A new Air Force Space Command headquarters for space warfare will get its start in California this week with a ceremony to mark its establishment.

The new Combined Space Operations Center at Vandenberg Air Force Base will replace an old unit with “joint” in its title. But the switch is more than one word — the new center adds “warfare” duties to its portfolio, including the defense of America’s military satellites in orbit.

Gen. Jay Raymond, who heads Space Command in Colorado Springs, said the new unit “positions the U.S. and allied space forces to deter a conflict from extending into space, and should deterrence fail, to fight and win.”

Raymond and other top space leaders will be on hand Wednesday when the new “combined” center is formally welcomed to the military.

The change comes as the military’s space efforts face increasing scrutiny from Congress and President Donald Trump. The president last month ordered the Pentagon to clear the way for a separate “space force” that he said would better position America to fight wars in orbit.

The shift signals a major increase in Raymond’s duties at Space Command. Worrying about a space war used to fall solely to U.S. Strategic Command in Omaha, Neb. But Congress last year mandated changes that put the job squarely on the Colorado Springs general.

Officials at Vandenberg said the new center is “designed to improve coordination between the U.S., allies, commercial and civil partners for defensive space efforts, and to enhance individual and collective space capabilities, thereby expanding overall multi-domain military effectiveness.”

The Vandenberg shift precedes a change in Colorado Springs.

Earlier this year, the Air Force said it was assembling a “Joint Forces Space Component” at Schriever Air Force Base to oversee all of the military’s efforts in orbit. The new headquarters will involve troops from several military services.

All the recent moves come as Congress debates what new space policies may wind up in a final version of a defense policy bill that’s in a final conference committee to hammer out differences between the House and Senate.

While it appears unlikely that lawmakers will order Trump’s space force into existence this year, they could plow the ground to make that change in 2019.

Any big changes in military space policy will be felt in Colorado Springs, where airmen control the satellites that troops on the ground use for navigation, communication, missile warning and intelligence.

Contact Tom Roeder: 636-0240 Twitter: @xroederx