WASHINGTON — President Trump on May 15 was presented with the official flag of the U.S. Space Force by Chief of Space Operations Gen. John Raymond and senior enlisted adviser Chief Master Sgt. Roger Towberman.
In attendance at the Oval Office ceremony were Defense Secretary Mark Esper, Air Force Secretary Barbara Barrett, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley and special assistant to the president Keith Kellogg.
According to a White House pool report, Trump cheered the unfurling of the flag, commenting that space “is going to be the future. … We’re now the leader in space.” He praised DoD officials for “building right now incredible military equipment” including a “super duper” missile.
Esper called the event a “very historic moment.”
Barrett said “very few people realize how important space is to everything that we do, and that it’s vulnerable. … We need to up our game in space.”
The flag of the sixth branch of the U.S. military was produced by the Defense Logistics Agency in Philadelphia from a design developed by the Institute of Heraldry at Fort Belvoir, Virginia.
The flag is derived from the Space Force seal that Trump approved in January. The flag takes the central elements of the seal and places them on a black field fringed in platinum with the words United States Space Force and Roman Numerals MMXIX (2019) below. The Space Force was established on Dec. 20, 2019.
The dark blue and white in the seal represent outer space. The Delta Wing symbolizes the early days of the U.S. Air Force space community, and also represents variations of space vehicles. The globe represents the terrestrial home of the U.S. Space Force. The white Polaris is the guiding light of security and alludes to a constant presence and vigilance in space. The three larger stars symbolize the “organize, train and equip” functions of the Space Force.
