President Donald Trump’s executive order calling for a new, satellite-based missile defense architecture around the continental US has defense contractors salivating, but questions about the cost, capabilities, and requirement for such a system remain unanswered.
Are we already doing it? The executive order calling for the “Iron Dome” (now Golden Dome) system expected the Pentagon to deliver a plan by the end of March; that architecture has yet to be shared publicly. Still, much of what the EO calls for is already underway.
The previous Trump and Biden administrations boosted missile defense spending in response to weapons developed by North Korea, China and Russia, including hypersonics. That spending included new satellite networks for early warning—”something everyone agrees needs to be done,” says Victoria Samson of the Secure World Foundation—as well as new ground-based missile interceptors.
Space Force chief Gen. Chance Saltzman told reporters at Space Symposium that “there’s not going to be a ‘Golden Dome’ delivered … There will be multiple programs that are brought to bear.”
Who will handle the spacecraft? Multiple efforts are underway to develop new missile tracking satellites, including the SDA’s Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture (PWSA) and the Missile Defense Agency’s Hypersonic and Ballistic Tracking Space Sensor (HBTSS). It’s not yet clear how those efforts mesh with Golden Dome or what agency will lead the new missile defense architecture.
The SDA is planning to spend about $25B in the next five years for new commercial spacecraft to track missiles and relay targeting information to troops. The agency published a solicitation in February, asking industry to pitch studies for how its constellation could fit into the White House plan.
Is it another contract for SpaceX? Reuters reported that SpaceX, Anduril, and Palantir are teaming up to pitch a satellite network of up to 1,000 missile tracking satellites to support 200 weaponized interceptor spacecraft.
SpaceX is also reportedly proposing that it will own and operate its contribution to Golden Dome as a subscription service for the Pentagon, which is a major change in how the Space Force works with private companies on critical defense programs. SpaceX’s Starshield program, which provides Starlink satellites with earth observation capabilities to the Pentagon, is thought to be operated as a service.
SpaceX CEO Elon Musk denied bidding on any Golden Dome-related contracts, but no one alleged that the company had: There are no new contracts for anyone to bid on yet.
Do space-based missile interceptors make technical sense? Golden Dome calls for space-based kill vehicles intended to intercept enemy missiles in the boost phase of flight, like the “brilliant pebbles” envisioned by the Reagan White House’s Strategic Defense Initiative, aka Star Wars. While the technology to launch such a system wasn’t available then, proponents argue that SpaceX’s Starlink shows that it can be done today.
How much does that cost? Sensing a missile and firing an interceptor that will hit it in the minutes before it deploys its warheads was a big challenge in 1984 and still is today. AEI’s Todd Harrison says a viable space-based system might cost between $11B and $27B to build, plus operating and replenishment costs—but it could only be relied on to stop two missiles at once. To stop twice as many would require twice the interceptors, at twice the cost: ”While the costs have come down and the technology has matured, the physics of space-based interceptors has not changed,” Harrison wrote.
“In most cases, you do not have a shot from space at an ICBM,” Michael Griffin, a former SDI official and undersecretary of defense for research and engineering during Trump’s first term, said in a March webinar. “I’m hardly the guy who would be against space-based defense. … I have seen and participated in studies on this going back 40 years. It is not worth spending your money on a space interceptor constellation that is targeting the boost phase.”
Does it make strategic sense? Arms control advocates worry that big investments in missile defense could drive a destabilizing race to develop new weapons or increase nuclear arsenals. They also say it’s not clear that non-nuclear rivals would choose to attack the US homeland with missiles. Meanwhile, putting billions of dollars of defense hardware in orbit might not make sense if it’s vulnerable to a Russian nuclear EMP.
