Defense. Space. Technology. Straight Talk.
The federal government opened fiscal year 2027 this week under a continuing resolution, and that single fact shaped almost everything else happening in the space and missile defense world. Golden Dome’s own director told Congress flatly that without a real budget deal, the program stops. Pentagon budget documents show more than 150 new-start programs frozen…
The Department of War has spent most of this year telling defense contractors that checking a compliance box doesn’t make them secure. That is the whole premise behind pausing Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification Phase 2 back in July and standing up a reform task force to rebuild it from the ground up. It is a…
Most weeks in this beat split cleanly into two buckets: things announced and things built. This week collapsed that distinction. The Space Force told the world it already has defensive weapons in orbit, not on a slide deck, actually flying. Two more companies got real contracts to watch what other satellites are doing near ours.…
The Pentagon just did something it rarely does: it admitted a cybersecurity program wasn’t working and pulled it off the shelf before it caused more damage than the threats it was built to stop. On September 3, 2026, the Department of War made permanent what started in July as a pause. A class deviation signed…
This was the week the Space Force stopped beating around the bush. At the Air Force Association’s Air, Space & Cyber Conference in National Harbor, Maryland, service leaders confirmed the country has weapons in orbit, laid out a plan to double the size of the force in five years, and handed out contracts that quietly…
Most weeks in this beat give you announcements: a program gets named, a contract gets teased, a general makes a speech. This week gave something better: dates, dollar figures, and a site on a map. The Space Force picked a piece of Texas for a radar station, put a real number on how much launch…
Last Thursday at the Billington CyberSecurity Summit, the general who runs Pentagon cyber defense stood up and said something most agencies never admit out loud. Lt. Gen. Paul Stanton, commander of the Pentagon’s cyber defense command and director of the Defense Information Systems Agency, told the room that three decades of deferred maintenance have left…
Last week brought a change of command at the top of the Space Force, plus a string of program moves that all point to the same target: closing the gap between spotting a threat and doing something about it. Add in a $700 million bet on keeping Mars in radio contact, and you’ve got a…
Golden Dome Grows Up, and the Bill Comes Due Huntsville was the center of gravity two weeks ago (hence why I was so busy with my 9‑to‑5 job 😉 ). The Space and Missile Defense Symposium at the Von Braun Center pulled the generals, the program chiefs, and the industry money into one room, and what…
A year-end test date is the kind of promise you cannot walk back on a slide. This week the Pentagon gave Golden Dome one, and the Space Force spread its orbital targeting money across a wider bench of vendors. Both say a program is finally moving at the speed the threat demands. But there is…