Elon Musk vows to punish lawmakers who back Trump's spending bill Golden Dome's ambitions mirror those of Israel's Iron Dome, a homeland missile defence shield, but a larger, more complex layered defence system requires a vast network of orbiting satellites covering more territory. In the search for more vendors for the satellite layers of Golden Dome, "Kuiper is a big one," a U.S. official said. While SpaceX remains a frontrunner due to its unmatched launch capabilities, its share of the programme could shrink, two of the people said. Officials have reached out to new entrants like rocket companies Stoke Space and Rocket Lab are gaining traction and will be able to bid on individual launches as the programme matures, according to the U.S. official. Later in the development of Golden Dome "each individual launch is going to get bid, and we have to actually give bids to other people," besides SpaceX, the official said. There is an urgent need for more satellite production. Last year Congress gave Space Force a $13 billion mandate, up from $900 million, to buy satellite-based communication services in what was widely seen as one of many efforts to stimulate private sector satellite production. Amazon's Project Kuiper, a $10 billion initiative led by former Starlink managers dismissed by Musk for slow progress, Reuters has reported, has lagged behind SpaceX in deployment. But its potential defence applications, such as communications that could aid missile tracking, have drawn renewed interest as the administration prepares to allocate the first $25 billion tranche of funding authorised under Trump's sweeping tax and spending bill. Traditional defence giants Northrop Grumman, Lockheed Martin, and L3Harris are also in talks to support Golden Dome. L3Harris CFO Kenneth Bedingfield told Reuters in an interview the company has seen a surge in interest in its missile warning and tracking technologies, which are expected to play a key role in the system. Northrop, meanwhile, is pursuing several efforts including a space-based interceptor, a component that would enable missile strikes from orbit, Robert Fleming, the head of the company's space business, told Reuters in an interview. "Lockheed Martin is ready to support Golden Dome for America as a proven mission partner," Robert Lightfoot, president of Lockheed Martin Space, said in a statement. Golden Dome's initial outreach this spring invited smaller, newer Silicon Valley firms seen as nimbler, more sophisticated and potentially less expensive alternatives to the big defence firms to the table, but that was before the Musk-Trump feud upended that calculus. Several with close ties to Trump aside from SpaceX, including Palantir and Anduril, were considered early frontrunners to win big pieces of the $175 billion project.