After months of delay, Air Force reservists in Colorado Springs interested in part-time Space Force roles received job offers this week. 

Those who accept will be the only part-time active-duty service members in the military, part of a new model the Space Force is rolling out. All the other branches rely on Reserve and National Guard units to supplement their forces. 

Chief of Space Operations Gen. Chance Saltzman has promoted what he has called an “innovative” single-component model for the Space Force that will not rely on a reserve or guard to manage its part-time members.

The model is coming to fruition after facing some opposition from the National Guard Association of the U.S. and from governors who wanted to see a Space National Guard. At the same time, the Space Force is absorbing all the space-focused tasks across the Air Force Reserve and the Air National Guard. 

As part of the transition, the 310th Space Wing at Schriever Space Force Base, an organization that once employed about 1,400 people, is winding down its operations, and members are dispersing across the reserve, new positions in the Space Force or into inactive status, said Col. Adam Fisher, who leads the wing. It is the only space-focused wing in the reserve.

Previously, reservists would work shifts with active-duty guardians in missile warning, space domain awareness and GPS, he said. Those roles have ended as a part of the transition.

The wing is down to about 600 members with about 40 airmen still working abroad on space missions and in security forces, Fisher said. Of the 800 who have left, about 70% have transferred to a uniformed position, with about half of them choosing to stay in the Air Force Reserve and receive retraining. About 150 employees haven’t made a decision.

“We did our best to retain the talent in a military service,” he said. 

Fisher said he expects between 325 and 350 airmen from the 310th Space Force Wing to transfer into the Space Force. Approximately 200 airmen accepted full-time positions in the Space Force, and he said he expects between 125 and 150 will accept part-time positions.  Across the Air Force Reserve about 1,000 airmen were eligible to transfer into the Space Force.

The part-time job offers to everyone applying for lieutenant colonel and master sergeant positions and below went out this week, a Space Force spokesperson said.

The transfer of full-time airmen is well underway and had been expected to wrap up by the end of September, he said. It is now expected to be complete by the end of the summer. 

The Space Force has issued 99% of the full-time job offers, a Space Force spokesperson said in a statement.

“Issuing the remaining orders for Reservists is the team’s top priority, and we are committed to completing them as quickly as possible,” the spokesperson said in a statement.

Those interested in part-time positions faced a delay in receiving job offers, creating some frustration, Fisher said. 

The part-time job offers were expected in December following a fall application window. By February, the airmen had expected the job offers imminently for months, Fisher said. The delay held up the airmen’s ability to decide between joining the Space Force or taking a position with the Air Force Reserve.

“From our perspective, it has been less than seamless,” Fisher said. 

Some reservists decided simply to stay with the reserve and get retrained for a different position because they didn’t want to wait any longer, Fisher said. 

Some of the complaints Fisher heard from reservists waiting for Space Force jobs included: “This is too onerous. We’ve been at this for too long. We’ve lost a lot of faith in the Space Force and we’d rather just let the dust settle and we might come back to the Space Force at a later date,” he said. 

The service member transfers had been slowed by the 45-day government shutdown and the brief shutdown that ended on Feb. 3, and the need for an agreement between the Air Force Reserve Command and Space Force to cover administrative duties, among other factors, Fisher said.   

A Space Force spokesperson said a team dedicated to transfers was working on legal authorities, resources, budget, and support requirements during the delay to allow a seamless transfer.  

The new part-time roles will be episodic, rather than permanent, as they can be with the reserve. Airmen with the 310th who accept a part-time Space Force position will only be guaranteed that role three years, The Gazette reported previously. They will then need to reapply. 

The number of work days as a part-time active duty member of the Space Force is also different from the reserve. While traditional reservists work one weekend a month, with two weeks of training a year, some Space Force roles expect guardians to work 100 days, 150 days, and 179 days of duty a year, Fisher said. 

For members of the 310th who want to remain reservists, the Air Force Reserve Command created a first-of-its-kind model to match people with job openings based on their preferences, such as job type and location, Fisher said. Folks from the 310th Wing have been placed all across the country, from Hawaii to New Jersey. Many of the jobs were not in Colorado, but reservists can commute for their duty days. 

“The Air Force Reserve has done its best to try to take care of these individuals who bring a lot to the fight, even at the expense of retraining,” he said. 

Brig. Gen. Kevin Merrill, commander of the 10th Air Force, which oversees the 310th, said reserve command staff visited the wing multiple times to work with airmen who wished to stay and answer questions about career fields and requirements. 

The screening process that has allowed the command to match airmen’s preferences with the reserve’s needs has been successful in many cases, he said. 

It’s been a priority for the command to retain airmen, he said. 

“We can train proficiency in a new specialty, but we cannot recreate the leadership experience these airman have built throughout their time,” he said, in a statement.

This story has been updated to clarify that 1,000 airmen across the Air Force Reserve were eligible to transfer into the Space Force.