Space Force rolls out new naming scheme for satellites and space weapons

ORLANDO, Fla. — The U.S. Space Force is rolling out a new naming scheme for its satellites, cyber tools and other space-warfare systems, a move aimed at giving its arsenal the kind of recognizable identities long used across the military.

In a keynote address at the Spacepower conference Dec. 11, Chief of Space Operations Gen. Chance Saltzman said the service will begin assigning meaningful nicknames to operational systems, drawing on themes meant to reflect each mission area’s character and give guardians a clearer cultural anchor.

The shift brings the Space Force closer to the practices of other branches like the Army and Air Force, which have long used names such as the Abrams tank and the Fighting Falcon fighter to lend clarity and esprit de corps to their fleets.

Saltzman said operational units across the service have spent about a year developing “terms of reference we will use to cement the identities of space weapon systems,” noting that operators needed something they could “own” as the Space Force becomes more integrated into joint combat planning.

After multiple rounds of feedback and deliberation, he added, “we’ve chosen to represent each of our mission areas with specific symbology. These symbols conjure the character of the systems, the importance of their mission and the identity of the guardians to employ them.”

Seven categories

The result is a taxonomy of seven categories tied to seven mission areas.

Orbital warfare systems will take their names from the Norse pantheon. Cyber warfare tools from mythological creatures. Electromagnetic warfare systems from serpents. Navigation warfare tools from sharks. Missile warning assets from sentinels. Space domain awareness systems from ghosts. And satellite communications systems from constellations.

The service is also taking care to avoid copyright issues, Saltzman said: “We had to find categories that you could use, like ghosts or constellations or things that nobody could claim ownership of.”

A few units have already adopted the approach. The 10th Space Operations Squadron named the Ultra-High Frequency Follow-On geostationary communications platform Ursa Major, setting a pattern that all satcom systems will follow. The 1st Space Operations Squadron named its ORS-5 surveillance satellite Bifrost, drawing from Nordic lore and establishing the Norse naming convention for orbital warfare assets.

Saltzman said the shift is intended to build a stronger sense of identity among guardians who operate systems often hidden behind classified designations or opaque acquisition labels.

“To some degree this is about having a culture where the people responsible for the mission feel directly connected to it, and it’s hard to get connected to a program name or some number system in the catalog of weapon systems,” he told reporters. The naming system will apply to both new and existing platforms as the service updates its inventory.

Establishing identity

The initiative is part of Space Force leadership’s broader push to solidify a distinct institutional culture, even as the service remains administratively under the Department of the Air Force and continues to mature its mission set in an era of accelerating space militarization.

Saltzman described the Space Force as a “highly technical service,” but emphasized that “our identity is rooted just as much in the systems we employ as the people who operate them.”

Alongside the thematic nicknames, the Space Force is also adopting a new alphanumeric satellite designation scheme. Each spacecraft will receive a two-letter prefix indicating mission type followed by a number. For example, the next generation of geostationary reconnaissance satellites will carry the RG-XX designator, adding a layer of standardized classification to complement the symbolic names attached to operational systems.