Missile Defense How the Golden Dome missile defense system would work: a layered detect-track-intercept design using space sensors, ground radars, and interceptors.
Space Security Space warfare means fighting for control of satellites and orbits. The counterspace methods (kinetic, jamming, lasers, cyber) and the key actors.
Advanced Weapons Hypersonic weapons fly above Mach 5 and maneuver. How glide vehicles differ from cruise missiles, and why speed plus steering challenges missile defense.
Missile Defense How missile defence works across boost, midcourse, and terminal phases, and what GMD, Aegis, THAAD, and Patriot each intercept in a layered system.
Electronic Warfare Airliners and ships lose their position fix when a jammer drowns out GPS. Where it happens most, what crews fall back on, and how a jammer is located.
Missile Defense A country-by-country look at missile defense systems by country: US Patriot and THAAD, Israel's Iron Dome, Russia's S-400, and India's Akash system.
Space Security Anti-satellite (ASAT) weapons can disable or destroy satellites. The four types, the test history of the major powers, and the orbital-debris problem.
Space Security Space domain awareness (SDA) is tracking and understanding objects in orbit. The sensors used, why it matters for defense and debris, and who does it.
Missile Defense Iron Dome is Israel's short-range rocket defense system, built by Rafael. How detection, tracking, and interception work, and its real-world track record.
Alliances NATO owns no satellites. It pools member capabilities, treats a serious space attack as covered by Article 5, and coordinates through its Space Centre.
Missile Defense The Aegis ballistic missile defense system equips Navy cruisers, destroyers, and land sites. How SM-3 and SM-6 interceptors track and stop threats.
Russia Russia runs separate satellite fleets for missile warning, reconnaissance, and secure comms, plus jamming and anti-satellite capability, now thinned.
Space Security China's reusable spaceplane has flown four missions since 2020, two lasting over 260 days. What is confirmed, reported, and still unknown.
Missile Defense How the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system works, where batteries deploy, real combat use, and how hit-to-kill intercepts work.
Electronic Warfare GPS spoofing broadcasts counterfeit satellite signals a receiver trusts over the real ones. How the capture and detection work, and what the law says.
Missile Defense The Missile Defense Agency is a Department of Defense agency that sits outside the Army. It develops and tests missile defenses the services then operate.
Missile Defense The Patriot missile system pairs one radar and control station with up to eight launchers. How PAC-2 and PAC-3 interceptors differ and what each stops.
Space Security The X-37B is the US Space Force's uncrewed, reusable spaceplane. Its mission history, what it carries, and how it compares to China's Shenlong.
Advanced Weapons Directed energy weapons use lasers and high-power microwaves to dazzle or disable satellites without creating debris. How they work and who has built them.
China China operates dedicated satellite fleets for reconnaissance and navigation, alongside military communications and signals intelligence assets.
Military Space A Keyhole satellite is an American optical reconnaissance spacecraft. How spy satellites image Earth and how sharp the declassified pictures are.
Military Space The Space Development Agency builds proliferated low Earth orbit satellite constellations. How SDA operates under the Space Force and deploys the PWSA.
Acquisition Other Transaction Authority lets the Department of Defense bypass standard procurement regulations to build research and prototype systems quickly.
Acquisition Middle tier acquisition gives the Department of Defense a five-year pathway for rapid prototyping and rapid fielding outside traditional acquisition rules.
Acquisition The Software Acquisition Pathway under DoDI 5000.87 enables continuous iterative delivery of defense software on commercial and embedded systems.
Acquisition The Joint Warfighting Cloud Capability is the Pentagon's enterprise cloud vehicle. DISA and four commercial providers operate the multi-award contract.
Space Security Rods from God proposed dropping dense tungsten cylinders from orbit at hypersonic speeds. The real physics, kinetic energy calculations, and launch costs.
Space Security Starfish Prime damaged about a third of satellites in orbit in 1962. What a nuclear detonation does in space and why the 1967 treaty bans nuclear weapons.
Missile Defense A space-based interceptor hits a ballistic missile from orbit in its first three to five minutes of flight. CBO puts a 7,800-satellite layer at $720B.
Space Security Satellite jamming drowns out space communication links using radio noise. Learn how uplink and downlink jamming work, real incidents, and legal rules.
Advanced Weapons What is Anduril? Learn how the defense contractor builds autonomous weapons, how Lattice OS works, its $61 billion valuation, and key military contracts.
Military Space A military weather satellite provides operational space-based sensing. See how WSF-M and EWS-G are replacing the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program.
Missile Defense Ground-based Midcourse Defense uses silo-based interceptors in Alaska and California to destroy ICBMs in space. How GMD works, test records, and NGI.
Missile Defense Patriot vs THAAD compares lower-tier air defense to upper-tier ballistic missile interception on range, battery cost, altitude, and combat operations.
Why military space matters now
For most of the space age, orbit was a place militaries used but did not fight over. Satellites provided navigation, communications, early warning, and reconnaissance, and both superpowers largely left each other's spacecraft alone. That understanding has eroded. The United States, China, and Russia have all tested weapons capable of destroying or disabling satellites, and every major military now treats space as a contested domain that can be attacked and defended like air, land, and sea.
The stakes are high because modern forces depend on space for almost everything. A single GPS constellation underpins precision weapons, logistics, and the timing signals that synchronize power grids and financial networks. Missile-warning satellites give the first indication of a launch anywhere on Earth. Take those capabilities away and a technologically advanced military loses much of its advantage. That dependence is exactly why space has become a target.
The threats we cover
Counterspace weapons fall into a few families. Anti-satellite weapons range from missiles fired from the ground to spacecraft that maneuver next to a target, plus non-destructive tools like jammers and lasers that dazzle sensors. GPS jamming and spoofing are already routine in conflict zones, degrading navigation without firing a shot. Hypersonic weapons fly fast and maneuver in ways that stress traditional missile defenses, and they are a central reason interest in new defensive architectures has surged.
On the defensive side, missile defense works in layers, trying to catch a threat during boost, midcourse, or terminal flight. The most ambitious current U.S. effort is the Golden Dome initiative, a proposed homeland shield that would lean heavily on space-based sensors and, potentially, space-based interceptors. Underpinning all of it is space domain awareness, the ability to detect, track, and characterize the tens of thousands of objects in orbit, so operators know what is a satellite, what is debris, and what might be a threat.
How to read this section
Every page here is written as a reference, not a news bulletin. We separate what has been announced from what actually exists, describe how a system works rather than hyping it, and hedge figures that change. Where a topic touches the market, such as the defense primes that build these systems or companies positioned around programs like Golden Dome, we point to the investing section rather than mixing the two. Start with the featured explainer above, or jump to whichever system you came to understand.