Defense contractors are in full sales mode to win a piece of a potentially trillion-dollar pie for development of the Trump administration’s proposed Golden Dome missile shield.
CEOs are touting their companies’ ability to rapidly spool up satellite, sensor, and rocket production. Publicly, they all agree with the assertion of Pentagon officials that US industry already possesses the technologies required to make a homeland missile defense system work.
The challenge, they say, is tying all of it together under the umbrella of a sophisticated command and control network. Sensors must be able to detect and track missile threats, and that information must rapidly get to weapons that can shoot them down. Gen. Chance Saltzman, the Space Force’s top commander, likes to call Golden Dome a “systems of systems.”
One of these systems stands apart. It’s the element that was most controversial when former President Ronald Reagan announced the Strategic Defense Initiative or “Star Wars” program, a concept similar to Golden Dome that fizzled after the end of the Cold War.
Like the Star Wars concept 40 years ago, Golden Dome’s pièce de résistance will be a fleet of space-based interceptors loitering in orbit a few hundred miles overhead, ready to shoot down missiles shortly after they are launched. Pentagon officials haven’t disclosed the exact number of interceptors required to fulfill Golden Dome’s mission of defending the United States against a volley of incoming missiles. It will probably be in the thousands.
Skin in the game
Last month, the Defense Department released a request for prototype proposals for space-based interceptors (SBIs). The Space Force said it plans to sign agreements with multiple companies to develop and demonstrate SBIs and compete for prizes. This is an unusual procurement strategy for the Pentagon, requiring contractors to spend their own money on building and launching the SBIs into space, with the hope of eventually winning a lucrative production contract.
Apex is one of the companies posturing for an SBI contract. Based in Los Angeles, Apex is one of several US startups looking to manufacture satellites faster and cheaper than traditional aerospace contractors. The company’s vision is to rapidly churn out satellite buses, essentially the spacecraft’s chassis, to be integrated with a customer’s payloads. So far, Apex has raised more than $500 million from investors and launched its first satellite in 2024, just two years after the company’s founding. Apex won a $46 million contract from the Space Force in February to supply the military with an unspecified number of satellites through 2032.