Excerpts:
A bitter feud between Trump and Musk serves as a reminder of just how important SpaceX has become to the U.S. military and federal agencies.
If the Trump administration does move to cancel deals with SpaceX, in particular, it could have serious ramifications for U.S. national security, and especially the U.S. military and intelligence apparatus, which relies very heavily on the firm for space launches and space-based communications services.
The company is further known to be working on secretive unique sensing capabilities in space for the U.S. government and has been widely expected to play an important role in Trump’s Golden Dome missile defense initiative. As noted earlier, SpaceX’s Dragon family of spacecraft is also absolutely essential to NASA’s spaceflight operations.
Today, SpaceX is by far the top space launch provider globally, dominating the orbital access marketplace. Last year, the company carried out 134 orbital launches using its Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rockets, more than everyone else in the world combined, according to a report in January from SpaceNews. SpaceX’s launches were responsible for a whopping 84 percent of the total satellites put into orbit in 2024, according to the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) think tank.
A particularly important portion of SpaceX’s launches are in support of the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO), which is formally within the Department of Defense, but also has a close relationship with the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). As America’s top satellite intelligence arm, NRO’s work is key to U.S. national security and is extremely sensitive. The very existence of the office was only publicly acknowledged in 1992. SpaceX Falcon 9s have been used in five launches for NRO this year already. This is on top of six launches for the office last year ...
Space-Based CommunicationsIn parallel to its surging dominance in the space launch market, SpaceX Starlink has secured a preeminent position in the satellite internet and communications arena in recent years. America’s armed forces have steadily become a major user of Starlink, as well as its more secure government-focused cousin, Starshield ...
‘Bleeding-Edge’ Space-Based Capabilities DevelopmentBeyond space-based communications, SpaceX has emerged as a direct provider, not just a transporter, of more secretive orbital capabilities to the U.S. military. This includes a reported constellation of intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) satellites for NRO, which strongly appears to be tied to work the office has been doing to establish a persistent, all-seeing Ground Moving Target Indicator (GMTI) and mapping radar capability ...
Golden DomeThe U.S. military’s efforts to expand its space-based ISR capabilities, as well as underlying data-sharing networks, also now align with the vision Trump has laid out for his Golden Dome missile defense initiative. Especially with its ability to launch a lot of payloads at the absolute cheapest price, as well as existing contracts, capacity, and experience, SpaceX has already looked set to play a major role in Golden Dome ...
The Dragon SpacecraftThough not a military capability, the Dragon family of spacecraft is another very important aspect of SpaceX’s contracts with the U.S. government, as highlighted by Musk’s immediate retort to Trump’s comments yesterday. There are versions of Dragon designed to carry cargo or astronauts, and they are a key means for NASA of getting both types of payloads to and from the International Space Station (ISS) ...
