The new United States Space Command will officially be up and running by the end of the month, Vice President Mike Pence said today (Aug. 20) at a meeting of the National Space Council. 

The U.S. Space Command will be the military's unified combatant command in charge of the country's defense operations in space. It will become the Defense Department's 11th unified combatant command, alongside the U.S. Strategic Command, the U.S. Special Operations Command and other commands that serve specific functions or geographic regions. 

"Next week we will formally stand up the new unified combatant command that will be known as the United States Space Command," Pence said during the sixth meeting of the newly established National Space Council as he stood beneath the space shuttle Discovery at the National Air and Space Museum's Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly, Va.

Vice President Mike Pence speaks at the sixth meeting of the National Space Council at the National Air and Space Museum in Chantilly, Va., on Aug. 20, 2019.