Lt. Gen. Douglas A. Schiess faces a Senate Armed Services Committee nomination hearing on Capitol Hill, July 16, 2026. (Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON ― In a unanimous consent vote late on Thursday, the Senate confirmed Lt. Gen. Doug Schiess as the next chief of space operations (CSO) — the third person to pick up the reins of the almost seven-year-old Space Force.
As expected, the confirmation was swift and non-controversial.
Schiess, who currently serves as Space Force deputy, will replace Gen. Chance Saltzman, who is expected to retire in mid-August. Schiess will earn a fourth star and inherit a much larger Space Force in both budget and end strength than what existed when the branch was established in 2019 by the first Trump administration.
In fiscal 2022, when Saltzman took up the CSO post, the Space Force was appropriated $17.4 billion and comprised about 8,700 active duty Guardians, as the branch’s service members are called. The service’s FY27 budget request asks for $71.2 billion, and includes a proposed increase in end strength from today’s 10,657 active forces to 13,200. Further, Saltzman, Schiess and other top Space Force brass have been lobbying for the service to roughly double in size by 2030, to around 20,000 Guardians and civilians.
