Space Force issues twelve companies Golden Dome contracts worth $3.2 billion
As part of the first phase of development of the proposed Golden Dome defensive system, the Space Force revealed this week that it has awarded twelve companies contracts worth $3.2 billion to develop the first prototype designs.
The service awarded other transaction authority (OTA) agreements — worth up to a combined $3.2 billion — to the vendors in late 2025 and early 2026, according to a Space Systems Command press release. Under the contracts, the companies will develop prototypes of a space-based architecture that can shoot down enemy missiles after they’re launched.
The companies that received OTAs are Anduril, Booz Allen Hamilton, General Dynamics Mission Systems, GITAI USA, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Quindar, Raytheon, Sci-Tec, SpaceX, True Anomaly and Turion Space Corp.
The twelve companies have very different capabilities, suggesting the Space Force is hoping to get a lot of different ideas and proposals that will not only give it options but could also provide it multiple methods for destroying in-coming missiles.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
As part of the first phase of development of the proposed Golden Dome defensive system, the Space Force revealed this week that it has awarded twelve companies contracts worth $3.2 billion to develop the first prototype designs.
The service awarded other transaction authority (OTA) agreements — worth up to a combined $3.2 billion — to the vendors in late 2025 and early 2026, according to a Space Systems Command press release. Under the contracts, the companies will develop prototypes of a space-based architecture that can shoot down enemy missiles after they’re launched.
The companies that received OTAs are Anduril, Booz Allen Hamilton, General Dynamics Mission Systems, GITAI USA, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Quindar, Raytheon, Sci-Tec, SpaceX, True Anomaly and Turion Space Corp.
The twelve companies have very different capabilities, suggesting the Space Force is hoping to get a lot of different ideas and proposals that will not only give it options but could also provide it multiple methods for destroying in-coming missiles.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
Maybe Space Force can fund tethers
https://forum.cosmoquest.org/forum/science-and-space/space-exploration/3753426-skyhook-equator-orbiting-rotating-launcher-animator-calculator
https://phys.org/news/2026-04-carbon-nanotubes-gap-copper.html
One hopes Raytheon – or RTX as it now styles itself – is dropped from this list soon. It brings absolutely nothing unique to this party except truly stunning levels of incompetence. It spent 10 years and hundreds of millions failing to develop a control system for a fiddly three dozen GPS satellites – a project which has, at long last, been given the Old Yeller treatment it should have received years ago. Meanwhile, SpaceX has a control system now handling more than 10,000 satellites and which will eventually be handling over 100 times that many.
The contract(s) for space-based interceptors will be ammunition contracts. Only companies that intend to be in the ammunition business have any reason to remain on this list.
The interceptors will probably, when all is said and done, bear considerable resemblance to high-end air-to-air or ground-based anti-missile rockets, a business in which RTX has long been a major supplier. But its Patriot missiles, for example, cost roughly $4 million per copy and RTX, even after having expanded its production facility, can only produce about 750 of the things per year. We need to hand these Golden Dome contracts to companies that can crank out at least five-figures worth of these interceptors annually and at a unit cost no more than a 10th that of a Patriot – and as much lower than that as possible.
My preference would be Anduril, but any of the above companies that can meet the rational minimum production capability number just stated should be invited to bid, particularly if it is already working up a prototype of something suitable on its own dime and not waiting for some cost-plus development deal.
This is interesting Jeff, skyhook tether reaching down from orbit. Three launch sites/cable touchdown points needing three gees to reach the cable? Or one very long cable touching down at the same point every rotation with less gravities?
Is the number above the gravity indicator of force to reach the cable represent the G forces on the cable itself?
At the rate it’s turning I would think it would be more centrifugal force? What’s cool is its ability on release to throw things into space using momentum without rocket fuel other than to redirect.
Go to the moon? Release near the center of the cable, leave the solar system? Release at the tip.
Other models I have seen involve multiple cables for counterbalance… that means multiple launch points around the earth for many nations.
For every action there’s an equal and opposite reaction so stability would be of concern. My continuous thrust mechanism would work great to maintain orbit.
My personal favorite method of a tether from geocentric space, is a Bi-metal ribbon! AC current on the surface will allow the transport carriage to be self-propelled without touching the ribbon, preventing wearing out the structure. (similar to rail gun propulsion) other methods would take weeks to get to geocentric orbit. (requiring food, sleeping quarters, life support, rocket fuel for propulsion?)
The AC method would pick up speed as it climbed gently as the earths gravity reduces. Once in the stratosphere, without the resistance of air, the limit on a speed drastically reduces as G Force picks up, limited only by its mass and the available energy providing the repulsive force to the coils.
1/3 of the way there, it would have to reverse polarity to begin slowing down so they don’t overshoot the end of the cable and leave the solar system.
A trip up the cable with this method would take a few hours or a few days depending if the cargo is living or not, and their ability to be uncomfortable.
Golden dome in the future of cheap precise engagements with drones instead of ballistic weapons of mass destruction seems a bit wasteful. Especially with super sonic cruise missiles that can hit their targets before detection can even launch the counter measures.
Lasers seem to be the best sci-fi method of prevention, but we are not there yet. More likely the system would lock on to a passenger jet above the clouds, not a much smaller cruise missile spoofing a jet transponder.
Dick – Just a brief question. You said:
” …bear…resemblance to high-end…ground-based anti-missile rockets…which RTX has long been a major supplier. But its Patriot missiles…cost roughly $4 million per copy and RTX…can only produce about 750 of the things per year.”
What SPECIFC Patriot missiles are you speaking of PAC-2 Patriot GEM, PAC-3, PAC-3 MSE, PAC-3 RCI ?
Asking for a reason.
Thanks and Very Respectfully
Thank you Max.
One of the other sites I frequently has a guy named Jim (NSF, Charley Murphy at Disqus, Byeman elsewhere) has no sense of imagination. He likes to belittle me at every turn.
I think even NSWRs need looking at again–but this time in terms of a Lunar Verne Gun (LVG) with a sabot taking the heat.
One thing Obama was right about was his saying “never let a crisis go to waste.”
The Nerd Prom Shooting likely has a lot of reporters re-thinking their lives…lives their OWN WORDS put at risk. When it was a Red State rally…all well and good.
We saw from Forbes that 97% supported Artemis II despite the cost…so it is time for both “Orange Man Bad” and “Orange Rocket Bad” to be tossed into the circular file.
Worry not, all this will help NewSpace.
Journalists know that Americans crave positive news stories right now–and seeing how Trump-hate literally backfired on them–now is the time for space firms to reach out to the press seeing their heads are still spinning.
Journo: “What am I doing with my life?”
Elon: “You are my new press secretary now.”
To Mr. Z
I bet some of the folks in the press less likely to return your calls during the COVID might be more open to outreach now.
Space advocates need to move fast here.
Max,
Drones are subsonic – often very subsonic – endo-atmospheric weapons that need to be addressed, as a threat class, by air- and ground-based countermeasures. They are dangerous mainly because they can be deployed in large quantity in swarms. They can be effectively combatted, but the US – for reasons that appear entirely irrational to me – has only very limited and testy relations with the nation whose drone technology, and anti-drone technology, is world-leading – namely Ukraine. I am hopeful that, once Ukraine completes the grinding of the Russian military into powder, that this ludicrous situation will change. Space-based components of Golden Dome won’t have anything significant to do with anti-drone efforts except perhaps detection and tracking.
Against purely ballistic threats, space-based interceptors of various types should be very effective in boost, mid-course and post-re-entry phases of flight. That will also be true of hypersonic maneuvering weapons as their initial boost and mid-course phases are pretty much the same as those of purely ballistic weapons being launched, as they are, on conventional missile booster stages. That includes the PRC’s much-vaunted so-called “carrier-killer” DF-17s.
Any hypersonic weapon that is endo-atmospheric for much or all of its trajectory will be easily detectable by its large heat signature and, as they will be only a fraction as fast as ballistic weapons, can be attacked over a far longer time window with many more on-orbit counter-weapons having a useful intercept shot at them en route.
There is no way any ballistic, hypersonic or even supersonic weapon will be confused with a passenger airliner as there are no airliners that fly faster than about Mach 0.8-ish or higher than about 45,000 ft. Anything higher or moving faster than that will be military – either an aircraft or a weapon. With suitable detection and tracking assets on-orbit, there is no way any of these classes of weaponry can “hit their targets before detection.”
Doubting Thomas,
Wikipedia says Patriot production of all types was 550 units in 2023 and 650 in 2024. It has risen modestly again in 2025 and 2026. There is also a new Patriot factory sited in Germany that is said to be capable of producing an additional 180 units per year – exclusively for European use – once it gets rolling. These will all be of the PAC-2 GEM-T type.
What should be done with aging Minutemen?
I don’t want them competing with NewSpace.
Move to Ukraine with conventional explosives as Heavy IRBMs maybe?
Jeff Wright,
Congress prohibited use of decommissioned ICBM motors for commercial launches ages ago so “competing with NewSpace” is a non-issue. Given what NorGrum charges for a launch of any of their Minotaur series – all built mostly from surplus ICBM motors – it’s far from obvious that NewSpace even needed such an interdict.
I, personally, would be delighted to hand retired Minutemen over to Ukraine, but that seems an effective impossibility under the current administration. And given that new ICBMs will need new silos and related infrastructure, there likely won’t be any retired Minutemen available before Ukraine finishes settling Russia’s hash on its own – with a little help from its friends. With 90 billion Euros in new funding now in prospect following the electoral defeat of Orban in Hungary, Ukraine now looks well able to complete the pulverization of what’s left of Russian industrial and military infrastructure using extant and upcoming devices of its own design and construction.
Max,
Your idea of a “skyhook tether reaching down from orbit” has more to worry about than just Newton’s third law of motion. “For every action there’s an equal and opposite reaction so stability would be of concern.” Stability would be of concern for a variety or reasons.
The conservation of momentum means that the momentum added to the payload at release must come from somewhere, and the somewhere is the rotating orbital tether. The rotation of the tether would be changed and the orbit of the tether would end up lower. Stability really would be a concern.
Keep in mind that the center of mass and the center of rotation changes when the payload attaches to the tether and changes again at release. Stability would be a real concern.
Tethers are flexible, so the ends are not necessarily stable, especially when inside the atmosphere. Winds and breezes would cause the end to drift away from preplanned attachment locations within the atmosphere. Even a stiff structure would still be flexible, due to the extremely long length and flexibility of materials. Even 1,000 ft. (300 meter) skyscrapers sway in the breeze, and longer structures flex even more.
A skyhook tether sounds good as a hypothesis, becomes complicated as a theory, and would have far more problems as a reality than we have with rockets.