Where America Builds Its Space Force

The Post

A Small Footprint, a Massive Mission

Don't expect a traditional Air Force base. LASFB has no runway, no flightline, and barely 100 acres inside the fence — it functions less like a garrison and more like a secured headquarters campus embedded in a working aerospace city. What it lacks in size it makes up for in mission: it's home to Space Systems Command (SSC), the Space Force field command stood up on August 13, 2021 (from the old Space and Missile Systems Center) to research, develop, acquire, and sustain the nation's military space systems — GPS, missile-warning satellites, military communications, launch services, and space-domain-awareness ground networks — on a budget north of $15 billion a year. Space Base Delta 3 runs the installation itself, with the 61st Medical, Civil Engineer, Communications, Force Support, and Security Forces squadrons keeping roughly 6,000-plus military, civilian, and contractor personnel connected to SSC moving.

That workforce genuinely outgrows the fence line — this is one of the few Space Force installations where a large share of the mission happens in office buildings scattered around El Segundo rather than behind the main gate itself, because the base's footprint was never built to hold a headquarters this size. You'll badge into more than one building over a career here, and that's normal. The Aerospace Corporation, the federally funded think tank that's supported SMC/SSC's engineering work for decades, sits right next door — and El Segundo/South Bay more broadly is one of the densest aerospace-and-defense corridors in the country, a few miles from SpaceX's Hawthorne headquarters and a long list of primes and subcontractors.

One more thing that trips up new arrivals: there is no family housing on the installation. LASFB's residential community lives about 20 miles south at Fort MacArthur in San Pedro, privatized under Tierra Vista Communities — plan your PCS around that distance, not around the El Segundo gate.