Space Industry Cheat Sheet: Golden Dome Takes Shape as NASA Leadership Drama Unfolds

Team, here is your week­ly Space Indus­try Cheat Sheet. In the past week, it has solid­i­fied my opin­ion that the chal­lenges the Unit­ed States faces are not tech­ni­cal, but rather a lack of uni­ty. There have been updates to the Gold­en Dome of Amer­i­ca effort (which has its own set of pros and cons), NASA lead­er­ship bat­tles, and crit­i­cal advance­ments in com­mer­cial space capa­bil­i­ties. Let’s dive into what’s shap­ing our nation’s space future.

Golden Dome Initiative Gains Momentum

The Trump admin­is­tra­tion’s ambi­tious Gold­en Dome mis­sile defense shield con­tin­ues to take shape, with SpaceX emerg­ing as the like­ly prime con­trac­tor for the MILNET satel­lite con­stel­la­tion. Accord­ing to sources famil­iar with the pro­gram, SpaceX could build up to 600+ satel­lites designed to track hyper­son­ic mis­siles, air­craft, and drones that threat­en the U.S. and the West­ern Hemisphere.

SpaceX has demon­strat­ed and con­tin­ues to inno­vate, out­pac­ing its com­pe­ti­tion at a remark­able rate, which leaves the oth­ers in the Defense Indus­try Base scram­bling. Lat­er in this arti­cle, I will dis­cuss SpaceX’s part­ner­ship with MTN to devel­op its own pri­vate­ly secured net­works, along with the increased capa­bil­i­ty of Device-to-Device (D2D) tech­nol­o­gy, which puts direct pres­sure on Viasat and com­pa­nies that offer Irid­i­um services. 

SpaceX is one of the hand­ful of com­pa­nies that are poised to excel at the com­plex­i­ty and speed of the Gold­en Dome of Amer­i­ca pro­gram. Kevin Flood from Ansys Gov­ern­ment Ini­tia­tives explained in a Break­ing Defense arti­cle that the U.S. effort will exceed any­thing we’ve attempt­ed before, includ­ing Israel’s Iron Dome sys­tem. The chal­lenges are immense because the DoD is over­com­ing its tech­ni­cal debt. Still, it is reimag­in­ing mis­sile defense for threats that can maneu­ver unpre­dictably at hyper­son­ic speeds.

Intrigu­ing­ly, the empha­sis is on sim­u­la­tion and open sys­tems archi­tec­ture. Unlike tra­di­tion­al defense pro­grams with rigid require­ments, Gold­en Dome is being designed for con­tin­u­ous adap­ta­tion. This approach allows the U.S. to test against threats that don’t yet exist and rapid­ly inte­grate com­mer­cial inno­va­tions as they emerge. 

NASA Leadership Crisis Deepens

Mean­while, the same com­pa­ny slat­ed to build the 600+ satel­lites for the DoD Gold­en Dome, SpaceX, is pick­ing a fight with NASA’s lead­er­ship. The bat­tle between inter­im admin­is­tra­tor Sean Duffy and for­mer nom­i­nee Jared Isaac­man has erupt­ed into pub­lic view, with Elon Musk call­ing Duffy “Sean Dum­my” after the inter­im chief crit­i­cized SpaceX’s Star­ship delays on nation­al television.

This Wash­ing­ton dra­ma has real impli­ca­tions for our space pro­gram. NASA is already down 20% of its work­force, and indus­try rumors sug­gest that morale with­in the agency is at an all-time low, coin­cid­ing with the Unit­ed States’ race against Chi­na to return to the Moon. To add to the dra­ma, both for­mer NASA admin­is­tra­tors, Char­lie Bold­en and Jim Briden­s­tine, have expressed skep­ti­cism that our cur­rent approach can beat Chi­na’s 2030 lunar land­ing target.

The most con­cern­ing devel­op­ment? Duffy has pro­posed mov­ing NASA under the Depart­ment of Trans­porta­tion, which would fun­da­men­tal­ly alter the agen­cy’s inde­pen­dence and poten­tial­ly politi­cize it fur­ther. As some­one who has watched this indus­try for years, this kind of uncer­tain­ty is exact­ly what Chi­na wants to see. Addi­tion­al­ly, do astro­nauts receive TSA Pre-Check automatically? 

Commercial Space Advances

Despite the polit­i­cal tur­moil, the com­mer­cial space sec­tor con­tin­ues to inno­vate at break­neck speed. Some notable devel­op­ments this week:

Star­link Goes Pri­vate: MTN launched StarEdge Hori­zon. This ser­vice enables busi­ness­es to uti­lize Star­link satel­lites as part of pri­vate­ly secured net­works, with­out rely­ing on the pub­lic inter­net. This Lay­er 2 archi­tec­ture is already see­ing strong demand from ener­gy, con­struc­tion, and logis­tics com­pa­nies. As stat­ed pre­vi­ous­ly in the arti­cle, this could also have a mil­i­tary application.

Direct-to-Device Break­through: AST Space­Mo­bile secured a mas­sive win with Sau­di Ara­bi­a’s stc Group, includ­ing a $175 mil­lion pre­pay­ment for a 10-year agree­ment. This puts them along­side AT&T and Ver­i­zon in the race to pro­vide satel­lite con­nec­tiv­i­ty direct­ly to smartphones.

Space Sur­veil­lance Evo­lu­tion: Aus­tralian com­pa­ny HEO demon­strat­ed the grow­ing impor­tance of space-to-space imag­ing by reveal­ing pre­vi­ous­ly unknown details about Chi­na’s mys­te­ri­ous XJY‑7 satel­lite. They’ve now con­duct­ed over 4,000 imag­ing mis­sions of space­craft, high­light­ing how space is becom­ing increas­ing­ly transparent.

Defense Industrial Base Updates

The space indus­try’s role in nation­al defense con­tin­ues to expand. Rep. Pat Fal­lon, Chair­man of the House Armed Ser­vices Sub­com­mit­tee on Mil­i­tary Per­son­nel, has been instru­men­tal in push­ing through the FY26 NDAA with its 3.8% mil­i­tary pay increase. His focus on tran­si­tion­ing ser­vice mem­bers into the defense indus­tri­al base is par­tic­u­lar­ly rel­e­vant as we need skilled per­son­nel for pro­grams like Gold­en Dome.

Cyber­se­cu­ri­ty has final­ly moved from after­thought to pri­or­i­ty. Indus­try lead­ers at the Mil­Sat Sym­po­sium acknowl­edged that the days of treat­ing cyber­se­cu­ri­ty as option­al are over. With grow­ing threats to space sys­tems, encryp­tion and secu­ri­ty mea­sures are now mis­sion-crit­i­cal, despite the added costs.

International Developments

Japan suc­cess­ful­ly launched its next-gen­er­a­tion HTV-X1 car­go space­craft to the ISS, fea­tur­ing 50% more car­go capac­i­ty than its pre­de­ces­sor. Chi­na reaf­firmed its goal of land­ing on the Moon by 2030 while adopt­ing a more com­mer­cial approach to space devel­op­ment. And in Europe, Air­bus, Leonar­do, and Thales announced “Project Bro­mo,” a joint ven­ture com­bin­ing their space busi­ness­es into a €7.5 bil­lion annu­al rev­enue powerhouse.

Legal Battles and Political Maneuvering

Col­orado has filed suit against the Trump admin­is­tra­tion over the relo­ca­tion of Space Com­mand to Alaba­ma, argu­ing that the pres­i­den­t’s stat­ed reason—Colorado’s use of a mail-in vot­ing system—violates the Tenth Amend­ment. The com­mand rep­re­sents 1,400 jobs and $1 bil­lion in annu­al eco­nom­ic impact for Col­orado Springs.

Looking Ahead

As we head into the final weeks of 2025, sev­er­al crit­i­cal ques­tions remain:

1. Can Gold­en Dome deliv­er on its promis­es? The tech­ni­cal chal­lenges are immense, but the open archi­tec­ture approach and com­mer­cial part­ner­ships offer hope.
2. Who will lead NASA? The Duffy-Isaac­man bat­tle needs to be resolved soon, or the U.S. risks ced­ing lunar lead­er­ship to China.
3. Will com­mer­cial space con­tin­ue its momen­tum? Despite polit­i­cal uncer­tain­ty, com­pa­nies like SpaceX, Blue Ori­gin, and new­er entrants con­tin­ue push­ing boundaries.

The space indus­try stands at a cross­roads. We have the tech­nol­o­gy, tal­ent, and resources to main­tain Amer­i­can lead­er­ship in space. What we need now is a clear vision, sta­ble lead­er­ship, and the polit­i­cal will to see these pro­grams through to com­ple­tion. The next few months will be crit­i­cal in deter­min­ing whether we rise to meet these chal­lenges or allow bureau­crat­ic infight­ing to hand­i­cap our efforts.

Stay tuned for next week’s update as we con­tin­ue track­ing these devel­op­ments. The space race isn’t just about nation­al pres­tige any­more — it’s about eco­nom­ic pros­per­i­ty, nation­al secu­ri­ty, and human­i­ty’s future among the stars.

Stay tuned for next week’s update, and as always, keep look­ing up!

Clin­ton Austin is a Senior Busi­ness Devel­op­ment Direc­tor for Gen­er­al Dynam­ics Infor­ma­tion Tech­nol­o­gy who cov­ers the U.S. Air Force and Space at GDIT.

The views expressed are those of the author and do not nec­es­sar­i­ly reflect the offi­cial pol­i­cy or posi­tion of Gen­er­al Dynam­ics Infor­ma­tion Technology.

November 3, 2025

Posted in Space.