Chief of Space Operations Gen. Chance Saltzman Wins 2025 Wash100 Award for Advancing Strategies, Partnerships to Achieve Space Superiority
Executive Mosaic is honored to announce the selection of Gen. Chance Saltzman, chief of space operations for the U.S. Space Force, to the 2025 class of the Wash100 Award, an accolade conferred annually to the 100 most influential and impactful leaders in the government contracting industry.
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This marks the third consecutive time that he has been selected to Executive Mosaic’s annual list of the top 100 leaders from the government and GovCon business, recognizing his efforts in charting the future of the Space Force and helping the service achieve space superiority by advancing readiness and promoting commercial partnerships through strategies.
Commenting on the win, Jim Garrettson, CEO of Executive Mosaic and founder of the Wash100 Award, said “Gen. Saltzman is steering the Space Force toward a stronger, more agile future, from accelerating counter-space capabilities to forging deeper commercial partnerships. Gen. Saltzman’s work on the Space Force Generation model and the Commercial Space Strategy is ensuring the service stays ready for whatever comes next. His impact on the space domain is undeniable, and it’s a pleasure to recognize ‘Salty’ with another Wash100 win! There’s nothing like a hat trick.”
“The U.S. Space Force stood up just over five years ago. Since then, every day without fail, guardians around the globe have delivered the invaluable space capabilities upon which our Nation’s citizens and warfighters depend. More than anything, this recognition is a testament to their unwavering character, commitment, connection, and courage – the values that drive us to meet the challenges we face today as we build the future of American spacepower,” Saltzman said.
Space Force Priorities for 2025
At a Center for Strategic and International Studies event in December, Saltzman highlighted the Space Force’s priorities for 2025, including the establishment of Space Futures Command, the creation of service components to combatant commands, the deployment of timely counterspace capabilities, the accelerated development of the Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture and the expansion of launch support tempo and infrastructure capacity.
The general stressed the need for an additional budget to support the service’s investment in counterspace capability.
He noted that the service will finish implementing the Space Force Personnel Management Act and that part-time guardians will join the force by the end of 2025.
Another priority is fielding the next generation of mission control capabilities “to relieve stress on the satellite control network,” he stated.
“This may not be a comprehensive list of our projects, but it’s a large list for a small service,” Saltzman said. “This is work that has to get done. It’s critical to the future of the joint force and to the Space Force, critical to the lethality of the joint force, and critical to the safety and security of our nation.”
‘Space Force Truths’
At a conference in Orlando, Florida, in December, the space operations chief outlined the six “Space Force truths” that shape the guardian identity and the service’s purpose.
Among those truths are that the U.S. Space Force capabilities are critical to the Joint Force and the American way of life and that the service must defend its capabilities or the Joint Force will be unable to project power.
Another truth that he highlighted is that space is a warfighting domain.
According to Saltzman, the core truths are non-negotiable and create a common thread among guardians.
“Not only are guardians warfighters in space — guardians are the only warfighters with the unique, career-long specific training, education, and experience required to achieve space superiority,” Saltzman stated. “Other services have space operators, and they certainly contribute to the fight in space, they certainly have equity in the domain, but only the Space Force grows its guardians from day one to be space warfighters.”
Commercial Space Strategy
In April 2024, the Space Force launched the Commercial Space Strategy to enhance its capability development processes and foster commercial partnerships to improve the country’s competitive advantage.
The service will implement the strategy through four lines of effort: collaborative transparency, operational and technical integration, risk management and secure the future.
At a symposium, Saltzman discussed the lines of effort, operational and technical integration.
“In this line of effort, we will work the details of integrating commercial space solutions into a hybrid space architecture,” he said.
He noted that the Space Force will develop processes, policies and technical standards and procedures that will enable the commercial sector to integrate hardware and data with the service branch.
SPAFORGEN Model
The Space Force official called on service leaders to implement the Space Force Generation model, or SPAFORGEN, to build up readiness and help maximize the service’s combat effectiveness.
In a notice to Guardians, Saltzman said SPAFORGEN “is based on the straightforward observation that day-to-day space operations do not prepare Guardians for the challenges they will face in a high-intensity combat environment.”
Under the model, Guardians assigned to combat squadrons and combat detachments rotate through three phases: prepare, ready and commit.
According to the general, the new readiness model alters how the Space Force prepares for operations and helps the service develop the capacity to conduct the current mission while getting ready for the future fight.
“Under SPAFORGEN, both officers and enlisted in mission squadrons will continue to rotate in and out of operations while assigned to the unit, creating a more experienced, capable, and threat-focused crew force,” he added.
Competitive Endurance
In another industry conference in July 2024, Saltzman talked about a theory, called Competitive Endurance, that could enable the Space Force to maintain space superiority.
According to the general, avoiding operational surprise, denying first-mover advantage and performing responsible counterspace activities are the key tenets of Competitive Endurance.
“The success of Competitive Endurance comes when our forces can anticipate aggression; protect our space missions; and deny, degrade, or disrupt an adversary’s space capabilities. Obviously, we believe, if we do these things effectively, we will contribute to the broader efforts to maintain an effective state of deterrence. But rather than organizing, training, and equipping to deter, we do it to accomplish specific military missions,” Saltzman noted.
Executive Mosaic congratulates Gen. Chance Saltzman and the entire USSF organization for this remarkable achievement.
Don’t forget to vote for Gen. Saltzman as your esteemed 2025 Wash100 awardee at Wash100.com!