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CNBC
11 hours ago
- Business
- CNBC
Investing in Space: Iron Dome's performance could be Golden Dome's opportunity
Israel and Iran resumed fire exchanges at the end of last week, and space and defense enthusiasts have been following the fusillades. Front and center has been the use of drones in this new leg of the conflict and the health of Israel's infamous Iron Dome missile defense system, as it fought off a barrage of drones and missiles. There's an inevitable connection: the Iron Dome's currently doing the job in Israel that U.S. President Donald Trump wants to get done at home through the proposed Golden Dome multi-layered missile defense system — a costly $175 billion concept so cutting edge that lawmakers and analysts have often questioned its viability. On one hand, you have the Congressional Budget Office warning that the project could cost as much as $542 billion. On the other, space and defense companies are chomping at the bit to fast-track Trump's ambitions from executively ordered vision to satellite-touting reality before the 2029 end of his term. "The performance of Israel's multi-tiered missile defense system underscores the urgent need to strengthen U.S. missile defenses. Thus far, Israeli missile defense inventories have kept up with the Iranian threat — buying decisionmakers valuable time to not just defend the goal but to score some," Patrycja Bazylczyk, research associate at the Center for Strategic and International Studies' Missile Defense Project, told CNBC by email. "U.S. policymakers should view this as a nod towards the importance of building inventories well before the fight, in the event of a missile attack from either Russia or China, we will be facing far more complex, and numerous salvos," she added. Like a Hollywood revenant, Golden Dome rose from the ashes of Ronald Reagan's Strategic Defense Initiative — nicknamed "Star Wars" — that died a long death to a string of arguments over tech obstacles, steep price tags and the potential to kick off a new arms race with the Soviet Union. Unsurprisingly, Russia and China have been the starkest foreign detractors of Golden Dome, which sets out to defend the vast spread of the U.S. homeland from ballistic, hypersonic and cruise missiles through a web of satellites, sensors and interceptors. The timing isn't ideal — both superpowers doth protest too much at a point when the major arms control deal between Washington and Moscow, the New START treaty, is set to lapse next year without a successor, while U.S. talks on a similar topic with Beijing were suspended in 2024. Within the industry, Golden Dome looks like a mighty fine bone thrown to private space companies faced with severe budget cuts at key U.S. space contractor NASA. For the past few months, defense and space businesses have been vying for a slice of the project's pie, especially after Elon Musk's recent public feud with Trump left SpaceX's potential role in the scheme under question. Take a look at the Paris Air Show — a sprawling affair enveloping Le Bourget Airport in the northeast of the French capital every two years. Around 45% of this year's show is offering a stage to defense and security this year, and the likes of U.S. defense and aerospace manufacturer LockHeed Martin and Boeing used the platform to tout their Golden Dome credentials. "We clearly have a whole number of product lines that will contribute very well, that are going to fit very well with what is necessary to achieve the mission," Lockheed Martin President of Missiles and Fire Control Tim Cahill said, according to Reuters. Golden Dome's progressing, but time will tell if it's here to stay. On June 10, two Republican members of the House of Representatives, Rep. Dale W. Strong (AL-05) and Rep. Jeff Crank (CO-05) announced the formation of a Golden Dome Caucus that will work closely with the Senate's own initiative, in a bid to back Trump's plans. Meanwhile, the House Appropriations Committee unveiled the draft of its fiscal 2026 defense spending bill that features a cool $831.5 billion top spend line — and a $13 billion allocation for "missile defense and space programs to augment and integrate in support of the Golden Dome effort." That's a respective $8.8 billion and $4.1 billion for missile defense and space programs backing the project, in the fine print. Don't worry, there's a deal to be had: Trump's reassured Canada it can skip a newly upped $71 billion fee to enjoy Golden Dome's benefits — if it just becomes part of the United States. Even better, Washington could end up a trendsetter across the Atlantic. "I don't know about the Golden Dome in the U.S. and so forth, but I do believe that we have to create an integrated … missile defense system, also in the European perspective, and there are initiatives going in that direction," Micael Johansson, CEO of Swedish aerospace and defense company Saab, told CNBC's Charlotte Reed at the Paris Air Show. "We have to have a European setup around that, and we have that capability with all the companies in Europe."
Yahoo
13-06-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Trump's Golden Dome rethinks defense against long-range threats
June 13 (UPI) -- Homeland defense has entered a new era with the proliferation of nuclear-armed intercontinental ballistic missiles and President Donald Trump's Golden Dome proposal aims to invest in protecting the United States against modern threats. Trump shared some details about the Golden Dome missile defense system last month in the Oval Office, estimating it will cost about $175 billion to bring online during his term in office. Patrycja Bazylczyk, program manager and research associate at the Center for Strategic and International Studies' Missile Defense Project, told UPI it presents an opportunity to take a new approach to defense. "The Golden Dome opportunity really calls attention to the fact that we need to reorient our missile defense policy away from the sort of traditional threats that we've been forming our missile defense policy on for the past two decades -- and mostly against [intercontinental ballistic missiles," Bazylczyk said. "We're in an era of great power competition. Our adversaries China and Russia have next-generation weapons that can threaten the U.S. homeland. We need to prime our defenses to defend against these next generation threats." The past two decades of U.S. missile defense have been focused on potential attacks from rogue nations like North Korea and Iran, Bazylczyk adds. However, the development and use of hypersonic missiles, cruise missiles and unmanned aerial systems showcase how long-range capabilities have advanced. The concept of the Golden Dome is not a singular system. Instead it is more of a system of systems, Bazylczyk said. Current air defenses such as the ground-based midcourse defense system -- a system of missile interceptors located in Alaska and California -- will remain active. Meanwhile new systems will be brought into effect to detect, deter and stop threats. What those news systems are is not yet certain, Todd Harrison, defense analyst at American Enterprise Institute, told UPI. Trump has earmarked $25 billion to start constructing the Golden Dome system and another $4 billion is earmarked for general air and missile defense investments. "Where it stands right now is the Golden Dome is a concept," Harrison said. "It's an idea for building a missile shield to protect the United States. There are an infinite number of ways you can do that. It depends on what degree of protection you want to provide and how quickly you want to provide it. It can cost whatever you want it to cost." "That's what we don't know yet from the administration: how big of a system they're envisioning," Harrison continued. "At least publicly they've not picked an architecture." Trump's legislative agenda bill, the reconciliation bill that is making its way through the U.S. Senate, does not directly reference the Golden Dome by name. It does allocate funding toward air defenses and development meant to bolster homeland defense. "Congress is guessing what the money should be spent on because they are handing the administration a $25 billion check for Golden Dome as a down payment in advance of the administration actually asking for resources," Harrison said. "This is just Congress saying, 'Hey, we hear you want to build a Golden Dome. Here's some money and here's where we think you'll probably need the money." A $25 billion "down payment" can put development of the Golden Dome into motion, but Harrison is skeptical that the funding announced will develop something operational. One aspect that has been discussed in the defense industry prior to Trump's proposal is a space-based interceptor system. The National Academies of Sciences advised that developing the system would be costly and questions about its effectiveness and vulnerability to countermeasures remained. Since 2012, space launches have become more common and less costly. The Congressional Budget Office published a new report last month, estimating that launch costs for space-based interceptors could be reduced by 30 to 40% compared to the 2012 report. According to the latest estimate, a space-based interceptor constellation would cost $161 billion to $542 billion to implement and maintain for 20 years. President Ronald Reagan proposed such a system in his "Star Wars" Strategic Defense Initiative, though it was never realized. The United States already has a series of space-based missile sensors in orbit to detect missile launches. A space-based interceptor system would be designed to enable the United States to destroy missiles while they are launching, which is a three to five-minute window. The current system -- the ground-based midcourse defense system -- is designed to take down intercontinental ballistic missiles when they are cruising through the vacuum of space. Midcourse flight yields a 30 minute window. Both systems introduce challenges. Laura Grego, senior scientist and research director for the Union of Concerned Scientists' Global Security Program, told UPI the space-based interceptor system attempts to work around the physics and engineering problem the ground-based midcourse system faces. The most difficult challenge for a midcourse system reliably distinguishing a nuclear-armed missile from a decoy. "You can launch many, many decoys and require the defense to figure out which one is the real one or have to shoot them all down," Grego said. "That's the countermeasures problem. No one is demonstrating an adequate technical solution to that." This is one reason why space-based interceptors capable of targeting missiles as they are launching -- before they can release decoys -- is appealing. However, the small launch window presents another problem. In order to respond to a launching missile in three to five minutes, an interceptor must be in position at that exact time. To make that possible, thousands of interceptors must be in orbit. "The problem is, because you need a lot of them to have one in place, you can imagine a strategy to launch a few [missiles] at the same time from the same place and that would require your defense to have many, many interceptors, potentially thousands or tens of thousands, in order to counter just maybe 10 launching at a time," Grego said. "That's one reason why it rapidly becomes very expensive. You're sort of trading one hard problem for a different hard problem." The ultimate goal of the Golden Dome, according to Bazylczyk, is to deter attacks against the United States from ever happening. "The Golden Dome is aimed at changing the strategic calculus of our adversaries," Bazylczyk said. "It's aiming to convince them that they have doubts that whatever attack they are trying to impose on the United States will succeed." "Russia and China have been increasing the capabilities of these next generation weapons, including hypersonics and cruise missiles," she added. "All of these unique weapons are designed to outmaneuver our defenses. So of course we are trying to bolster them to respond."
UPI
13-06-2025
- Business
- UPI
Trump's Golden Dome rethinks defense against long-range threats
President Donald Trump, accompanied by U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, announces he has selected the path forward for his Golden Dome missile defense shield, in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, on May 20. File Photo by Chris Kleponis/UPI | License Photo June 13 (UPI) -- Homeland defense has entered a new era with the proliferation of nuclear-armed intercontinental ballistic missiles and President Donald Trump's Golden Dome proposal aims to invest in protecting the United States against modern threats. Trump shared some details about the Golden Dome missile defense system last month in the Oval Office, estimating it will cost about $175 billion to bring online during his term in office. Patrycja Bazylczyk, program manager and research associate at the Center for Strategic and International Studies' Missile Defense Project, told UPI it presents an opportunity to take a new approach to defense. "The Golden Dome opportunity really calls attention to the fact that we need to reorient our missile defense policy away from the sort of traditional threats that we've been forming our missile defense policy on for the past two decades -- and mostly against [intercontinental ballistic missiles," Bazylczyk said. "We're in an era of great power competition. Our adversaries China and Russia have next-generation weapons that can threaten the U.S. homeland. We need to prime our defenses to defend against these next generation threats." The past two decades of U.S. missile defense have been focused on potential attacks from rogue nations like North Korea and Iran, Bazylczyk adds. However, the development and use of hypersonic missiles, cruise missiles and unmanned aerial systems showcase how long-range capabilities have advanced. The concept of the Golden Dome is not a singular system. Instead it is more of a system of systems, Bazylczyk said. Current air defenses such as the ground-based midcourse defense system -- a system of missile interceptors located in Alaska and California -- will remain active. Meanwhile new systems will be brought into effect to detect, deter and stop threats. What those news systems are is not yet certain, Todd Harrison, defense analyst at American Enterprise Institute, told UPI. Trump has earmarked $25 billion to start constructing the Golden Dome system and another $4 billion is earmarked for general air and missile defense investments. "Where it stands right now is the Golden Dome is a concept," Harrison said. "It's an idea for building a missile shield to protect the United States. There are an infinite number of ways you can do that. It depends on what degree of protection you want to provide and how quickly you want to provide it. It can cost whatever you want it to cost." "That's what we don't know yet from the administration: how big of a system they're envisioning," Harrison continued. "At least publicly they've not picked an architecture." Trump's legislative agenda bill, the reconciliation bill that is making its way through the U.S. Senate, does not directly reference the Golden Dome by name. It does allocate funding toward air defenses and development meant to bolster homeland defense. "Congress is guessing what the money should be spent on because they are handing the administration a $25 billion check for Golden Dome as a down payment in advance of the administration actually asking for resources," Harrison said. "This is just Congress saying, 'Hey, we hear you want to build a Golden Dome. Here's some money and here's where we think you'll probably need the money." A $25 billion "down payment" can put development of the Golden Dome into motion, but Harrison is skeptical that the funding announced will develop something operational. One aspect that has been discussed in the defense industry prior to Trump's proposal is a space-based interceptor system. The National Academies of Sciences advised that developing the system would be costly and questions about its effectiveness and vulnerability to countermeasures remained. Since 2012, space launches have become more common and less costly. The Congressional Budget Office published a new report last month, estimating that launch costs for space-based interceptors could be reduced by 30 to 40% compared to the 2012 report. According to the latest estimate, a space-based interceptor constellation would cost $161 billion to $542 billion to implement and maintain for 20 years. President Ronald Reagan proposed such a system in his "Star Wars" Strategic Defense Initiative, though it was never realized. The United States already has a series of space-based missile sensors in orbit to detect missile launches. A space-based interceptor system would be designed to enable the United States to destroy missiles while they are launching, which is a three to five-minute window. The current system -- the ground-based midcourse defense system -- is designed to take down intercontinental ballistic missiles when they are cruising through the vacuum of space. Midcourse flight yields a 30 minute window. Both systems introduce challenges. Laura Grego, senior scientist and research director for the Union of Concerned Scientists' Global Security Program, told UPI the space-based interceptor system attempts to work around the physics and engineering problem the ground-based midcourse system faces. The most difficult challenge for a midcourse system reliably distinguishing a nuclear-armed missile from a decoy. "You can launch many, many decoys and require the defense to figure out which one is the real one or have to shoot them all down," Grego said. "That's the countermeasures problem. No one is demonstrating an adequate technical solution to that." This is one reason why space-based interceptors capable of targeting missiles as they are launching -- before they can release decoys -- is appealing. However, the small launch window presents another problem. In order to respond to a launching missile in three to five minutes, an interceptor must be in position at that exact time. To make that possible, thousands of interceptors must be in orbit. "The problem is, because you need a lot of them to have one in place, you can imagine a strategy to launch a few [missiles] at the same time from the same place and that would require your defense to have many, many interceptors, potentially thousands or tens of thousands, in order to counter just maybe 10 launching at a time," Grego said. "That's one reason why it rapidly becomes very expensive. You're sort of trading one hard problem for a different hard problem." The ultimate goal of the Golden Dome, according to Bazylczyk, is to deter attacks against the United States from ever happening. "The Golden Dome is aimed at changing the strategic calculus of our adversaries," Bazylczyk said. "It's aiming to convince them that they have doubts that whatever attack they are trying to impose on the United States will succeed." "Russia and China have been increasing the capabilities of these next generation weapons, including hypersonics and cruise missiles," she added. "All of these unique weapons are designed to outmaneuver our defenses. So of course we are trying to bolster them to respond."
Yahoo
21-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
US accepts gifted Qatari plane to join Air Force One fleet
The US has accepted a plane intended for the Air Force One fleet from Qatar, a gift that has sparked criticism including from some of President Trump's biggest supporters. "The secretary of defense has accepted a Boeing 747 from Qatar in accordance with all federal rules and regulations," Chief Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said in a statement on Wednesday. The plane will need to be modified before it can be used as part of Air Force One - the president's official mode of air transport. The White House insists that the gift is legal, but the announcement of the transfer a week ago caused huge controversy. The plane is a gift from the Qatari royal family and is estimated to be worth $400m (£300m). The White House says that the new plane will be transferred to Trump's presidential library at the end of his term. It could require years to fit with additional security systems and upgrades required to carry the president - including the ability to withstand the electromagnetic pulse from a nuclear blast, and to refuel mid-flight. Mark Cancian, a senior adviser with the Center for Strategic and International Studies' Defense and Security Department, says the costs of such retrofitting could easily run to $1bn (£750m). Justifying the transfer a week ago Trump said: "They're giving us a gift". The president has also said it would be "stupid" to turn down the plane. The US Constitution has a provision known as the Emoluments Clause, which prohibits gifts to public officials from foreign governments without permission of Congress. The transfer has not received congressional approval. The president has argued that the plane transfer is legal because it is being given to the US defence department, and not to him personally. He also insisted he would not use it after leaving office. The current Air Force One fleet includes two 747-200 jets which have been in use since 1990, along with several smaller 757s. Trump has expressed his displeasure at the aircraft manufacturer Boeing, which has been contracted to provide the White House with two 747-8s directly. His team negotiated to receive them during his first term in office, though there have been repeated delays and Boeing has cautioned that they will not be available for two or three more years. Trump surreptitiously visited the Qatari plane in Palm Beach, near his Mar-a-Lago resort, just a few weeks after the start of his second term in office. The president insists there is no quid-pro-quo involved and that the plane is a simple exchange between two allies. On Truth Social he wrote: "The Defense Department is getting a gift, free of charge, of a 747 aircraft to replace the 40-year-old Air Force One, temporarily, in a very public and transparent transaction." Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al-Thani has said the transfer "is a government-to-government transaction. "It has nothing to do with personal relationships - neither on the US side, nor the Qatari side. It's between the two defence ministries," he said. But those assertions have done little to calm the criticism of the deal, including from a number of Trump's allies in Congress and the right-wing media. "I think it's not worth the appearance of impropriety, whether it's improper or not," Rand Paul, Republican senator from Kentucky, told Fox News. "I wonder if our ability to judge [Qatar's] human rights record will be clouded by the fact of this large gift," Paul said. Another Republican senator, Ted Cruz of Texas, said accepting the gift would pose "significant espionage and surveillance problems". New era beckons for Air Force One after Qatari offer - but what's it like inside? Is Trump allowed to accept $400m luxury plane as a gift? Trump's critics and supporters unite against Qatar plane deal
NDTV
15-05-2025
- Business
- NDTV
Explained: Why Qatari Jet Gifted To Trump May Need Fighter Escorts
A Boeing 747 jet offered to President Donald Trump by Qatar as a temporary flying White House might need fighter jet escorts and could be restricted to flying inside the US unless significantly costly security upgrades were made, aviation experts and industry sources said. Even if numerous improvements to the plane's communications and defenses are made over the coming months once any deal is completed, the military escort and domestic restriction could remain in place, the experts and sources said. As the commander-in-chief, however, Trump could waive any requirements like these, a former Air Force official noted. Retrofitting the luxury plane offered by Qatar's royal family would require security upgrades, communications improvements to prevent spies from listening in and the ability to fend off incoming missiles, experts said. The costs were not known, but could be significant given Boeing's current effort to build two new Air Force One planes exceeds $5 billion. The Air Force referred a request for comment to the White House, which did not have an immediate comment. There are serious questions about whether any combination of fighter escorts and short-term upgrades would be enough to provide sufficient protection for the president. "I don't think it's possible," said Mark Cancian, a senior adviser with the Center for Strategic and International Studies' Defense and Security Department, referring to short timeline for the deep modifications. "Air Force One is designed to be survivable in all kinds of environments, including a nuclear war," he added, noting the jet's ability to tolerate the electromagnetic pulse from a nuclear blast is embedded in the jet's wiring and systems from the bottom up. "That's not something you add on." Trump has dismissed criticism of his widely-reported plan to accept the 13-year-old airplane with a $400 million list price, saying it would be "stupid" to turn down the offer. Trump also called it a practical decision, and that he was disappointed Boeing had taken so long to deliver on already delayed contracts for the two new Air Force One planes that he renegotiated during his first term. "If he wants it, and he says 'I'll accept any risk associated with not having all the stuff the real Air Force One has,' he can do that," the former Air Force official said. While Air Force One does not normally fly with fighter escorts, the new plane may need them to defend against missile threats, the former official added. An escort could be necessary because the Qatari plane "wouldn't have the electronic warfare and missile warning systems and whatever else you associate with survivability on Air Force One," said Richard Aboulafia, managing director of consulting firm AeroDynamic Advisory. He added international travel may be off-limits because "you can't guarantee the level of security in international airspace or airports." Air Force One almost never requires fighter escorts because it is equipped with a range of advanced defensive systems including flares, electronic jammers and infrared detection systems that protect against missile strikes. Escorts sometimes fly with the jet when it is overseas, or in moments of national security risk such as after the attacks of September 11, 2001. The government has tapped L3Harris Technologies to overhaul the 747 as it waits for delivery of the two delayed new Air Force One aircraft from Boeing. Other upgrades could include a communications suite that can handle sensitive White House and aircraft crew functions, and changing the interior so it can support Trump, his staff, the Secret Service and the press, said Douglas Birkey, executive director of the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies. Under any scenario, the US military would need to install new security features and potentially new wiring before the plane was used to transport Trump, experts say. DELAYS First mooted a decade ago, the Air Force One program has faced chronic delays, with the delivery of two new 747-8s slated for 2027, three years behind the previous schedule. Boeing in 2018 received a $3.9 billion contract to build the two planes for use as Air Force One and costs have since risen to at least $4.7 billion. Boeing has also posted $2.4 billion of charges from the project. Those jets were themselves originally intended for a foreign airline, Russian carrier Transaero, which went bankrupt in 2015. Using existing airframes was meant to reduce costs but Boeing has since taken billions of dollars in charges because the costs to retrofit the plane have far exceeded the contract price. In February, Trump toured a Boeing 747-8 built for Qatar to highlight the delays. The White House said at the time that the visit allowed him to "check out the new hardware/technology," without elaborating. The aircraft was originally operated by state-owned VIP airline Qatar Amiri flight, which performs private flights for members of the country's ruling family and other government officials, according to specialist databases. It was reported sold in 2023 to Global Jet Isle of Man, a private charter firm that has declined to comment on the jet. There are also questions over the $400 million value widely placed on the jet, based on new prices for the aircraft, which halted production in 2023. Analysts Cirium said a second-hand 747-8 might fetch a quarter of that, while a trader in VIP jets said the bespoke interior would be worth much more than the plane itself.
