By Sandra Erwin
Welcome to this week's edition of SpaceNews' Military Space, your source for the latest developments at the intersection of space and national security. In this week's edition: A House rep says Trump is shortchanging the Space Force, Golden Dome's undefined scope drives wide variations to its cost estimates and space firms are targeting missile-defense opportunities.
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Golden Dome faces congressional scrutiny
Rep. Seth Moulton (D-Mass.) is leveraging his role as ranking member of the House Armed Services strategic forces subcommittee to mount sustained opposition to the Trump administration's signature Golden Dome space-based missile defense initiative, setting up what could be a contentious congressional battle over military space priorities.
Despite Trump's first-term focus on space, Moulton argues the administration is shortchanging investments in the Space Force and commercial remote sensing programs to fund Golden Dome.
"We should be putting a lot more money into space," Moulton said at a recent Axios Capitol Hill event. He called space "the most important warfighting domain."
Moulton highlighted specific casualties of the administration's Golden Dome focus, pointing to cuts in commercial remote sensing and civil space programs. "It's a little bit curious that now all of a sudden, the Trump administration is cutting really key components of the space budget," he said. "A lot of things are being cut all in the name of just giving more money to Golden Dome."
Unanswered questions
Lawmakers are still waiting for basic explanations of Golden Dome, Moulton said. "No one knows what it really is," he said. "I just want someone to explain to me exactly what Golden Dome is supposed to do." He questioned why the U.S. would abandon the Mutually Assured Destruction doctrine that "has kept us safe since 1945."
Moulton raised operational questions about Golden Dome's space-based interceptors, asking whether Russia could eliminate the entire system "with the push of one button" using nuclear weapons in space. "The administration has no answers for any of this," he said.
While critical of space-based interceptors, Moulton insisted there is bipartisan support for other Golden Dome components, including improved sensing capabilities for detecting hypersonics and base defenses against drones. "These are the kinds of investments that we should make," he said.
Moulton called for detailed Golden Dome briefings and "a legitimate debate in committee" before signing off on hundreds of billions in taxpayer funds.
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Trump's missile-defense dream meets budget reality
Eight months after President Trump signed the Golden Dome executive order, the defense establishment still doesn't know what it's supposed to build — or how much it will cost. That's according to a new study from the American Enterprise Institute that lays out cost projections spanning more than a one trillion-dollar range.
Trump's cited $175 billion price tag would deliver what AEI senior fellow Todd Harrison calls a "limited system, inadequate against the scale of China's and Russia's arsenals." The real question isn't what Golden Dome can do technically, but what risks politicians are willing to accept — and pay to mitigate.
Harrison's study, "Build Your Own Golden Dome: A Framework for Understanding Costs, Choices, and Tradeoffs," represents the first comprehensive cost analysis of the program.
By the numbers
Harrison's analysis models six architectures, from basic drone defense to comprehensive space-based interceptors. The cost drivers are stark: modest shifts in mission scope can balloon expenses exponentially, with space-based assets serving as the primary cost multiplier.
Three critical unknowns remain. First, geography — will coverage extend beyond CONUS to territories, overseas bases and allies? Trump has floated Canada as a partner but other alliance structures remain undefined. Second, threat scale — countering small rogue launches versus full-scale peer adversary salvos represents vastly different technical and financial requirements. Third, performance parameters — effectiveness thresholds, system resilience standards and acceptable risk levels are still TBD.
Projections from the Defense Intelligence Agency suggest China and Russia could field 16,000-plus missiles against the U.S. homeland by 2035, though Harrison notes such long-term estimates are debatable. Even so, the scale underscores why limited architectures may prove strategically insufficient.
The analysis deliberately avoids recommending specific architectures, instead framing Golden Dome as fundamentally a political choice about risk tolerance disguised as a technical problem. Until the administration defines "enough" homeland defense, the defense industry can expect continued uncertainty about program scope and investment priorities.
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The program every defense CEO is chasing
Aerospace and defense firms, meanwhile, are aligning their capabilities with Golden Dome's potential requirements, with space companies pitching everything from rapid-launch rockets to maneuvering interceptor platforms.
Firefly's play
The launch services firm is making a dual pitch for Golden Dome work. CEO Jason Kim told the U.S. Chamber of Commerce's aerospace summit last week that Firefly's Alpha rocket could handle both test target launches and operational missions.
"We've proven that we do launches on 24-hour notice. That's something that is going to be beneficial to the Golden Dome program," Kim said.
But Firefly's bigger bet may be its Elytra spacecraft platform. The maneuvering satellite, designed for space-tug operations and long-duration missions, could serve as a host for space-based interceptors. Kim pitched Elytra's "ample fuel reserves" and "high thrust and maneuverability" as ideal for a constellation of "maybe thousands of these space-based interceptors."
Speaking on Monday at World Space Business Week in Paris, Northrop Grumman's Nicole Jordan said Golden Dome "is going to require a lot of launches."
Jordan, who leads launch vehicle business development, said the company sees opportunities for Eclipse, the medium-lift rocket Northrop Grumman is co-developing with Firefly. Eclipse is "being designed to be able to serve a lot of those national security space missions, including Golden Dome."
York's satellite angle
York Space Systems is betting its Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture work positions it well for Golden Dome opportunities. CEO Dirk Wallinger points to the company's Dragoon experimental satellite, launched in June to test secure connectivity for targeting and missile tracking, as proof of concept.
"Hopefully there's a lot of synergies there," Wallinger told SpaceNews, noting the administration's 2028 deployment timeline creates urgency to "take advantage of things that we've already accomplished."
The Pentagon's push for a 2028 operational capability is driving companies to repurpose existing platforms and leverage already developed technologies rather than start from scratch. | | |
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