05/19/2026

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The math fight over Golden Dome

The Pentagon’s Golden Dome effort has collided with a blunt warning from the Congressional Budget Office: a homeland missile shield centered on space-based interceptors could cost roughly $1.2 trillion over two decades.

That estimate — much higher than the Trump administration’s public projection of about $185 billion over the next five years — has intensified a debate over whether the economics behind Golden Dome actually work.

The Pentagon’s answer, led by Golden Dome director Gen. Michael Guetlein, is that the CBO is pricing the wrong architecture.

“They’re not estimating what we’re building,” Guetlein said last week at the

"Inside the Dome" conference.

Space-based interceptors — satellites designed to destroy ballistic missiles during the boost phase shortly after launch — alone account for roughly $743 billion of total program cost, the CBO said.

Guetlein argued the analysis relied on “technology from the early 2000s” and procurement assumptions built around highly specialized missile defense systems optimized for regional conflicts rather than scalable homeland defense.

Pentagon officials are pitching Golden Dome as a modern system built around commercial manufacturing, reusable launch systems, rapid software integration and private capital.

“Our intent is to build a gateway that will provide a single point of entry for anyone that wants to come in and see the Golden Dome problem set … and then provide innovative solutions that perhaps we haven't even thought about yet,” said Marcia Holmes, deputy director of Golden Dome for America.

Outreach campaign

Holmes and other officials have been appearing at startup conferences, investor forums and commercial space gatherings in an effort to persuade founders and venture-backed firms that missile defense is worth investing long term.

“The threat is not going away. Homeland defense isn't going away. Missile defense isn't going away,” Holmes said.

The administration wants an operational capability by summer 2028. But the strategy depends heavily on whether commercial-style production can fundamentally change the “cost per kill” equation that has long plagued missile defense programs. Today's interceptors can cost millions of dollars each while the weapons they are designed to defeat are often dramatically cheaper.

“This is not a physics-based problem,” Guetlein said. “This is an economics, scalability problem."

Contractors share risk

The development of interceptors is being pursued through agreements that require companies to invest some of their own capital during prototyping.

Even Rogers, chief executive of True Anomaly, said firms are operating under fixed-price agreements while trying to convince investors the economics can ultimately work. “Is there political risk? Yes,” Rogers said.

Eric Romo, chief operating officer of Impulse Space, described the environment as “investing on hope” because the long-term procurement phase still lacks secured funding. Impulse Space is working with Anduril Industries on interceptor development.

Romo said the CBO report amounted to a “shot across the bow” for industry. He cautioned against simplistic descriptions of missile defense as merely “a bullet hitting a bullet,” arguing the realities of hypersonic flight, atmospheric reentry and orbital maneuvering make the challenge far more complex.

Greg Kuperman, senior director of engineering at Anduril, said affordability will determine whether the architecture survives politically.

“We have to incorporate technologies that have been commercially developed, that have been tested, that are leveraged in mass manufacturing, that can actually truly scale,” he said.

Guetlein insists the Pentagon will not pursue capabilities that fail the affordability test.

“If I cannot do something affordably and scalably, it doesn’t make sense as a nation to go after it,” he said.

After killing JCIDS, Pentagon seeks faster way to signal demand

The Pentagon’s top procurement official says the ongoing acquisition overhaul is about more than speeding contracts or cutting regulations. A central part of the effort involves changing how the Defense Department communicates its operational needs to industry, a shift he says is necessary if the military hopes to tap faster-moving commercial technologies.

“The traditional mechanisms of communication have been RFPs, RFIs, the budget,” Undersecretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment Michael Duffey said last week at a conference hosted by Tectonic and Payload.

Those tools remain deeply embedded in the procurement system, but the Pentagon is now considering alternatives. “I'm not sure that we have this fixed, but I have a vision for creating a much crisper demand signal coming from the department," Duffey said.

The department scrapped the Joint Capabilities Integration and Development System, or JCIDS, the requirements process criticized for delaying programs and locking the military into outdated technology plans. particularly in sectors such as space, software, artificial intelligence and autonomous systems.

Communicating broader operational challenges

Following its elimination, Duffey said, “we're moving toward a broader statement of the problem set, where we state what the warfighter’s problem is … maximizing the flexibility for industry to bring innovative solutions and help us solve the problems.”

The Pentagon has already begun restructuring parts of its acquisition bureaucracy around that idea. Program executive officers have been replaced with “Portfolio Acquisition Executives,” or PAEs. Duffey said the military departments have established 23 PAEs that are “empowered to trade requirements, to prioritize schedule.”

The department also wants Congress to provide more budget flexibility so acquisition officials can shift resources more quickly rather than waiting through the traditional appropriations cycle.

Still, significant questions remain about how the new system will work in practice. Pentagon officials have provided only broad outlines so far, emphasizing speed, experimentation and commercial engagement over formal process. It remains unclear how much authority PAEs will ultimately have over defining requirements, or how the Pentagon intends to institutionalize the new method for communicating capability gaps to industry.

Classification remains an obstacle

“It's an important limitation that we need to recognize and accommodate,” Duffey said. The Pentagon is exploring ways to expedite clearances and expand industry participation in classified discussions. “The ideal end state would be creating a system where we can have more robust classified discussions, because I think oftentimes having the clarity of the problem really empowers our industry partners to come up with the most effective solution.”

He acknowledged that the department has historically struggled to move startups beyond prototype work into large-scale production contracts. While the Pentagon has spent years encouraging nontraditional companies to enter the defense market, many newer firms say procurement officials still gravitate toward established contractors once programs become operational.

“The system is comfortable with traditional performers,” Duffey said. “We haven't rewarded risk taking in the past.” Awarding large contracts to newer companies often remains “outside of the comfort zone” for acquisition officials, he added.

“There’s an enormous opportunity for us to leverage the commercial market,” Duffey said. His message to founders: “Stick with us.”

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Report: Strained launch infrastructure creates strategic risk for U.S.

Concerns about a looming shortage in U.S. launch capacity have persisted for years as military and commercial demand for access to orbit accelerates. A new report by the Commercial Space Federation and the consulting firm Rational Futures takes a deeper look at the bottlenecks that are emerging across the nation’s launch infrastructure and warns the strain is likely to intensify in the coming decade.

The report examines constraints at existing U.S. spaceports, including launch licensing, range operations, pad availability, payload processing infrastructure and airspace coordination.

“With over 180 launches from U.S. soil in 2025, launch capacity at existing launch sites is already strained by licensing, facilities, and government processes on the ground,” the report says.

The study examined whether existing U.S. launch sites and licensed launch rates could support projected satellite deployment needs in the early 2030s. The report found that under several plausible demand scenarios, launch capacity at major U.S. spaceports will become saturated, particularly for heavy and ultra-heavy launch vehicles needed to deploy large national security constellations.

Among the proposed remedies are creation of a centralized authority to coordinate launch operations across federal ranges, expanded use of sea-based and inland launch sites, more flexible payload processing infrastructure, and modernization of airspace management and flight safety systems. The report also calls for extending Space Force range services — including telemetry, tracking and flight safety support — to nontraditional launch sites to help reduce barriers for new spaceports.

The report's findings will be briefed today at the CSF Space Policy Summit at the ASCEND conference, and the full report will be released May 26.

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