Air Force Missile Maintenance Badge master

The Missile Badge is awarded as a permanent decoration upon a service member’s graduation from missile operations or maintenance officer training (if awarded to an officer) or from maintenance tech school if awarded to an enlisted service member. The badge is worn on the lower left pocket and is the largest of the U.S. Air Force speciality badges. It is also one of the few United States military badges which is not transferable between services, meaning that a qualified Missile crew member, who transfers to another branch of the United States armed forces cannot display the Missile Badge on another service uniform.

The Missile Badge without operations designator is awarded to those qualified to perform maintenance on the weapon system, but are not involved with the actual launch procedures. Most Air Force members, who earned the Missile Badge with operations designator, also earned the Combat Readiness Medal after two years of qualified service serving in an active missile silo. Missile operations (13N) is no longer a subset of the Space Operations career field (13S) and thus Missile Operators no longer are awarded a Space Badge. Officers who have gone through the missile operations training are awarded their badge upon completion of the class.