Tag: government

New cost estimate for Trump’s Golden Dome exceeds $1 trillion over 20 years

10:15 am

According to the Congressional Budget Office’s (CBO) new estimates, the cost to build Trump’s proposed Golden Dome defense plan will be about $1.2 trillion over the next 20 years, double what the CBO predicted last year and more than six times what the program’s head has predicted.

The Congressional Budget Office issued an updated estimate today of the cost of President Trump’s Golden Dome missile defense system. Lacking detailed data from the Administration, CBO based its analysis on the capabilities called for in Trump’s January 2025 Executive Order and concluded the total cost over 20 years is $1.2 trillion, about twice its estimate last year, with the bulk of it for Space-Based Interceptors.

Trump issued the Iron Dome for America Executive Order on January 27, 2025, seven days after his second term began. He soon renamed it Golden Dome in part to distinguish it from Israel’s Iron Dome system which has more limited capabilities. Trump appointed Gen. Michael Guetlein to lead the project and in an Oval Office meeting on May 20, 2025, said it would cost $175 billion and be completed in three years, before he leaves office.

By then CBO had estimated the cost at $524 billion based on information available at the time.

Guetlein has since raised his estimate to $185 billion, but it is widely viewed as far too low.

Several important points: First, the CBO’s cost estimates are usually wrong, in either direction, which means the cost could be a lot less, or a lot more. Odds are that in this case its estimate is trending in the right direction. Guetlein’s cost estimate is absurdly too low.

Second, the high cost helps explain why a lot of investment money is pouring into a lot of new space startups, for both rocket and satellite companies. Wall Street sees the federal government spending a lot of money on Golden Dome, and wants to get into the action. For the same reason this is why a lot of space companies have shifted their focus from civilian projects to the military.

Finally, the idea of Golden Dome is perfectly reasonable, as its concept has already been proven both by the U.S.’s Patriot missile system and Israel’s Iron Dome. The implementation however is going to be bad, because the people in Washington being asked to do it have a terrible track record. They routinely waste money and manage projects badly.

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ESA announces new round of funding for new rocket companies

9:28 am

Capitalism in space: The European Space Agency (ESA) yesterday announced a new round in its Boost! program to provide new startup rocket companies funding.

The new round will accept new submissions through 2028. The program is designed to encourage the development of private and independent rocket companies, competing for market share, with the added ability to provide ESA its needed launch services. What makes this ESA program different than all its previous rocket programs is that ESA does not own or control the rockets. It is helping to get these companies started, and will simply then be a customer buying the product from them once operation. Ownership will belong to the companies, not ESA.

To emphasize the ownership point, to get funding under this program “requires private co-funding. For every euro invested by ESA in commercial space businesses, often more than five euros are leveraged from private investors.”

So far ESA has provided funding to eleven different European startups, including Isar Aerospace, Rocket Factory Augsburg, and PLD, all three of which hope to make their first orbital launch this year. This new round is being offered to these companies and any new ones that might come forward. Of the 110 million euros so far allocated 20 million euros remains available for distribution.

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Two overnight launches from SpaceX and China

9:15 am

Both SpaceX and China successfully completed launches since yesterday. First, SpaceX launched a new group of satellites for the National Reconnaissance Office, its Falcon 9 lifting off from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California. For security reasons, the number of satellites launched was not revealed.

The first stage completed its 9th flight, landing on a drone ship in the Pacific.

Next China launched another set of Qianfan (SpaceSail) internet satellites into orbit, its Long March 6A rocket lifting off from its Taiyuan spaceport in northeast China. Though China’s state run press did not reveal the number of satellites launched, past Long March 6A launches of this constellation have placed 18 satellites into orbit. If so, there are now 155 Quinfan satellites in space, out of a planned constellation of as many as 10,000. The first phase of the constellation however only requires 648, which China hopes to reach before the end of the year.

The state-run press also did not reveal where the rocket’s lower stages (using very toxic hypergolic fuels) crashed inside China.

The leaders in the 2026 launch race:

56 SpaceX
25 China
8 Russia
6 Rocket Lab

For the third straight year SpaceX leads the entire world combined in total launches, 56 to 46.

SpaceX hopes to complete another launch later today, carrying a Dragon cargo capsule to ISS (on its sixth flight), but weather might force a scrub. UPDATE: Scrubbed due to weather, rescheduled for May 13, 2026.

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China launches Tianzhou freighter to Tiangong-3 station

8:33 pm

China today (May 11th in China) successfully launched the tenth Tianzhou freighter to its Tiangong-3 space station, its Long March 7 rocket lifting off from its coastal Wenchang spaceport.

China hopes to keep this cargo freighter in orbit for a full year, as part of its effort to reduce the number of cargo missions per year while expanding the capabilities of its spacecraft and station.

The leaders in the 2026 launch race:

55 SpaceX
24 China
8 Russia
6 Rocket Lab

For the third straight year SpaceX leads the entire world combined in total launches, 55 to 45.

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Louisiana state senator: Two unnamed aerospace companies are bidding for major land purchase

8:55 am

Pecan Island SpaceX facility?

In response to the story earlier this week that SpaceX might be acquiring a 200-plus square mile patch of land near Pecan Island on the southern coast of Louisiana, a state senator has now confirmed that two unnamed aerospace companies have been talking with landowners about a possible purchase.

State Sen. Bob Hensgens, R-Abbeville, said he knows of two companies — he did not reveal if it is Elon Musk-owned SpaceX or Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin — that have reached out to landowners in coastal Vermilion and Cameron parishes about a possible acquisition. “I know both companies are trying to find property in southwest Louisiana,” Hensgens said. “I know from people in the parishes that the companies have made outreach in the area.”

If so, we might actually have a bidding war for this property. Note however that nothing has yet been confirmed, including the names of the companies involved. The article at the link however provides some background into the 136K acre plot owned by Exxon, and how it might now be for sale. It also reports that a number of legislators (not Hensgens) have signed non-disclosure agreements about the negotiations.

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Paraguay becomes the 67th nation to sign Artemis Accords

8:01 am

Artemis program logo

Paraguay yesterday became the 67th nation to sign Artemis Accords, continued the flood of smaller third world nations that have signed up in the last few weeks following the completion of the Artemis-2 mission around the Moon.

The remarks of NASA administration Jared Isaacman in connection with this event I find most tantalizing:

“They join an ever-growing coalition of like-minded nations committed to the peaceful, transparent, and responsible exploration of space. Established by President Trump in his first term, the Artemis Accords provided the principles for how we explore the Moon, Mars, and beyond. Now, with his national space policy, we are putting the Artemis Accords into practice with our Moon Base. We are creating opportunities for all Artemis Accords signatories, including Paraguay, to join us on the lunar surface and advance our shared objectives in this next era of exploration.” [emphasis mine]

While that national space policy [pdf] accepts the Outer Space Treaty’s limitation on establishing American law on other worlds, including property rights, it also makes its first goal that of promoting private enterprise.
» Read more

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Multiple Russian, Chinese, and American satellites in maneuvering dance in orbit

9:41 am

Three different articles in the aerospace media today document multiple maneuvers by multiple military satellites from Russia, China, and America, either doing proximity operations near each other or moving close to another country’s satellites to spy on them.

This article in space.com describes the rendezvous operations of Russia’s Cosmos 2581, 2582, and 2583.

The satellites, known as COSMOS 2581 and COSMOS 2583, got within just 10 feet (3 meters) or so of each other on April 28, according to COMSPOC, a Pennsylvania-based space situational awareness software company. “This wasn’t a coincidental pass — COSMOS 2583 performed several fine maneuvers to maintain this tight configuration,” COMSPOC wrote in a May 1 post on X, which featured an animation of the rendezvous.

The two satellites and a third one, COSMOS 2582, launched to low Earth orbit in February 2025 atop a Soyuz rocket. According to COMSPOC, all three of them were involved in the recent rendezvous and proximity operations (RPO), as was “Object F,” a subsatellite previously deployed by COSMOS 2583.

Then russianspaceweb.com had two different articles describing different similar operations. First, a set of satellites launched in February 2026 appeared to be testing operations in very low orbit, illegally transmitting data using frequencies that the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) allocates for amateur radio operations.

Finally, the website reported a complex dance between Russian, American, and Chinese satellites in geosynchronous orbit.

Almost immediately after entering the geostationary orbit, Kosmos-2589 was “approached” by a presumed American inspector satellite, officially known as USA-325. On April 19, 2026, the US satellite, itself drifting eastward relative to the geostationary position and the Earth’s surface, seemingly overshot Kosmos-2589, but once the Russian satellite stabilized at 98 East longitude, USA-325 stopped and returned. By around April 28, 2026, … one approach under favorable lighting conditions for the “inspector” was within 13 kilometers from Kosmos-2589, according to a team of observers from Exton, PA, cited by COMSPOC.

In turn … Kosmos-2589 essentially occupied a position registered by China under designation CHNSAT-98E, with three Chinese commercial and military satellites deployed in relative vicinity of that location.

… Moreover, in April 2026, China’s presumed inspector satellite — TJS-10 — pre-positioned itself at 92.4 degrees East longitude after an easterly drift, which would put it on a rendezvous course with Kosmos-2589 at 98.0 East longitude. Instead, the Chinese satellite stopped its drift with a maneuver on May 1, 2026, which “fixed” it in a geostationary orbit at 92.4 degrees East longitude, in the vicinity of the US AEHF military satellite, which carries high-security communications of the US military and its allies.

With this last story, we have this almost absurd situation: The U.S. satellites are spying on Russian satellites, which are spying on Chinese satellites, which are spying on American satellites.

All this maneuvering however indicates once again that the ability of commercial satellites to rendezvous with other objects — either to de-orbit space junk or repair damaged satellites — is only going to get better. The military might control these capabilities now, under a veil of secrecy, but such capabilities always leak out into the private sector shortly thereafter.

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Russia arrests Angara contractor for fraud

9:17 am

Fraud is a given when it comes to government operations, whether in the U.S. or Russia. A contractor doing work on the production facilities for Russia’s new Angara rocket has now been arrested for stealing more than $7 million.

In May 2026, Gazeta.ru, citing regional courts, reported an arrest of Dmitry Zolotarev, the Director General at OOO RST Genpodryad, which was involved in renovations and upgrades of facilities for serial production of Angara rockets at PO Polyot under a contract with GKNPTs Khrunichev.

Zolotarev and his accomplices were accused of stealing 545 million rubles (approximately $7.3 million) during a period from 2022 to 2025, by submitting the Federal treasury agency in Moscow forged documents with an inflated purchase price of overhead cranes and pocketing the difference. According to Gazeta.ru, Zolotarev was suspected of other similar schemes and faced 10 years in prison if convicted.

Government routinely does a bad job in monitoring its spending, which thus creates an easy temptation for others to put their hands in the cookie jar and take what’s not theirs. We can see this same thing occurring now in the U.S. with many so-called “safety net” programs. Since Russia’s entire aerospace industry is government controlled, this kind of corruption therefore happens frequently within it.

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Lockheed Martin fights request to ease 2018 restrictions on Northrop Grumman’s solid rocket business

8:58 am

A legal fight between Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman has broken out over Northrop Grumman’s recent request to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to ease a 2018 consent order that restricts Northrop Grumman’s ability to market its solid rocket motors (SRM).

On April 2, Northrop petitioned the Federal Trade Commission to drop a 2018 consent order helmed when Northrop acquired solid rocket motor maker Orbital ATK. The consent agreement requires Northrop to supply SRMs to its competitors in the missile market on a non-discriminatory basis and to firewall its SRM business away from its other operations.

At the time, the FTC believed the measure was necessary due to Northrop’s status as a prime contractor and Orbital ATK’s position as one of only two American makers of solid rocket motors.

Northrop is not a major manufacturer in the American missile space, which is dominated by Raytheon and Lockheed. However, if the order is dropped, Northrop will be able to vertically integrate its solid rocket motor business with any munitions the company designs in the future — including potentially prioritizing SRM supplies for Northrop over competitors, Lockheed stated in a response to the petition.

This consent order has prevented Northrop from marketing its solid-fueled rockets openly. Instead, it appears it forces the company to sell to its competitors, such as Lockheed, who then garners the big profits in marketing them. That order I think has also limited Northrop’s ability to use its boosters for other purposes, such as launching satellites.

Overall it appears this consent order has been very counter-productive, in hindering competition in the American solid-fueled rocket industry. At present there is a shortage of production capacity in the U.S., so much so that the Italian rocket company has moved in to market its own solid-fueled rockets here. In fact, it is selling its rockets to Lockheed and Raytheon, which suggests Northrop is entirely justified in asking to be released from this order.

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The UK’s Sutherland spaceport now appears dead

9:45 am

Proposed or active spaceports in North Europe
Proposed or active spaceports in North Europe

In a news report yesterday about the failure of the United Kingdom’s rocket startup Orbex in February 2026, the following details about the Sutherland spaceport in Scotland suggests that spaceport is now defunct, with little chance of being revived.

Administrators say that one of Orbex’s key remaining assets is the Sutherland Spaceport site near Melness – although the only construction work undertaken at the site is some 600m of access road. The company responsible for it, Sutherland Spaceport Ltd (SSL), remains financially stable, according to administrators. This means the site could still be sold or potentially restarted, even though no launch activity is currently taking place.

The spaceport sits on land leased from local crofters under a long-term arrangement managed through Highlands and Islands Enterprise. SSL holds a 50-year sublease, with an option to extend for 25 years, and a break clause in 2027.

Orbex had originally intended to launch from Sutherland — close to the rocket factory it had built — but local opposition by billionaire Anders Holch Povlsen (who is a major owner in the competing Saxavord spaceport on the Shetland Islands) as well as endless bureaucratic delays from the UK’s Civil Aviation Authority made that impossible. The company attempted to switch its launches to Saxavord, but the cost and new licensing requirements were too much.

No other launch company has expressed any interest in using Sutherland, and it appears none will be forthcoming in the near future. The red tape in the UK, combined with that powerful local opposition, has made Sutherland a pariah to the smallsat rocket companies looking for launch sites.

Though the spaceport might say it is “financially stable”, without any customers I guarantee it is going to disappear at some point.

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Malta signs Artemis Accords

8:33 am

On the same day (May 4th) Ireland officially signed the Artemis Accords (as announced on May 1st), Malta also signed the accords, becoming the 66th nation to join this American space alliance.

The Republic of Malta became the 65th signatory to the Artemis Accords on Monday during a ceremony in the town of Kalkara with NASA and U.S. Department of State officials present. … Malta’s Minister for Education, Youth, Sports, Research and Innovation Clifton Grima signed the Artemis Accords on behalf of the country. … U.S. Ambassador to Malta Somers W. Farkas and NASA Europe Representative Gregory Mann witnessed the signing together with Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Foreign Affairs and Tourism Ian Borg.

As I predicted on April 30th, the success of the Artemis-2 mission has caused a lot of third world smaller nations to quickly jump on the bandwagon, with Latvia, Jordan, Morocco, Ireland, and now Malta all signing in just the past week.

The full list of nations in this American space alliance is as follows:

Angola, Argentina, Armenia, Australia, Austria, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Belgium, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, India, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Jordan, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malaysia, Malta, Mexico, Morocco, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Nigeria, Norway, Oman, Panama, Peru, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Rwanda, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Thailand, the Philippines, the United Kingdom, the United Arab Emirates, the Ukraine, the United States and Uruguay.

Expect more nations to sign on in the coming weeks.

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