SpaceX just landed a $4.16 billion contract from the US Space Force to build satellites capable of tracking airborne moving targets. The deal is part of Golden Dome, the Trump administration’s ambitious missile and aircraft defense initiative designed to detect and intercept everything from ballistic missiles to hypersonic threats.
The contract, awarded on May 29, positions SpaceX as the primary commercial builder for a constellation of low-Earth orbit satellites that will serve as the eyes of America’s next-generation homeland defense system.
What Golden Dome actually is
The airborne moving target indication (AMTI) satellites SpaceX will build under this contract are designed to spot and follow objects in flight, feeding data into a broader defense network. That network needs to process threats quickly enough to support interception decisions, which means the satellites must communicate with each other and with ground systems at extremely high speeds.
SpaceX previously secured up to $2.29 billion for the Space Data Network (SDN) Backbone prototype, a system built on its military-grade Starshield platform. The SDN Backbone is designed for secure, high-speed data transport to shuttle missile warning and tracking information across the constellation. That system is expected to reach operational capability by the end of 2027.
