05/23/2025 | Welcome to our roundup of top SpaceNews stories, delivered every Friday! This week, Trump gave the Golden Dome a leader, budget and timeline, Blue Origin offered a rare update on its lunar lander, Isaacman's NASA administrator confirmation vote is coming up, and more. | Our Top Story | | |
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| | By Sandra Erwin, May 20, 2025 |  | President Trump on May 20, 2025, announced that Gen. Michael Guetlein will lead the Golden Dome missile defense program. Credit: White House livestream
| President Donald Trump selected Space Force Gen. Michael Guetlein to lead the Golden Dome missile defense program, a massive undertaking that aims to create a comprehensive shield against advanced missile threats targeting the United States.
During an Oval Office briefing May 20, Trump — flanked by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Guetlein and Republican Senators Jim Banks (Ind.), Kevin Cramer (N.D) and Dan Sullivan (Alaska) — announced that his administration has approved an "architecture" for Golden Dome and expects the system to be completed within three years at a cost of $175 billion. Read More |  | Other News From the Week | CIVIL | Senate sets up early June vote on Isaacman nomination to lead NASA
Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) filed cloture on Isaacman's nomination May 22, a procedural move that would set up a vote on the nomination in early June. The Senate is not in session the week of May 26 because of the Memorial Day holiday. The nomination has been pending before the full Senate since the Senate Commerce Committee advanced the nomination April 30 on a 19-9 vote. Read More
NASA says long-running budget shortfalls may lead to ISS crew and research reductions
NASA says a "multi-year" budget shortfall even before the proposed cuts in the fiscal year 2026 budget request have led the agency to consider reductions in crew size and research on the International Space Station. Read More
ESA seeks funding for 'security and resilience' satellite program
In an interview broadcast by Friends of Europe May 21, Josef Aschbacher, ESA's director general, said ESA will seek funding at its November ministerial conference for a satellite system for "security and resilience" at the request of its member states. The ESA will request funding from member states for an Earth observation satellite system for security applications, blurring the line between the agency's traditional civil focus and new defense work. Read More | | | Loving SpaceNews This Week? Check out SpaceNext: AI, where we look at how artificial intelligence is becoming integral to the space industry, and how companies and agencies are using it for their missions. | | | MILITARY | Pentagon boosts budget for Palantir's AI software in major expansion of Project Maven The Pentagon is dramatically increasing spending on artificial intelligence for military operations, raising the contract ceiling for Palantir Technologies' Maven Smart System to nearly $1.3 billion through 2029. Read More
Space Force and NGA move to end turf disputes with new intelligence agreement
The U.S. Space Force and the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) signed a memorandum of agreement May 21 aimed at clarifying their roles in delivering space-based intelligence to military commanders. The agreement describes the agencies' roles and responsibilities in acquiring and providing commercial imagery, remote sensing data and associated products, enhancing support to the combatant commands while minimizing redundancy and duplication of effort. Read More | | | COMMERCIAL | Dawn Aerospace begins sales of Aurora suborbital spaceplane
The New Zealand company announced May 22 it is beginning sales of the uncrewed Aurora spaceplane, a vehicle capable of carrying six kilograms of payload to an altitude of 100 kilometers. First deliveries of the vehicle are projected in 2027. Read More
Blue Origin updates work on 'transporter' for Blue Moon lunar lander
Speaking at the spring meeting of the Lunar Surface Innovation Consortium May 19, John Couluris, senior vice president of lunar permanence at Blue Origin, showed off a new illustration of a "transporter" vehicle that will support its Blue Moon Mark 2 lander. The transporter is part of the architecture that Blue Origin has said little about since winning a $3.4 billion award from NASA two years ago to build Blue Moon Mark 2 for the Human Landing System program. Read More
SES to demonstrate 'satellite orchestration' tech for military communications
Under a new contract with the Pentagon's Defense Innovation Unit (DIU), satellite communications provider SES Space & Defense plans to demonstrate a software platform that would make it easier for users to access and manage bandwidth from multiple satellite networks across orbits. Read More | | |
|  | OPINION |
| By Andrew Penn and Tony Simpson, May 23, 2025 |  | Felix Baumgartner jumps off a stratospheric helium balloon October 14, 2012, diving back to Earth in a Red Bull-sponsored event. Credit: Red Bull
| As a new era of space exploration and development unfolds — one with far more private-sector investment and leadership — the potential for rapid growth is promising. National security, deep space exploration, and a plethora of emerging commercial applications are driving up global space sector revenue, projected to reach $1.8 trillion by 2035 versus $600 billion in 2023.
Yet many new space companies find themselves grappling with the harsh realities of protracted development cycles and an austere fundraising environment. Consequently, nearly every publicly traded new space venture is operating at a loss, pouring considerable resources into the development of next-generation solutions but often missing growth targets. It is a phenomenon that is starting to eat into the flow of new capital. To help bridge the so-called valley of death that too often stands in the way of novel technologies progressing to commercial scale, space companies need to identify new revenue streams.
The space sector should consider taking a page out of the sports industry playbook by establishing corporate sponsorships that can bring in billions with minimal outlay. Read More
As Washington rethinks broadband strategy, satellite solutions deserve equal consideration
By Tom Stroup
Balancing progress and partnership: evaluating the Space Force's new personnel laws
By William A. Woolf
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