Space Force Completes Personnel Management Act Transfers from Air Force

The Space Force has finished transferring the last of the Air Force Reserve and Air National Guard members covered by the Personnel Management Act that created a hybrid full-time/part-time force.

The last cohort of transfers—Air Force Reservists transitioning to part-time jobs in the Space Force—swore in to their new service on Oct. 1. The main transfer ceremony took place at Los Angeles Air Force Base, Calif., with some service members joining via video teleconference, according to a service release.

Over the past two and a half years, hundreds of Reservists and Guardsmen have transferred into the Space Force as part of the groundbreaking effort to consolidate space-focused units and personnel and create a force with no components that will allow Guardians to transition between full-time and part-time positions with fewer bureaucratic hurdles.

The Space Force Personnel Management Act, passed in late 2023 as part of the 2024 National Defense Authorization Act, laid out the process for those transfers to take place, starting with the Air Force Reserve. A year later, lawmakers voted that space missions in the Air National Guard would also be absorbed by the Space Force instead of creating a separate Space National Guard.

Officials said implementing the Personnel Management Act, or PMA, would be a yearslong process.

In May 2024—before the transfer of Air National Guard space mission into the Space Force was finalized—USSF announced a six-month window for members of the Air Force Reserve to apply to transfer into the new service on a full-time basis. Officials then conducted a series of boards, eventually selecting 380 Reservists for transfer by April 2025.

Then, in August 2025, USSF started accepting applications from Air National Guardsmen to transfer on a full-time basis. Another board selected 99 Guard members in early 2026 for transfer.

Separately, in September 2025, the Space Force announced it was accepting applications for Air Force Reservists to transfer in for part-time positions. In April, the service said it selected 247 individuals to do so, and the first part-time Guardians came aboard in July.

The Oct. 1 transfer ceremony was for the last of the part-time cohort. Guard and Reserve members can still join the Space Force through the prior service program, but the main movement is complete.

“The recently completed transfer cohort represented the final PMA-directed movement of [Air Reserve Component] members in the designated space-mission population,” a Space Force spokesperson told Air & Space Forces Magazine.

As part of the transition, the Space Force started assuming the Air National Guard’s space missions on Oct. 1, 2025.

The Space Force never opened a window for Air National Guardsmen to transfer into part-time work roles. The spokesperson noted that USSF “will continue to evaluate manpower requirements and the potential need for subsequent transfer windows as part of the overall growth model.”

The new members serving in a part-time capacity are called Guardians “Not on Sustained Duty.” They will be required to serve the equivalent of at least 36 days—48 four-hour Inactive Duty Training periods and 12 Annual Training days—per year to have a “good year” toward retirement.

The former Reservists and Guardsmen joining the Space Force bring deep experience to the service at a time when it is looking to grow dramatically—that’s important, officials say, to match the coming surge of brand-new Guardians.

Too many new Guardians with little experience entering at the lowest ranks could wreak havoc on the service’s grade structure, Deputy Chief of Space Operations for personnel Katharine Kelley said last month at AFA’s Air, Space & Cyber conference.

“We’re trying to balance not having all of our accessions be brand new in terms of experience,” she said. “We’re looking for ways to make sure that we can kind of balance this as a sourcing model and a sustainment model for people.”