The military’s focus on space got even more intense in 2025. This interest in maintaining strategic advantage in the space domain led to a bigger pool of opportunities for commercial space. Commercial space responded with a bigger focus on dual-use technology and serving the defense sector.
Here are our picks for the most important stories in the national security space…space:
- New rules: Soon after his inauguration, President Donald Trump announced the “Iron Dome for America,” now known as Golden Dome. The program got a leader early on, and since then plenty of companies have taken aim at that opportunity. We barely saw a space fundraise or announcement in 2025 that didn’t include mention of Golden Dome. For more info, we’ll point you to our yearly wrap-up of the program.
- Get connected: The SDA began to deploy its long-awaited Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture this year, for eventual missile warning and tracking. The first operational launch for the system—Tranche 1 of the Transport Layer—took off in 2025. York Space Systems delivered its satellites in August. The SDA ended the year with a $3.5B award to four companies for Tranche 3 of the Tracking Layer.
- Dual-use: Plenty of private capital flowed into companies building tech to support the defense sector. A few highlights include Stoke Space’s $510M Series D, K2 Space’s $250M Series C, True Anomaly’s $260M Series C, and Impulse Space’s $300M Series C.
- Buy, buy, buy: The Space Force forked over plenty of cash for new capabilities, including its $1.2B contract for missile warning systems to BAE, a $25M contract awarded to Integrate for software, and $714M in launch contracts for SpaceX to name a few.
- Looking abroad: The US military is working to deter any potential conflicts in space, and in 2025, it was thinking hard about China’s space capabilities. The risk that China could beat the US to deploying technology was a real threat that we covered time and time again.
