A military base on Earth orbit would look like ISS. It would be made of stacked cylinders, attached one after the other. However, a military base should be much more active compared to a research facility. It should be able deploy and retrieve satellites and more importantly able to launch missiles.
Unlike a land-based counterpart, hiding the ammunition and secretive equipment underground or inside a hangar is not possible. Every additional weight would make the military base hard to keep in orbit. Instead, a space camouflage would be utilized to coverup the exposed missiles and the satellites. The camouflage would be light weight and confuse the enemy satellites imaging and radar systems. The rockets and missiles sticking out of the cylindrical structure would make it look like a hedgehog.
There would be two types of propellant on board the military space base. Liquid methane & LOX and ion thruster gas. Liquid methane and LOX would be used to fuel the ballistic missiles on demand. They would also be used on the rocket engines attached to the base in order to change its orbit in case of attack. The small maneuvers would be carried by the ion thrusters. Ion thruster gases would also be used to fuel the satellites launched from the base. The base would be able to deploy, retrieve, reconfigure and refuel satellites.
In case of emergency the base would have escape capsules like the escape pods in a submarine. As a result, a military space base would be more like an aircraft carrier than a stationary ground base. Unlike a carrier it has the potential to expand.
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