Two years ago, the cislunar domain was mostly an abstraction in Pentagon planning documents. Now it is a named priority for the U.S. Space Force, with senior officers publicly committing to build command-and-control capability that reaches past the Moon. The shift became visible at the Air and Space Forces Association's Warfare Symposium on February 24, where three generals and a roster of commercial executives described a future in which guarding Earth-Moon space is as normal as operating GPS satellites. Vice Chief of Space Operations Gen. Shawn Bratton said the Space Force needs to command and control spacecraft beyond the Moon , calling it a firm requirement within the 15-year planning horizon. Bratton also predicted the service will double its current 10,000-person uniformed workforce within five to ten years to meet expanding demands. The statements signal a deliberate, funded push into territory that was once the exclusive province of science missions. AI-generated image Cislunar space domain awareness requires tracking objects across a volume roughly 60 times larger than low Earth orbit. Credit: AI illustration What Happened at the AFA Symposium The Air and Space Forces Association Warfare Symposium, held February 24-26 in Aurora, Colorado, is one of the few forums where military and commercial space executives speak candidly about capabilities that are still years from deployment. This year, the cislunar conversation stood out. Bratton opened a session by noting that the region between Earth and the Moon has become strategically important not in some distant future but right now, driven by Chinese lunar ambitions, American commercial lunar landers, and the emergence of Gateway, NASA's planned lunar orbital station. Maj. Gen. Robert Claude, mobilization assistant to the Chief of Space Operations, told attendees the Space Force's force design process looks 15 years ahead precisely to assess how requirements might shift. "I can't sit here today and tell you that we will or we won't have guardians in space at any point in the future," Claude said. His phrasing was deliberate: not a commitment but a refusal to close doors the service may need later. What "Cislunar Domain Awareness" Actually Means Space domain awareness in low Earth orbit relies on a global network of ground-based radars and optical sensors. Cislunar space covers a volume roughly 60 times larger. Objects on lunar transfer trajectories move through regions where current sensor networks provide little or no coverage. The Space Force's stated goal is persistent surveillance across that entire volume by 2040. Kyle Pumroy, senior fellow for space studies at the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies, offered context that military officers were careful to avoid: the capability may be required not just for tracking purposes but for active deterrence. As China's Chang'e program progresses toward crewed lunar missions and the U.S. rushes Artemis II toward a crewed lunar orbit, the political geography of cislunar space is changing faster than doctrine can keep up. ~10K Current Space Force uniformed personnel 2x Projected workforce growth within 10 years 15 yrs Space Force planning horizon (Objective Force study) 384K km Earth-Moon distance, the core of the cislunar domain Command and Control Past the Moon AI-generated image Space Force operators at a deep-space tracking facility monitoring cislunar trajectories. Future command-and-control architecture must cover the full Earth-Moon volume. Credit: AI illustration Bratton's statement about commanding spacecraft beyond the Moon was the most operationally specific remark to come out of the symposium. Current Space Force missions largely stop at geosynchronous orbit, roughly 36,000 kilometers from Earth. Cislunar space begins there and extends to the Moon at 384,000 kilometers. Beyond the Moon, gravitational dynamics open the door to Earth-Moon Lagrange points, which sit hundreds of thousands of kilometers further out and are already identified in U.S. Space Policy Directive 4 as areas of strategic interest. The technical challenge is considerable. Deep Space Network relay satellites exist, but they serve NASA science missions with low data rates. A military command-and-control architecture would need dedicated communications infrastructure, low-latency tracking, and potentially space-based relay nodes in lunar orbit, exactly the role NASA's Lunar Gateway is being designed to play. That overlap is one reason Space Force planners are watching the Gateway program so carefully. The Objective Force study, the Space Force's internal 15-year planning exercise led by the Space Warfighting Analysis Center, is explicitly examining what capabilities are needed to operate in a contested cislunar environment. Bratton described a process that asks not "how many satellites" but what missions need to be possible and how the force should be structured to sustain them under adversarial pressure. Key Capabilities in the Cislunar Roadmap • Space Domain Awareness: Persistent sensor coverage from GEO to lunar distance, filling gaps current radars cannot reach. • Deep-Space C2: Communications and command relay for spacecraft operating at L1, L2, and lunar orbit. • Missile Warning Extension: Detecting launches and tracking objects that transit through cislunar space on unusual trajectories. • Guardian Pathways: Liaison programs with NASA so Space Force personnel can gain human spaceflight experience now, ahead of future operational needs. • Commercial Integration: Using private stations like Starlab and Vast as dual-use infrastructure without creating a purely military orbital presence. Commerce as the On-Ramp AI-generated image Starlab Space, a joint venture led by Voyager Technologies and Airbus, is building a commercial successor to the International Space Station. Company executives say the platform could support military needs if the government decides to establish an orbital presence. Credit: AI illustration Tom Ayres, general counsel of Starlab Space, offered the bluntest framing of the day: "The military always follows commerce." Starlab, the joint venture between Voyager Technologies and Airbus, is developing a free-flying commercial station intended to maintain continuous human presence in low Earth orbit after the International Space Station is decommissioned in the early 2030s. Ayres argued that the same infrastructure built for pharmaceutical research and manufacturing could double as a forward operating base if the government ever decided it needed one. Andrew Feustel, lead astronaut at Vast Space, backed the argument from the technical side. Vast is developing stations capable of artificial gravity for long-duration stays. Feustel described orbital platforms as "a unique operating base that we really haven't been able to take advantage of in the last three decades." His point was not hypothetical: as commercial investment in orbit accelerates, protecting that infrastructure becomes a legitimate national security concern, regardless of whether any military personnel are stationed there. Ayres's warning about China was directed at an audience well aware of the stakes. Beijing's Chang'e 7 mission is scheduled to survey the lunar south pole for water ice in 2026. The China National Space Administration has publicly stated its intent to build a permanent lunar base by 2035. If Chinese infrastructure at the lunar south pole can restrict access to water resources that future crewed missions depend on, the economics and the security calculus of cislunar space change together. Station Operator Target Date Military Relevance Starlab Voyager / Airbus ~2030 Dual-use LEO hub; executives confirmed willingness to support DoD Vast Haven-1 Vast Space 2025–2026 Artificial gravity R&D; long-duration human presence capability Lunar Gateway NASA / international Late 2020s Cislunar relay node; potential C2 anchor for Space Force Tiangong-4 CNSA ~2028 Chinese LEO backbone