By Jeff Foust
In today's edition: Golden Dome's potential trillion-dollar price tag, progress on a European space joint venture, SpaceX launches a Northrop Grumman cargo spacecraft and more.
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Top Stories
The Golden Dome missile defense system could cost anywhere from a few hundred billion to a few trillion dollars, a report concludes. The study by the American Enterprise Institute, published Friday, estimated Golden Dome to cost between $252 billion to $3.6 trillion over 20 years. The vast range underscores how many questions remain unanswered eight months after U.S. President Donald Trump announced the initiative. The report modeled six potential architectures and found that even modest shifts in objectives can drive costs sharply upward, with space-based interceptors the biggest factor by far. Trump said the project would cost $175 billion, but the report concluded that would buy only a limited system, inadequate against the scale of China's and Russia's arsenals. [SpaceNews]
Maxar continues to warn that proposed budget cuts for commercial imagery could jeopardize battlefield operations. Susanne Hake, general manager for U.S. government at Maxar Intelligence, said at the Global Aerospace Summit last week that there continues to be more demand for commercial imagery among combatant commands than what is being supplied. Her remarks underscore growing unease in the industry as the Trump administration's 2026 budget proposal moves through Capitol Hill. That request includes a 30% cut for the National Reconnaissance Office's budget for buying commercial electro-optical imagery and cutting funding entirely for commercial radar imagery. Maxar Intelligence, a unit of Maxar Technologies, is the largest U.S. supplier of high-resolution electro-optical commercial imagery. [SpaceNews]
The CEO of commercial space station developer Vast said he supports NASA's revised approach to supporting such stations. Speaking at the Global Aerospace Summit last week, Max Haot said NASA's new approach, which includes awarding several funded Space Act Agreements, would enable companies to go faster and provide backups should one awardee falter. Having a four-person, 30-day demonstration mission, a controversial aspect of the new strategy, is a "steppingstone" to permanently crewed stations, he said, and more effective than trying to start with a permanently crewed station. [SpaceNews]
China conducted another static-fire test of its Long March 10 lunar rocket. A shortened Long March 10 rocket first stage test article with seven engines fired for 320 seconds during a test Friday at a pad at Wenchang Spacecraft Launch Site on Hainan island. The test focused on evaluating the performance and capabilities of the seven clustered engines for the rocket's first stage for low-thrust operating conditions and secondary restart capabilities, Chinese officials stated. They called the test a "complete success." Long March 10 is a three-core, three-stage rocket designed for China's crewed lunar landing program. [SpaceNews]
Airbus, Leonardo and Thales are making progress on creating a joint venture of their space businesses. Industry sources said the three companies are attempting to complete an initial agreement creating the joint venture, valued at 10 billion euros ($11.7 billion), in the coming weeks after earlier negotiations stalled in the summer. The CEO of Airbus said last week that his company was still committed to the effort, which seeks to create a "European champion" in space better able to compete with American firms. [Reuters]
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Other News
A Cygnus cargo spacecraft is on its way to the International Space Station after a launch Sunday evening. A Falcon 9 lifted off from Cape Canaveral, Florida, at 6:11 p.m. Eastern, placing the NG-23 Cygnus spacecraft into orbit. The spacecraft is scheduled to arrive at the station early Wednesday. This is the first flight of a larger Cygnus, called Cygnus XL, with 33% more payload capacity. NASA plans to keep the Cygnus at the station through next spring. NG-23 was the third Cygnus mission to launch on a Falcon 9, and a Northrop Grumman official said at a pre-launch briefing that at least one more Cygnus will launch on Falcon as well. [SpaceNews]
A Progress cargo spacecraft docked with the ISS Saturday. The Progress MS-32 spacecraft docked with the station at 1:23 p.m. Eastern, two days after its launch from the Baikonur Cosmodrome. The spacecraft, called Progress 93 by NASA, delivered 2.8 tons of supplies, propellant and other cargo for the station. [Space.com]
Russia launched a Glonass navigation satellite Friday night. A Soyuz-2.1b lifted off at 10:10 p.m. Eastern from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome and placed into orbit Cosmos-2595, a Glonass-K navigation satellite. The launch also deployed Mozhaets-6, a smallsat secondary payload developed by a Russian military academy for technology demonstrations. [RussianSpaceWeb.com]
A Falcon 9 launched more Starlink satellites on Saturday. The rocket lifted off from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California at 1:55 p.m. Eastern, putting 24 Starlink satellites into orbit. The launch was the 300th mission devoted to Starlink, with more than 9,700 Starlink satellites carried on those launches. SpaceX currently has about 8,400 Starlink satellites in orbit. [Noozhawk]
One of two space science satellites launched in July is communicating again with ground controllers. One of the twin NASA TRACERS satellites suffered power problems shortly after launch that disrupted communications. NASA said last week that controllers have reconnected with that spacecraft and are working to recover the spacecraft. The other TRACERS satellite worked normally after launch. TRACERS launched on a rideshare mission with several other satellites, including NASA's Athena EPIC experimental smallsat. NASA said last week that controllers are still working to understand communications issues with it after delays in tracking the spacecraft in orbit. [SpaceNews]
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The Week Ahead
Monday: Monday-Wednesday: Monday-Friday: Paris: World Space Business Week covers a wide range of space business topics, including satellite services, manufacturing and launch, and includes the Space and Defense Security Summit on Tuesday and Wednesday. London: The 39th International Electric Propulsion Conference includes sessions on various technical aspects of spacecraft electric propulsion. Houston: The Extraterrestrial Materials Analysis Group (ExMAG) holds its fall 2025 meeting to discuss planetary science using materials obtained from other worlds. Wednesday: Wednesday-Friday: Washington/Online: The National Academies' Committee on Biological and Physical Sciences in Space holds its fall 2025 meeting. Wailea, Hawaii/Online: The AMOS 2025 conference will discuss technical and policy issues related to space situational awareness. Thursday: Thursday-Friday: Sunday: Cape Canaveral, Fla.: Scheduled launch of a Falcon 9 carrying Starlink satellites at 5:20 a.m. Eastern. Vandenberg Space Force Base, Calif.: Scheduled launch of a Falcon 9 on the NROL-48 mission at 1:37 p.m. Eastern.
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