Source: Global Times
[Special Correspondents of Global Times: Chen Yang, Reporter Ma Jun] Editor's Note: As Elon Musk, the founder of SpaceX, has had a deteriorating relationship with the Trump administration, various official orders that the company once obtained have gradually "run into problems". Recently, U.S. media reported that the Pentagon has suspended several military space programs, most of which are related to SpaceX. However, Chinese experts interviewed by the Global Times on August 8 said that currently, SpaceX plays an irreplaceable role in the U.S. military space field. Although the U.S. military is trying to find alternatives, it may still be difficult to completely cut ties with SpaceX in the short term.
The "One-Hour Global Cargo" Project is Suspended
According to the Stars and Stripes newspaper, the U.S. military announced on the 4th that it has suspended the hypersonic rocket cargo test project in collaboration with SpaceX, citing strong opposition from environmental organizations against building a test base on Johnston Atoll in the Pacific Ocean.
Launch of the Starship
As early as the 1960s, the Pentagon proposed the idea of putting hundreds of U.S. soldiers into a specially sealed cabin and using a giant carrier rocket to quickly transport them thousands of kilometers away. Theoretically, they could reach destinations in Asia, Europe, or Africa within one hour from the U.S. mainland. However, this concept remained on paper due to technical immaturity, especially the lack of suitable giant rockets. It was not until SpaceX proposed the concept of the "Starship" super-large carrier rocket that the U.S. military's rocket cargo project gained new life. It can be said that this highly anticipated rapid transportation plan has been closely linked with SpaceX from the beginning.
The "War Zone" channel of the American website "Power" introduced that in 2020, the U.S. Air Force proposed a so-called "point-to-point" global rapid cargo transportation plan, which uses the carrying capacity of large commercial rockets to quickly transport goods to any designated location around the world within hours. According to the U.S. Air Force, current military transportation methods require days to weeks of planning to provide supplies to distant locations at the right time, while using rockets can shorten this process to just hours. Especially in high-risk transportation tasks, conventional aircraft fly slowly and low, making them more likely to be shot down by opponents, whereas carrier rockets that penetrate at extremely high speeds from space are much harder to intercept.
The U.S. military had previously collaborated with SpaceX to study plans for rapidly transporting goods via the "Starship." Then-U.S. Transportation Command Commander, Army General Stephen Lyons, stated that the Pentagon's goal was to use large commercial rockets to transport cargo equivalent to the load capacity of a C-17 transport plane (approximately 85.5 tons) "to any place in the world within one hour." According to SpaceX, the "Starship" super-large carrier rocket consists of a super-heavy rocket and the "Starship" spacecraft, both of which are reusable, thus minimizing costs. Its maximum low Earth orbit payload is 100 tons, meeting the U.S. military's requirements for rapid rocket transportation. In June 2021, the Pentagon launched the experimental military project "Rocket Cargo Pioneer," researching aspects such as "landing rockets on non-traditional surfaces," "designing rocket cargo compartments for quick loading and unloading," and "dropping cargo using rocket cargo ships." In early 2022, the U.S. Air Force further awarded SpaceX a five-year contract worth $102 million, requiring data collection from the "Starship" program to test the feasibility of "point-to-point" cargo and humanitarian rapid transportation technologies.
However, this project, which the U.S. military had high hopes for, was halted due to environmental groups' opposition to building a rocket launch site on Johnston Atoll, raising doubts. An Air Force spokesperson said that other locations were being considered as testing sites for the project. However, the U.S. military had already examined multiple locations in the Pacific, including Kwajalein Atoll, Midway Island, and Wake Island, and finally selected Johnston Atoll because it was the only location that met all operational standards: remote, safe, under U.S. control, accessible by air or sea, and capable of supporting the transport of re-entry vehicles by barge.
It is reported that since the 1930s, despite long-term opposition from environmental organizations, Johnston Atoll has always been a center for U.S. nuclear tests, missile defense, chemical weapons storage, and even Air Force anti-satellite weapon tests. In fact, environmental organizations' constraints on the U.S. military are not always effective. For example, environmental organizations and marine biologists have pointed out that the high-power low-frequency active sonar used by U.S. Navy vessels harms dolphins, whales, and other marine animals that rely on underwater acoustics for navigation, feeding, and communication. However, the U.S. Navy has firmly opposed giving up the use of sonar to detect submarines underwater. The U.S. public generally noticed that the U.S. military's suspension of its collaboration with SpaceX on the rocket cargo project coincided with the day when Musk announced the establishment of the "America Party."
Musk's Involvement in "Jade Dome" Faces Uncertainty?
Meanwhile, the future status of SpaceX in the "Jade Dome" missile defense system proposed by Trump is also full of uncertainty. In recent years, SpaceX's "Starlink" and "Starshield" large satellite constellations have attracted the attention of the Pentagon, almost securing most of the commercial satellite communication contracts for the U.S. Space Force. This monopolistic situation has caused dissatisfaction among members of Congress, which will negatively affect SpaceX's subsequent participation in military satellite projects. According to media reports, insiders have released information stating that in early June, the White House instructed the Pentagon and NASA to collect detailed information on SpaceX's multi-billion-dollar contracts. This move is part of measures taken after the open conflict between Trump and Musk.
The U.S. "Air Force and Space Force Magazine" revealed on June 30 that the $17.5 billion "Jade Dome" missile defense system will include a complex space satellite system. According to the plan of the Pentagon's Space Development Agency (SDA), the U.S. military will achieve over-the-horizon targeting of ground and sea surface time-sensitive targets based on the defense space architecture, as well as warning and tracking of hypersonic missiles. These satellites, consisting of hundreds of satellites deployed in low Earth orbit, will provide military communications, navigation positioning, warning, and tracking functions. Among them, the "Transport Layer" satellite constellation composed of 450 satellites is the core of the SDA's "Joint All-Domain Command and Control" concept, which can quickly transmit data detected by reconnaissance satellites to interception systems with low latency, enabling space-based remote tracking and interception of hypersonic missiles flying maneuverably in the atmosphere. The report states that the first batch of 27 "Transport Layer" demonstration satellites has already been launched, and the second batch of 126 satellites is planned to be launched later this year. The contractors include Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, York Space Systems, and Rocket Lab.
However, what deeply worries the U.S. Congress is that the development funds for the third batch of satellites have been suspended. Chris Coons, the chief member of the Senate Appropriations Committee's Defense Subcommittee and a Democratic Senator from Delaware, directly criticized this in a hearing on the U.S. Air Force's 2026 fiscal year budget request, saying, "This is the result of SpaceX's monopoly: according to the 2026 fiscal year budget, we learned that the Department of Defense will suspend the plan for the third batch of 'Transport Layer' satellite constellations. The plan is now named the secret project MILNET — a project that directly designates SpaceX as the sole contractor."
Coons questioned the lack of competition mechanisms in the MILNET project, the absence of an open architecture, and the possibility that the Pentagon might become dependent on SpaceX's proprietary technology in the future. In response to the accusations, the spokesperson for the U.S. Air Force Department promised that the MILNET would adopt a "plug-and-play" architectural design to ensure that it would not depend on a single supplier, SpaceX. Additionally, the media specifically mentioned that the current U.S. Air Force Secretary, Mike Mune, had close working relationships with Musk during his tenure as Deputy Director of the National Reconnaissance Office and was accused of favoring SpaceX in the bidding for billions of dollars in contracts. These negative reports are very unfavorable for SpaceX's future acquisition of more U.S. military satellite contracts.
SpaceX's Launch Volume Accounts for 80% of the U.S.
Chinese experts interviewed by the Global Times said that although the Pentagon may want to separate from SpaceX, in reality, the two cannot completely disengage in the short term. Currently, SpaceX, with its high reliability and cost-effectiveness, undertakes most of the U.S. aerospace launch missions, whether it is the classified satellites of the U.S. National Reconnaissance Office or the X-37B spaceplane of the U.S. Space Force, basically all are handled by SpaceX. Relevant statistics show that in 2024, SpaceX completed 138 space launches, accounting for 87% of the total U.S. space launches (158 in total), including a large number of U.S. government and military launch orders, indicating its dominant position.
The Washington Post previously mentioned that after Trump and Musk "had a falling out," Trump threatened to cancel the government contracts that SpaceX had received. However, the progress of SpaceX's competitors is slow, which means that the company's leading position in aerospace launches has not been much challenged, and the U.S. government has few choices.
Although the U.S. military previously tried to find alternatives to SpaceX, the capabilities of existing American commercial aerospace launch companies are clearly insufficient. For example, Rocket Lab's "Electron" rocket has limited carrying capacity and can only launch small satellites; Blue Origin's "New Glenn" heavy-lift rocket has sufficient carrying capacity, but it only completed its first launch in January this year, and large-scale commercial applications will take some time; traditional aerospace launch giants, United Launch Alliance's next-generation "Vulcan" rocket, is still far behind SpaceX's "Falcon 9" in terms of launch frequency and price, and even in April this year, due to the backlog of "Vulcan" rocket missions, the U.S. Space Force had to transfer the GPS satellite launch order to the "Falcon 9."
In addition to its dominant position in the commercial launch market, SpaceX's "Starlink" internet satellite system has also gained a first-mover advantage and has been tested in the real combat of the Ukraine-Russia conflict. The current alternative option for the U.S. military is Amazon's "Kuiper Project" satellite constellation, which aims to use 3,236 low-orbit satellites to provide a global communication network. However, the project is still in its early stages, and the large-scale launch depends on the progress of the "New Glenn" and "Vulcan" rockets, so there are many uncertainties.
Original: https://www.toutiao.com/article/7524846093008470582/
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