible for deployment. They no longer have deployment bands for them to fall into. Instead, deployments will be based on assigned/committed mission requirements or GP&S mission requirements, SecDef D2D limitations, personnel actions, and Define Deployment Availability (DAV) codes. Commanders will now determine who deploys unless the deployment is sourced by the Military Personnel Data System (MilPDS), per SFI 10-401 9.2.
One area to note is that this change does not affect Space Operators who are in their roles Employed in Place (EiP). EiP space forces execute their mission from a home station and are not collocated with their platform. EiP operations are typically oriented to the USSPACECOM AOR (greater than 99 km above the surface of the Earth) and operations occur in space. The majority of USSF EiP units are assigned to USSPACECOM, per SFI 10-401 3.1.2
The mission of the Space Force is to protect the U.S. interests in, from and to space. The work done to meet this mission is primarily done from within the U.S. borders. There currently are no plans to fight out a space war in space. But that one day may change in the future. For now, the U.S. Space Force can primarily meet their mission from within the U.S. using technology, primarily satellites that protect the U.S. interests.
In the past, there were some opportunities to deploy for the career fields that now make up the Space Force. However, those deployments have been at a much lower ops tempo than other career fields, especially the stressed career fields that had been part of the P-Band system.
This guidance provides little information on why this change was made. But there is speculation that a band system isn’t needed within the Space Force based on deployment ops tempo since the dwell time between deployments is often longer than the required dwell time in the current band system. Now without having bands, the Space Force will have all members available to deploy at any time thus giving commanders the ability to pick the best Guardian for the mission, no longer being limited by band windows.
