By Sandra Erwin

Welcome to this week's edition of SpaceNews' Military Space, your source for the latest developments at the intersection of space and national security. In this week's edition: Primes promise Golden Dome partnerships and another critique of the Pentagon's space acquisition playbook 

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Golden Dome: The industry dance begins

Defense primes Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman are positioning themselves as orchestrators rather than monopolists in the Pentagon's Golden Dome missile defense program.

At Axios' "Future of Defense" conference last week, Lockheed COO Frank St. John said the program demands fundamentally different thinking than traditional defense procurement.

On the rationale, St. John said: "When we look at the threats that we're seeing in real world events — from ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, armed drones — we understand that we need to develop a deterrence capability to prevent that from happening in our homeland. And we also recognize that that needs to be developed in a way that is going to be an open architecture that can field capability initially and grow over time as new threats evolve and new technologies come online."

Rejecting the single-prime model, he added: "This is not going to be an 'all Lockheed Martin solution.' This is going to have to be an all-of-the-industry approach. And it's going to be ourselves. It's going to be other prime contractors. It's going to be tech providers, people that provide cloud services, high performance computing. It's going to be new startups that have algorithms that get folded in."

The commercial space industry will play a central role, St. John noted, with participation from remote sensing and communications providers.

Program overview: The Golden Dome missile defense initiative, announced in January in an executive order from President Donald Trump, envisions an integrated multi-layer system using ground- and space-based sensors and interceptors to defend against ballistic, hypersonic and cruise missile threats. 

Phased rollout: Golden Dome is expected to initially consist of "a network of existing ground and sea-based missile defense to create a starting capability," St. John said. Over time, the program would layer in "space-based interceptors, artificial intelligence, decision aids, directed energy — things that will be matured and integrated over time." 

The manufacturing bottleneck: "Because there's so much space capability required in terms of the tracking and transport layers, in terms of those space-based interceptors, an industry that is used to developing bespoke capabilities and putting something on orbit every few years is going to have to get more into a rate production model," St. John said. Lockheed is "investing now in rate production to triple [or] quadruple satellite production to be able to meet that need. Similarly, on the munitions front, we're working with the administration now to double and triple quantities of munitions."

The data problem: Perhaps the most daunting challenge remains unsolved. "This is a huge data issue," St. John said. "You have to move a lot of data very rapidly, make decisions very capably. A command and control system that's an open architecture that can plug and play new capabilities is something that's yet to be developed."

Northrop's optimism: CEO Kathy Warden struck a similar tone during an earnings call. Characterizing the program as demanding continuous innovation, she said: "In today's environment, any static architecture or plan is going to quickly become outdated. So we need to, as a nation, view this as a chess game. We make a move, there are counter moves, and we need to be able to think of technology advancement in that same way."

The program presents "a very broad-based set of opportunities," Warden said. "The architecture and spending plan for Golden Dome are not public, so I won't comment on those specifically. We see this being a number of components to an architecture that range from existing programs … and there may be additional opportunities for new programs. And I think you'll see more clarity coming from the department as they share more information on that architecture and spending plan in the coming months."

Both Lockheed and Northrop have committed to in-orbit technology demonstrations of space-based interceptors by 2028.

Startup ambitions: Los Angeles-based satellite manufacturer Apex announced a $15 million capital commitment to demonstrate orbital interceptor capability, with a low Earth orbit mission planned for June 2026. CEO Ian Cinnamon told SpaceNews the effort aims to prove "ambitious defense capabilities can move on commercial timelines, outside of traditional government procurement channels." He added: "This is going to be something that is critically important for the U.S. and our allies."

The skeptic counterpoint: Golden Dome critics contend the program faces steep obstacles. They cite historical failures of previous space-based defense systems, the relative ease with which adversaries can deploy countermeasures and overwhelm defenses, and the speed at which attackers can adapt compared to U.S. procurement cycles. Some analysts also warn Golden Dome could destabilize nuclear deterrence, potentially undermining arms control regimes and heightening geopolitical tensions.

Panetta’s warning: China poised to leapfrog U.S. in AI, space, cyber

Leon Panetta, who led the Pentagon from 2011 to 2013, delivered a blunt assessment at the Axios event: China could soon lead the technology race in AI, cyber and space, and despite decades of attempted reforms, the Defense Department remains structurally challenged to secure U.S. technological superiority.

"We have got to go through this transformation in order to deal with the threats that we're seeing in the 21st century," Panetta said.

The partnership problem: A core obstacle, Panetta said, isn't technical but organizational. The Pentagon has never genuinely figured out how to leverage private sector innovation at scale. "In AI, cyber, space, quantum computing, we have got to develop a partnership with the private sector, the industrial base," he said. "It can't be a question any more of just simply saying to a company: 'develop a weapon system.'"

That transactional, top-down model worked in previous decades but is now obsolete, Panetta argued. The asymmetry of knowledge is stark: "The private sector has a hell of a lot more knowledge about what's happening with AI, what's happening with weapon systems, what's happening with new technologies than DoD does. And so there has got to be a better partnership."

Institutional inertia: Why hasn't this transformation happened? Panetta pointed to a pattern of organizational resistance. When leadership demands change, "eventually everybody goes back to their nice, comfortable little position … nobody wants to make waves."

"The Pentagon sometimes gets trapped by its own history and basically wants to repeat weapon systems from the past as opposed to the future. That's got to change. We are in a new century."

The China calculus: Panetta expressed particular alarm about Beijing's advances in AI, cyber and space. "When considering what countries like China are doing with AI and cyber technologies, this is dangerous stuff. My fear is that China could leapfrog us in terms of the development of AI or cyber or other areas, particularly space."

Bottom line: "We've got to develop the brain power and the partnership with the private sector for the United States to be ahead of this curve, not behind it," Panetta said.

Anduril exec calls for 'speed, speed, speed' in military space procurement

The U.S. won the first space race with speed and industrial power. Anduril Industries’ Gokul Subramanian warns the nation is falling behind in the current competition with China.

In a SpaceNews commentary, the defense tech firm’s senior vice president of engineering warns that China’s rapid buildup of space weapons is outpacing America’s slow-moving acquisition system. “Our response must exceed that pace,” he writes, urging the Pentagon to embrace “speed, speed, speed” as a governing principle.

Subramanian argues the Pentagon can’t rely on decades-old procurement models that take 12 years on average to deliver capabilities. Instead, he outlines three priorities for reform:

- “Show, don’t tell” contracting: Replace lengthy paper proposals with prototype demos and head-to-head competitions.

- Ditch cost-plus: Move toward fixed-price contracts and Other Transaction Authority agreements that incentivize faster delivery and risk-taking.

- Fix data rights: Swap rigid IP control for a modular, open systems approach to encourage interoperability and competition.

This commentary comes as Anduril seeks to expand its own military space business focused on areas like space domain awareness and autonomous systems.

Subramanian says technology has advanced far faster than the government’s ability to buy it — from AI to cheaper launches — and that the U.S. is nearing a “window of maximum danger” in its balance with China.

He sees the Space Force as the model for reform: smaller, newer and capable of moving faster than the rest of DoD. “Getting procurement right — quickly — is an imperative we cannot afford to undervalue any longer,” he writes.

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