Chandler Parrish Atwood

Died of a heart attack on 29 June 2025, while serving as vice commander and deputy commanding general for operations of Space Operations Command at Peterson Space Force Base.

Chandler Atwood graduated summa cum laude from The Citadel in political science and was commissioned in May 2001. He was an intelligence officer his whole career: squadron intelligence with the 20th Fighter Wing, the Weapons School at Nellis where he taught, the 35th Fighter Wing at Misawa, and the National Air and Space Intelligence Center at Wright-Patterson, where he led six hundred and fifty people and a hundred-million-dollar budget. He deployed on Operations Southern Watch, Northern Watch, Noble Eagle, Iraqi Freedom and Enduring Freedom. He commanded the 566th Intelligence Squadron at Buckley, took the National War College in 2018, and served at Special Operations Command until 2020.



He transferred to the Space Force in July 2020 and stood up Space Delta 7, the service's intelligence delta, from nothing. He was Director of Intelligence for Space Operations Command from 2022, its vice commander from June 2024, and Director of Intelligence for United States Space Command - the J2 - in 2025. He was promoted brigadier general on 11 June 2024. He was a national defense fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and wrote on Syria and on activity-based intelligence.



To the people he served with he was Fulcrum. Space Operations Command said of him that he left an undeniable mark on the command, the service, and everyone he touched, and that he led with grace, mission focus and commitment. His family offered a line that the command repeated: if you don't remember them out loud, they die twice.

His wife Andrea and their family.