When President Donald J. Trump signed the act establishing the United States Space Force in 2019, he made not only a sixth branch of the military but also a design challenge for the ages. The visual identity for a new armed service would have to be created from scratch, for the first time since the Air Force became independent from the Army in 1947.

Never mind that some critics have called the Space Force a silly waste of money, and Netflix released a show starring Steve Carell, “Space Force,” which satirized the agency and its mission to “protect the interests of the United States in space.”

Jacqueline Whitt, a professor of strategy at the U.S. Army War College, said the Space Force has to “at once signal seriousness. But they’re also aiming for this distinctive look that’s not about putting astronauts on the moon.” Everyone in the Space Force, she added, is working in offices “earth-side.”

After previous unveilings of the name for service members (“guardians”), its logo (which centers on a delta symbol) and rank insignia (deltas, globes and orbit rings), last week the Space Force showed prototypes of its new service dress.

At the Air Force Association’s Air, Space & Cyber Conference in National Harbor, Md., Gen. John W. Raymond, chief of space operations, called onstage two guardians, Lt. Col. Ally Gonzalez and Maj. Dylan Caudill, who modeled a dark navy coat with gray pants. The deep blue of the coat is meant to represent the vastness of space. Silver thread on the sleeve braiding is a nod to 21st-century futurism, silver being a precious metal more spacey than gold.

The uniforms’ most prominent feature was the asymmetrical cut of the coat, which buttons on the right rather than in the middle. Six silver buttons run diagonally down the front, to represent the sixth branch of the military.