CBO estimates Golden Dome space weapons could cost $542 billion

Meink says Air Force will look ‘radically different’ by 2032

Air Force Secretary Troy Meink disclosed Monday at the Air and Space Forces Association’s Air, Space & Cyber Conference that the United States has deployed “on-orbit space control weapons capable of defending the Joint Force against hostile adversary action.” He did not describe the weapons, how they work, or whether they target objects in space or on Earth.

The Congressional Budget Office released an estimate that the space-based components of Trump’s Golden Dome — a missile defense system announced during his second term — could cost as much as $542 billion over the next 20 years. Trump created the Space Force as a separate military branch in 2019 during his first term. In his second term, he has announced the Golden Dome, which includes plans to put weapons in space.

Trump has directed the Pentagon to pursue space-based interceptors through an executive order signed during the first week of his current term. He said last year that he expected the system would be “fully operational before the end of my term,” which ends in January 2029, and would have the capability of intercepting missiles “even if they are launched from space.”

Meink also said the Air Force was adding more autonomous systems and predicted the service would look “radically different” by 2032. He foresaw one-way attack drones replacing artillery as the “primary killer” in future conflicts.

“We are increasing readiness against existing threats,” Meink said.

The confirmation follows a warning two years ago that Russia was developing a new space-based, anti-satellite weapon, though the White House said at the time the danger was not imminent. But reports of the anti-satellite weapon reflected longstanding worries about space threats from Russia and China, given that much U.S. infrastructure is dependent on satellite communications. The U.S. has also previously demonstrated its own ability to shoot down satellites from Earth.

The Biden administration announced in 2024 that Russia was developing a space-based nuclear weapon that could loiter in space for long durations, then release a burst that would take out satellites around it. That announcement kicked off a renewed debate on weapons in space at the United Nations.

In April 2024, Russia vetoed a joint U.S.-Japanese resolution that would have called on all countries not to develop or deploy nuclear arms or other weapons of mass destruction in space, as banned under a 1967 international treaty that included the U.S. and Russia. The treaty also declared outer space a global commons that could be used only for peaceful purposes.

The Russian delegation called the resolution hypocritical and a double standard and instead proposed a rival resolution to ban all weapons in space “for all time.” That measure ultimately failed. Russia argued that the United States and its allies opposed a ban on all weapons in outer space because they planned to deploy weapons there.