RAND Research on Workforce and Force Development Innovation

The establishment of the U.S. Space Force (USSF) in December 2019 represented the first creation of a new military service in more than 70 years, reflecting the strategic imperative to defend U.S. interests in an increasingly contested space domain. As the service shifts from start-up to mature operations, its challenge is to transform deliberately into a warfighting force purpose-built to contest and control space.

The Chief of Space Operations defines this direction in Space Force Vector 2025 (Saltzman, 2025), which establishes four service-level activities—Force Design, Force Development, Force Generation, and Force Employment—as the primary levers through which the USSF achieves space superiority. These activities implement the service’s theory of success, Competitive Endurance, which is composed of three tenets: avoiding operational surprise, denying first-mover advantage, and conducting responsible counterspace campaigning.

As a strategic analytic partner to the Department of the Air Force, RAND Project AIR FORCE (PAF) has provided—and will continue to provide—support for this transformation. PAF research supports every stage of the USSF’s evolution—from designing the future force to developing space-minded warfighters to generating and employing combat-ready formations. This publication synthesizes research findings from PAF’s Workforce, Development, and Health program and offers a roadmap for continued support of Vector 2025 priorities.

Force Design: Informing the Future Objective Force

Force Design determines what the USSF will need to succeed in contested operations. RAND analyses connect war-fighting concepts, manpower structures, and technology requirements to future operational needs, helping quantify the Objective Force.

RAND researchers assessed five critical human capital management functions—assignments, evaluations, force development, promotions, and separations—to determine optimal organizational alignment (Conley et al., 2024). Stakeholder interviews revealed policy gaps and resourcing constraints hindering talent-management implementation. The study delivered actionable recommendations for policy development, USSF-specific information technology (IT) systems, and interservice transfers. These findings now inform Force Design manpower forecasting and data-governance solutions.

Force Development: Building Space-Minded Warfighters

Force Development enhances the fielded force, creating guardians with the skills, values, and experience required to thrive as space warfighters. The majority of the research done by PAF’s Workforce, Development, and Health program addresses Force Development challenges through competency-based career models, flexible service constructs, education and training systems, and organizational culture.

Workforce Design and Guardian Career Development

RAND proposed a matrix-based approach that breaks down Air Force–style career-field stovepipes (Li and Melin, 2023). Officers would train in both a warfighting mission area and an occupational competency, with later cross-skilling into a third specialty to build depth and adaptability. This construct directly supports Vector 2025 priorities for role clarity, technical mastery, and sustained career development.

Complementary analyses concluded that legacy policies limit leadership selectivity and constrain general-officer generation (Ross et al., 2024; Schulker et al., 2024). Recommended changes include expanding promotion board eligibility, introducing competency-based succession planning, and authorizing multigrade promotions.

Advanced Academic Education

RAND found that officers earn advanced degrees too late to fill key technical positions and that poor utilization wastes educational investments (Harrington, Hanser, et al., 2024). Researchers developed a personnel-flow model linking degree requirements to mission competencies and recommended alternative pathways, such as microcredentials. These recommendations support Force Development objectives to cultivate scientifically fluent officers and civilians.

Personnel Integration and Role Distinctions

RAND proposed flexible service models allowing guardians to shift between full-time and part-time status, maximizing talent retention (Harrington, Dalzell, et al., 2024). A separate study addressed overlapping duties among officers, enlisted personnel, and civilians, recommending a rubric for deliberate role assignment (Conley et al., 2024). These studies provide analytic underpinnings for the Personnel Management Act authorities described in Vector 2025.

Organizational Culture

RAND outlined methods for building a purpose-designed culture aligned with The Guardian Ideal (USSF, 2021)—centered on adaptability, technical mastery, and leadership. This work supports Vector 2025’s emphasis on Mission Command and unity of effort in joint operations (Li and Melin, 2023).

Force Generation: Building and Sustaining Combat Readiness

Force Generation builds, sustains, and reconstitutes force elements for prompt and sustained operations. RAND research laid the groundwork for the Space Force Generation (SPAFORGEN) model, which cycles guardians through Prepare, Ready, and Commit phases to balance daily operations with advanced warfighting training.

RAND identified significant staffing gaps within Space Training and Readiness Command (STARCOM) and built the STARCOM Staffing Optimization Model (STAR-SOM) to align personnel with mission priorities (Evans et al., 2026). This work supports SPAFORGEN implementation by ensuring that training resources match combat requirements.

Researchers emphasized clear roles, authorities, and data standards for operational test and training infrastructure (OTTI)—recommendations now embodied in the modern OTTI concept (Marler et al., 2025).

RAND found that traditional readiness frameworks cannot capture space-operations dynamics (Dolan et al., 2023). Researchers recommended adopting SPAFORGEN and transformation-pace metrics, guidance that led directly to Space Force Instruction 10-201.

Force Employment: Normalizing Space Power Within the Joint Force

Force Employment encompasses planning, management, and command relationships through which the USSF employs fielded forces. RAND research informs how the USSF positions mission and system deltas, establishes space mission task forces, and integrates with combatant commands. The organizational culture work previously described directly supports how the service normalizes space power for effective joint force integration.

Continuing RAND Support for Space Force Transformation

RAND’s portfolio maps directly to the four service-level activities of Vector 2025. As recommendations move from policy to practice, RAND can support implementation, evaluation, and adaptation through targeted analytic efforts:

• Evaluating Implementation and Refining Total-Force Mix: Conduct longitudinal assessments to determine whether matrix-based career frameworks and SPAFORGEN produce desired outcomes. Test different officer-enlisted-civilian combinations through demonstration programs and quantify cost-effectiveness, retention, and mission performance.
• Operationalizing Integrated Personnel Models: Develop assignment algorithms, compensation models, and career-progression frameworks for the Personnel Management Act that maintain equity across full- and part-time guardians while ensuring sustained readiness.
• Advancing Technology and Talent Integration: Explore emerging talent models—digital engineering career tracks, microcredentials (which are earned through short, targeted education programs), artificial intelligence–enabled personnel management, and public-private exchanges—that align human capital with evolving mission requirements.
• Strengthening Governance and IT Infrastructure: Design integrated personnel repositories, analytic dashboards, and decision-support tools linking STARCOM, SPAFORGEN, and acquisition data systems.
• Sustaining Cultural Coherence Through Growth: Provide longitudinal studies of guardian identity and cultural cohesion to prevent fragmentation and ensure consistent application of the Guardian Ideal as the USSF scales up in size.
• Modeling Future Requirements: Model human-capital requirements for the Objective Force, evaluate SPAFORGEN effectiveness, link OTTI simulation data to readiness indexes, and develop doctrine, organization, training, materiel, leadership and education, personnel, facilities, and policy (DOTMLPF-P) decision- support tools.

RAND’s multiyear partnership has provided the analytic foundation for the USSF’s earliest initiatives—skills-based talent models, integrated personnel flexibilities, and readiness frameworks now incorporated into service guidance. As the USSF accelerates its transformation into a warfighting service, RAND can deliver independent analysis for sustained innovation and accountability. Through continued collaboration, PAF will help the USSF achieve space superiority and operationalize competitive endurance across Force Design, Force Development, Force Generation, and Force Employment.

References

• Conley, Raymond E., Patricia Mulcahy, Gina Oliver, and Sam Wallace, Alignment of U.S. Space Force Military Human Capital Management Functions: A Qualitative Review, RAND Corporation, RR-A2324-2, 2024. As of November 26, 2025: https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RRA2324-2.html
• Dolan, Brian, Bonnie L. Triezenberg, Emmi Yonekura, Sandra Kay Evans, Moon Kim, Dwayne M. Butler, Sarah W. Denton, and Shreyas Bharadwaj, Understanding, Managing, and Reporting U.S. Space Force Readiness, RAND Corporation, RR-A977-1, 2023. As of November 7, 2025: https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RRA977-1.html
• Evans, Sandra Kay, Nelson Lim, Andrea M. Abler, Naoko Aoki, Lisa Pelled Colabella, Ethan Doshi, Caroline Margaret Johnston, Sarah Nicole Kosic, Robert Romer, Joshua Simulcik, Akshaya Suresh, Stephanie Williamson, Patrick White, and Emmi Yonekura, Manpower Analysis to Improve the Functional Alignment and Organizational Structure of Space Training and Readiness Command Headquarters, RAND Corporation, RR-A3669-1, 2026. As of February 26, 2026: https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RRA3669-1.html
• Harrington, Lisa M., Stephen Dalzell, and Melanie A. Zaber, Integrating Variable-Time Work Within a U.S. Space Force Component, RAND Corporation, RR-A575-1, 2024. As of November 26, 2025: https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RRA575-1.html
• Harrington, Lisa M., Lawrence M. Hanser, Chaitra M. Hardison, Tara L. Terry, Jonah Kushner, Lewis Schneider, Anthony Lawrence, and Monica Rico, Advanced Academic Education in the U.S. Space Force: Strategies for Developing a Technical Workforce, RAND Corporation, RR-A1750-1, 2024. As of November 6, 2025: https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RRA1750-1.html
• Li, Jennifer J., and Julia L. Melin, Developing U.S. Space Force Organizational Culture with Future-Facing Intention, RAND Corporation, PE-A575-1, December 2023. As of November 26, 2025: https://www.rand.org/pubs/perspectives/PEA575-1.html
• Marler, Timothy, Laurinda L. Rohn, Mark Toukan, Gwen Mazzotta, Stephanie Young, Eddie Ro, Matthew Sargent, Matt Strawn, and Mack Rodgers, U.S. Space Force Operational Test and Training Infrastructure (OTTI): Recommendations for Organizational Roles, Responsibilities, and Authorities, RAND Corporation, RR-A3173-1, 2025. As of November 6, 2025: https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RRA3173-1.html
• Ross, Shirley M., Irina A. Chindea, John S. Crown, Samantha E. DiNicola, Ginger Groeber, Lawrence M. Hanser, and Jennifer J. Li, General Officers, Career Field Sustainability, Training Pipelines, and the Civilian Workforce of the U.S. Space Force: Considered Options to Enhance Structure and Configuration, RAND Corporation, RR-A547-1, 2024. As of November 6, 2025: https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RRA547-1.html
• Saltzman, B. Chance, Space Force Vector 2025, U.S. Space Force, 2025.
• Schulker, David, Lisa M. Harrington, Albert A. Robbert, Bart E. Bennett, Nelson Lim, Gina Oliver, Lewis Schneider, Irina A. Chindea, Kimberly J. Lichte, Joshua Klarich, and Kelly Atkinson, Recommended Approaches for General Officer Promotions in the U.S. Space Force: The Stars Above, RAND Corporation, RR-A2113-1, 2024. As of November 26, 2025: https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RRA2113-1.html
• USSF—See U.S. Space Force.
• U.S. Space Force, The Guardian Ideal, September 17, 2021.

Topics

• Military Force Planning
• Space Warfare
• United States Space Force