President Trump is expected to announce Tuesday afternoon at 2 p.m. ET that U.S. Space Command headquarters is moving from Colorado Springs, Colorado, to Huntsville, Alabama, according to a U.S. official and two sources familiar with the planning. 

The president signed an executive order in 2018 reestablishing U.S. Space Command, after it had been absorbed in 2002 into U.S. Strategic Command.

Its main goal is to find ways to defend U.S. interests in space, especially the constellations of satellites that U.S. ground, sea and air forces rely on for navigation, communications and surveillance. 

In 2023, President Joe Biden had decided to keep Space Command headquarters in Colorado, where its temporary headquarters was located, overturning Mr. Trump's first-term decision to move it to Alabama.

Biden had been convinced by the head of Space Command at the time, Gen. James Dickinson, that moving its headquarters would jeopardize military readiness. Biden's reversal prompted the House Armed Services Committee, chaired by Republican Mike Rogers of Alabama, to request the Pentagon's watchdog investigate the basing decision. 

The Defense Department Inspector General found that Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville, Alabama was the Air Force's preferred location for the command, but building facilities to equal the ones already in Colorado could take three to four years. Gen. Dickinson, according to the watchdog report, voiced concerns about that timeline's impact on the command's readiness, contributing to the decision Biden made to keep the headquarters in Colorado.