Hey there!
I’m still recovering from last week’s Space Symposium!
In case you’ve never been, Space Symposium is an annual event of roughly 5,000 exhibitors and many more attendees and speakers, organized and hosted by the Space Foundation at The Broadmoor, in Colorado Springs. The location is an early 20th Century purpose-built resort with convention halls set in a storied, but manufactured, idyllic setting complete with a lake with swans, in the foothills of Cheyenne Mountain.
There’s the odd lunar lander and rocket scientist as well…
Space Symposium also happens to be the event where a lot of deals, agreements, reports and sometimes policies, are announced. It’s two weeks worth of non-stop networking and parties on a campus built across 5,000 acres, all rammed into a handful of days.
While I focused my coverage on the “Golden Dome for America” initiative, this event brings in subject matter experts who focus on space and legal and regulatory issues; investment and finance; advanced manufacturing; cyber security; artificial intelligence; quantum; defense; and much more.
The “Golden Dome for America” executive order was first called “Iron Dome for America”, a reference to Israel’s missile defense system. If you have not been tracking this story, The DownLink Podcast has:
Space Tech: What Tech Is Required To Make Trump’s “Iron Dome” Work In 685 Days?
Space Power: Size Matters - A Star Wars Physicist's Take On Golden Dome
You could say I’m a little obsessed with “Golden Dome”. But why not? This idea of space-based interceptors being integrated with ground-, sea-, and air-based systems to shield the United States from foreign aerial attack started with Ronald Reagan’s 1983 Strategic Defense Initiative, derisively known as “Star Wars”.
The Associated Press reported last week that Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has received Space Command’s recommendations for implementing the “Golden Dome” executive order, also known as Next Generation Missile Defense. Hegseth should have submitted “a reference architecture, capabilities-based requirements, and an implementation plan” to the White House by March 28. The AP’s reporting seems to imply that he has not.
While it is unclear when the secretary will present the department’s options, the enormity of the implied task and a recognition that meeting the executive order’s intent on a presumably short timeline, has ignited a sense of cautious urgency among the Missile Defense Agency, the U.S. Space Force, and contractors great and small.
In fact, on April 29, on Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville, Alabama, MDA and the Space Force are hosting a one-day Next-Generation Missile Defense Summit wherein, “Non-Traditional Contractors are highly encouraged to attend as MDA is extremely interested in “outside the box” thinking and we believe that non-traditional contractors are vital to shaping the future of missile defense.”
At the same location, starting on April 30, MDA and the Space Force will host a three-day meeting with industry to discuss space-based interceptors. According to the announcement, participants will receive unclassified and classified briefings on: “Government/Industry Collaboration, Acquisition and Contracting, Security, Prior Studies/Architectures, Problem Statement/Attributes, Modeling and Simulation, Threat, Kill Chain, Fire Control, Test/Targets, and more.”
So while everyone is looking at what needs to be done in space, I jumped at the chance to consider the ground segment. Until recently, the ground has not always received the attention it deserves, sometimes with costly and embarrassing results.
Recognizing that Next Generation Missile Defense will be multi-layered, involving the coordination and integration of anti-missile systems based in all the warfighting domains, now including space, this week’s podcast guest doubled-down on the importance of the ground-segment.
What’s in this episode
While the 40th Space Symposium’s theme was “Building Partnerships to Secure our Future”, everyone in Colorado Springs, Colorado was talking about building President Trump’s Next Generation Missile Defense Shield, a.k.a.: “Golden Dome For America.” This week’s guest cautions us that you cannot have a space-based missile defense shield without the ground segment.
Who’s in this episode
Mark Henrie - Divisional Vice President, Amentum Missile Defense Group, and Deputy Program Manager, Integrated Research & Development Enterprise Solution
Reading
“Space Force Commander in Greenland Sent Out Email Breaking with Vance After His Visit” - Thomas Novelly, Military.com, April 10, 2025
“Annual Threat Assessment Of The U.S. Intelligence Community March 2025” - Office of the Director of National Intelligence, March 2025
“Is the Stock Market Going to Crash? A Fed Forecasting Tool Just Hit a Reading Last Observed During the Great Recession.” - Sean Williams, The Motley Fool, April 7, 2025
Have a great week!
Ad Astra!
Laura
