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Patrick AFB is a United States Space Force installation in Brevard County on Florida's Space Coast, located between Satellite Beach and Cocoa Beach, and the base is itself a census-designated place.

The base opened in 1940 as Naval Air Station Banana River, a Navy seaplane base where PBY Catalina and PBM Mariner aircraft flew anti-submarine patrols along the Florida coast during World War II.

A PBM Mariner seaplane from NAS Banana River vanished on December 5, 1945, while searching for the lost Flight 19 bombers — an episode that became part of Bermuda Triangle lore.

The Navy closed the station in 1947 and transferred it to the U.S. Air Force in 1948; in August 1950 it was renamed Patrick Air Force Base in honor of Major General Mason Patrick.

On December 9, 2020, Vice President Mike Pence renamed it Patrick Space Force Base, making it — along with Cape Canaveral — one of the first two installations to carry the Space Force name.

The base is home to Space Launch Delta 45, the unit that operates Cape Canaveral Space Force Station and the Eastern Range supporting rocket launches from the Space Coast.

Other major tenants include the 920th Rescue Wing, the Air Force Technical Applications Center, and the Defense Equal Opportunity Management Institute, which was established at the base in 1971.

The 2020 census counted 1,308 residents in the Patrick AFB census-designated place, up from 1,222 in 2010, while total employment on the base is about 10,400 people.

More than 13,000 military members, dependents, civilian employees, and contractors are associated with the base, making its daytime population far larger than its resident population.

Patrick AFB is part of the Palm Bay–Melbourne–Titusville metropolitan area, and its resident population is strikingly young — Census survey data puts its median age at about 25 years.