Continuity and Change in Trump’s Playbook for Space National Security Issues

When it comes to space as a national security issue, the Trump 2.0 administration is expected to lean forward on offensive capabilities and integrating commercial service providers into Department of Defense networks, according to industry analysts and former officials. But it will have to spend as yet unknown billions of dollars to realize its vision of an Iron Dome of space-based sensors and interceptors to protect the United States from missile attacks.

President Trump’s mercurial nature and his transactional approach to foreign policy, not to mention the breach with Europe over Ukraine, will also have profound impacts on the White House’s policy for space as a national security issue, some of these experts say.

In many ways, there will be “a good amount of continuity” with the Biden administration, Kari Bingen, deputy under secretary of defense for intelligence and security in the first Trump administration, and now a scholar at CSIS, tells Via Satellite.

The importance of cybersecurity, supply chain security and integrating commercial space constellations into military capabilities would all continue to be administration priorities, she says.

She points out that on many of these issues, the Biden policies were actually a continuation of Trump 1.0 policies. The Biden administration, for example, continued to use Trump‘s Space Policy Directive 5, on the cybersecurity of space systems, “So that continuity is actually with the first Trump administration,” she says.

“None of us have crystal balls right now,” she says, emphasizing the uncertainty of making predictions only a month into the new administration.

Nonetheless, she expects to see a de-emphasizing of ad hoc efforts to build support around U.S. unilateral moratoriums on offensive space weapons development. As an example, she cited the last administration's decision to abjure destructive direct assent, anti-satellite weapons testing.

“It’s not that they won't abide by [such moratoriums] but I think you'll see a greater emphasis on space war fighting and the weapons needed to protect and defend our interests in space, which can include … offensive capabilities, and less emphasis on ‘Let's get as many countries as we can to sign on to these unilateral moratoriums,’” she says.

When it comes to the Iron Dome (now hastily rebranded as Golden Dome) missile defense initiative, President Trump’s executive order laid out a key role for space, she says. Golden Dome will rely on the Space Force’s projected overhead sensor architecture, to detect and track ballistic missiles, maneuvering hypersonic vehicles and other next generation strategic weapons. But the EO also reenvisages a role for a space-based interceptor capability – derided by critics as a resurrection of President Reagan’s failed Strategic Defense Initiative.

Bingen says advances in technology had transformed both the feasibility and the economics of a space-based interceptor system. The studies that underlaid critiques of the Reagan-era vision were out of date, she says. “Over the last 20 years, many of those assumptions have changed dramatically. The cost of launch has dropped dramatically. We have production lines pumping out satellites at fairly low cost points. The technology to stitch these things together. That's all come a long way,” she says.

Officials have not so far mentioned any budget numbers for the program, and analysts agree it’s too early even for estimates.

In a briefing for reporters Feb. 24, Space Force Chief of Space Operations Gen. Chance Saltzman pledged his service would play a “central role” in Golden Dome, and says he had set up a special team that was “evaluating what systems the Space Force already has in development to support the president’s order and what capabilities it would need to build. From there, it’s exploring questions around technical feasibility and drafting cost estimates … as well as its projections for what a more advanced architecture would require,” according to the Defense Department.

An Unclear Future for International Partnerships

The new administration will likely look for closer cooperation in space with Israel, according to Bingen. “I think there are opportunities there,” she says, particularly with regard to remote sensing and imagery. Israel could use the capabilities of U.S. satellites collecting electro-optical and synthetic aperture radar (SAR) imagery, she says. “Those are things that the Israelis are going to need as they look at their adversaries” in Yemen, Lebanon, and Iran.

But other elements of international cooperation might be at risk, says Greg Francis, founder and CEO of Access Partnership, a consultancy that advises businesses operating in new markets like space.

Cautioning that it was early days, Francis pointed out that international cooperation was a two-way proposition. The executive order envisages integrating Iron Dome capabilities with certain allies, in theaters where U.S. forces already deploy ground or sea-based missile interceptors, but allies needed a reason to cooperate, he says. The dramatic policy reversal by President Trump on Ukraine has shocked America’s partners all over the world.

“We know that national security goals don't change from Earth to space,” Francis says. “If you're Justin Trudeau today, he's still Prime Minister of Canada, how much stock would you be putting into an Iron Dome over the United States that might cover Canada, or might cover parts of Europe?”

“If I'm [French President Emmanuel] Macron or [German chancellor-in-waiting Friedrich] Merz, I am asking myself: Am I going to change my national defense posture to integrate into a U.S.-led space defense system?” he adds.

“The answers to these questions today are not the same as they were for the last 80 years.”

A more forward leaning approach to offensive capabilities in space could also have costs, Francis says. “It's a big frontier out there in the vacuum and as the U.S. weaponizes space, they also need to defend their assets up there, and that's a tough one, because they'll be playing defense in three dimensions,” Francis says, comparing it to parking a car in a far away neighborhood.

Focus on Innovation and Commercial Integration

In common with other analysts Via Satellite spoke to, Francis predicted that the new administration would seek ways to integrate commercial space capabilities more closely into military networks, and use government procurement mechanisms to foster innovation.

“The new administration will probably make it easier to participate in procurements so that smaller U.S. firms can contribute,” he says. But the “zeal” to try to open up the procurement system to innovation might “trip itself up,” he predicted, especially in space where complex systems had to be acquired and deployed over many years.

“The reflex at the moment is to open doors and let change happen, and that's not necessarily a good way to drive an orderly development of a long term system that requires planning and careful and deliberate integration and clear purpose from the outset,” he says, adding that the U.S. might end up with “a systemic and contractual hodgepodge and a lot of time in court.”

Others were more sanguine. “We do expect, and have already begun to see, an even greater focus on promoting the space economy and on commercial space integration into government programs” like national security space capabilities, says Chad Anderson, a managing partner at Space Capital, an early stage venture funding outfit.

Integration of commercial space capabilities with the military would also be boosted by the establishment of a Space National Guard (currently, Air National Guard units in seven states are assigned to Space Force duties), which Anderson says is “inevitable under the new administration,” and would further expand public-commercial alliances and technology integrations.

Bingen agreed, predicting that existing efforts to incorporate commercial capabilities into the national security space ecosystem would be “amplified and accelerated,” much as was already happening in other defense technology areas.

“Given the emphasis that you're seeing out of this administration on better leveraging the commercial sector across all these different technology areas to go faster, to deliver more, [for instance] autonomous systems at scale, I think that same thinking and top down pressure will be infused into the national security space ecosystem as well,” Bingen says.

The military could learn from successful and agile commercial providers, she added. “This is where we need to take a page from Elon Musk's SpaceX playbook with proliferated architectures. How do we do more of that? How do we get new space capabilities? How do we develop and field satellite systems, not on a five or 10 year timescale, but months, like they are able to do.”

Anderson predicted that geopolitical tensions “will continue to fuel an increase in U.S. defense spending, which benefits the Space Force, and will be accelerated under the new administration.” He says the spending would show up in acquisition programs like Resilient Global Positioning Systems (R-GPS) and Alternative Positioning, Navigation, and Timing (AltPNT) as jamming of conventional Global Navigation Satellite Systems continues over conflict zones and China’s BeiDou goes on displacing U.S. GPS among China’s allies and trading partners.

Innovative commercial companies were able to design, build and launch novel satellites “in a fraction of the time, and for a fraction of the cost, it used to take,” added Anderson. Using these technologies will allow the Space Force “to launch new capabilities or replace damaged/compromised assets in record time.”

A Page from the SpaceX Playbook

Elon Musk’s Starlink satellite-based internet service had shown the enormous capabilities of proliferated low-earth orbit (LEO) constellations, Anderson says. In 2022, SpaceX set up a subsidiary of the company called Starshield, specifically to do business with the U.S. military and run the special military satellite network of the same name that SpaceX is launching under a classified contract with the National Reconnaissance Office.

Anderson believes the Space Force will increasingly rely on SpaceX for national security missions with Starshield and the Starship rocket in development. This is initially in satcom and Earth Observation (EO), but could expand to space domain awareness, in-space transportation, and more.

Given Musk’s role as one of president Trump’s closest advisors and the head of the Department of Government Efficiency, which is charged with making radical cuts in U.S. government spending, both Bingen and Francis agreed that the government’s relationship with the SpaceX company he owns raised the issue of conflicts of interest in his decision making.

“It’s a good question,” says Francis, “and we have to keep asking it until it's no longer a question. But there's no evidence of it right now.”

In fact, Francis pointed out that Musk “seemed to be willing to lose market share to support the new administration's policies,” citing the potential impact on Tesla sales of the abolition of the EV tax credit Republicans have proposed. But at the same time, he added, “The administration is sacking inspectors general,” and “without any lanes in the road, people will start to drive dangerously.”

Bingen says the issue “should be closely watched to avoid those conflicts of interest in any sort of specific decisions that involve SpaceX.” But she added that shouldn’t stop the U.S. government from using Musk’s technologies as a blueprint.

“Assuming this administration makes a big push for better adopting commercial technologies, moving faster, building satellites at scale. I don't see that philosophy or approach per se being a conflict of interest, even though it’s SpaceX that has figured out how to do that best,” she says.

It is necessary to “isolate specific decisions regarding his companies from that basic business approach, because we do stand to benefit from that business approach,” she says.

Bingen adds that though there had been no significant national security space appointments yet, another individual worth watching was the nominee for Air Force Secretary Troy Mienk, currently principal deputy director of the National Reconnaissance Office, the highly classified U.S. intelligence agency that makes the nation’s spy satellites.

“He’s somebody with a deep technical background, willing to try new approaches,” she says adding, “He holds his team and his contractors to a high standard in terms of engineering rigor, understanding the state of technology, costs, [and] delivering on commitments. So, I think that mindset and that engineering rigor will be very good for the Air Force writ large.”

She says it was notable that someone whose career had been centered on space should be nominated to head the Department of the Air Force, which includes both the Air Force and the Space Force. “I think that's the first time you've had a true space person in that position, and I think that also speaks to the importance that this administration places on space.” VS