The announcement of Golden Dome, a vast network of satellites and weapons in Earth’s orbit set to cost $175 billion, could sharply escalate the militarization of space, a trend that has intensified over the last decade, space analysts say.
Under former President Joe Biden, U.S. Space Force officials had grown vocal about a need for greater offensive space capabilities due to space-based threats from Russia and China.
The concept includes space-based missiles that would launch from satellites in orbit to intercept conventional and nuclear missiles launched from Earth.
Samson and other experts said Golden Dome could provoke other states to place similar systems in space or to develop more advanced weapons to evade the missile shield, escalating an arms race in space.
Russia and China reacted differently to the latest news from Trump. A Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson said it was “seriously concerned” about the project and urged Washington to abandon its development, adding that it carried “strong offensive implications” and heightened the risks of the militarization of outer space and an arms race.
Primarily seeking to defend against a growing arsenal of conventional and nuclear missiles from U.S. adversaries Russia, China and smaller states such as North Korea and Iran, the Golden Dome plan is a revival of a Cold War-era effort by former U.S. President Ronald Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), better known as the “Star Wars” program.
But the idea never came to fruition mainly because of technological hurdles, as well as the high cost and concerns it would violate an anti-ballistic missile treaty that has since been abandoned.
Golden Dome has strong and powerful allies in the defense contracting community and the growing defense technology arena, many of whom have been preparing for Trump’s big move into space weaponry.
“L3 Harris has an early start of building the sensor network that will become the foundational sensor network for the Golden Dome architecture.”
Many of the early systems are expected to come from existing production lines. Attendees at the White House press conference with Trump on Tuesday named L3Harris, Lockheed Martin and RTX Corp as potential contractors for the massive project.
But Golden Dome’s funding remains uncertain. Republican lawmakers have proposed a $25 billion initial investment for it as part of a broader $150 billion defense package, but this funding is tied to a contentious reconciliation bill that faces significant hurdles in Congress.
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