News: 0179925672

  ARM Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set fire to him and he's warm for the rest of his life (Terry Pratchett, Jingo)

SpaceX Set To Win $2 Billion Pentagon Satellite Deal (yahoo.com)

(Saturday November 01, 2025 @06:00AM (BeauHD) from the military-money dept.)


According to the [1]Wall Street Journal , SpaceX is reportedly [2]poised to secure a $2 billion Pentagon contract to develop hundreds of missile-tracking satellites for President Trump's ambitious Golden Dome defense system. The Independent reports:

> The planned "air moving target indicator" system in question could ultimately feature as many as 600 satellites once it is fully operational, The Wall Street Journal reports. Musk's company has also been linked to two more satellite ventures, which are concerned with relaying sensitive communications and tracing vehicles, respectively.

>

> Golden Dome, inspired by Israel's "Iron Dome," was announced by Trump and Secretary of War Pete Hegseth at the White House in May and will amount to a complex system of satellites and weaponry capable of destroying incoming missiles before they hit American targets. The president promised it would be "fully operational" before he leaves office in January 2029, capable of intercepting rockets, "even if they are launched from space," with an overall price tag of $175 billion.



[1] https://www.wsj.com/politics/national-security/elon-musks-spacex-set-to-win-2-billion-pentagon-satellite-deal-c0a51325

[2] https://nz.news.yahoo.com/musk-spacex-set-win-2-171414976.html


first ! (Score:1, Funny)

by Anonymous Coward

in before the collective meltdown over elon musk.

Re: first ! (Score:3, Interesting)

by SchroedingersCat ( 583063 )

Congrats to Space X and Elon Musk. Well-deserved win.

Re: (Score:2)

by arglebargle_xiv ( 2212710 )

I'll say! A $288M investment turned into $2B, that's an astounding rate of return.

Re: (Score:2)

by PDXNerd ( 654900 )

Though I agree in principal, it could never be a $1.712 billion USD return since they have not developed these satellites with magic. There will be plenty of R&D and deliverables.. and after plenty of searching I could not find either a government source or whether it was a fixed cost contract, so it remains to be seen if this will be profitable, let alone even awarded to SpaceX, since all the articles say "appears to be" or "set to win" or something that is vague and not actually done and signed.

Re: first ! (Score:2)

by simlox ( 6576120 )

Despite his bad detour in politics and buying Twitter, he is a skilled businessman. He thinks big, giving big returns - and failures. But on average a plus. I don't worship people for making money, but I like when they create positive things. Musk have kick-started the electric cars, build cheap access to space and space based internet. An overall plus for humanity. No matter how dislikeable he is on other fronts, you can't take that from.

Re: (Score:2)

by PDXNerd ( 654900 )

- Tesla is posting lower revenues than before his 'bad detour into politics' as you say. Though I would argue there is no bad detour into politics, just bad intentions, attitudes, and philosophies.

- Twitter aka X is posting lower profits than before the takeover and has seen users slowly leaving the platform.

- SpaceX is set to lose government contracts due to, as you put it, his 'bad detour into politics'.

No one is saying Musk didn't have innovative ideas in the past, but saying somehow he is a skilled busi

Re: (Score:2)

by arglebargle_xiv ( 2212710 )

He's actually a pretty terrible businessman (which is why he was thrown out of PayPal), he just has near-infinite amounts of other people's money to throw around and got really, really lucky several times when incredibly poor investments turned into goldmines.

Re: first ! (Score:2)

by zmollusc ( 763634 )

Skilled businessman == Skilled liar

Re: (Score:2)

by registrations_suck ( 1075251 )

That isn't how it works.

That $2B is gross revenue. He has to pay expenses out of that. Rate of return is figured against whatever is left over after expenses.

If it costs, for example, $1.5B to make good on whatever he is supposed to deliver, that leaves $500M left over. Rate of return is figured on that against the $288M investment. Still not bad, but a lot less than if the $2B were all profit.

Re: (Score:2)

by arglebargle_xiv ( 2212710 )

Sure, the $2B is TBD, and in particular a figure between say $500M and several billion, because I doubt the cost will stay at $2B for long.

Re: first ! (Score:2)

by zmollusc ( 763634 )

(climbs upon soapbox, gestures wildly)

Fel0n MuSK, moar liek!!!! He has taken $100,000,000,000 in cash from the American Taxpayers and his rokkets expload before they reach Venus!!! Something something self-driving cars in overhyped loops!!!!!

the punch line (Score:3)

by fortunatus ( 445210 )

let's step aside of the companies and personalities a monment... i read: "fully operational" before he leaves office in January 2029, capable of intercepting rockets, "even if they are launched from space," BUT WAIT - here's the punch line: with an overall price tag of $175 billion. HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA - i can't stop laughing! HA HA HA HA HA HA...

I know we're 40 years later (Score:2)

by AvitarX ( 172628 )

But the last guy that tried this had everyone think they were a fool.

Re: (Score:1)

by flyingfsck ( 986395 )

I can see various ways in which this can be done and I am pretty sure SpaceX will be able to pull it off, since in this case, the sensors are the easy part and they already have the difficult rocket and communications parts done.

Vermouth always makes me brilliant unless it makes me idiotic.
-- E. F. Benson