In an April 2025 statement commemorating the thirty-fifth anniversary of the Hubble Space Telescope, President Donald J. Trump declared that his administration was committed to “lead[ing] the way” in space discovery and “pursuing our manifest destiny into the farthest depths of the cosmos.”Footnote 1 The remarks emphasized America’s legacy of leadership, invoked the language of national supremacy, and highlighted proposed partnerships with the private sector to sustain U.S. dominance. They also reflect the broader orientation of the administration’s first six months of space policy: extending America First principles into space security; maintaining engagement in international legal fora such as the United Nations Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (COPUOS);Footnote 2 and decisively advancing commercialization. At the same time, the second Trump administration has largely preserved the core priorities and international commitments of prior administrations, building on initiatives launched under both the first Trump and Biden administrations. These early themes—military assertiveness, privatization, and nominal diplomatic engagement—carry significant implications for international space law, pressuring existing ambiguities, widening geopolitical divisions, and raising questions about how public-private interdependence will shape state responsibility and the development of norms in space.
An Assertive Stance on Security in Space
The first trend is the administration’s adoption of a more overtly assertive stance on security in space, exemplified by the Golden Dome missile defense system. The Golden DomeFootnote 3 is imagined as a protective system to prevent and defend against the “threat of attack by ballistic, hypersonic, and cruise missiles, and other advanced aerial attacks” that the president described in his announcement of the new program as “the most catastrophic threat facing the United States.”Footnote 4 Space-based technologies, including space-based sensors and missile interceptors, will play a central role in the major $175 billion initiative.Footnote 5 The project will involve a broad range of defense actors, most notably the U.S. Space Force—a branch of the armed forces established by President Trump during his first term.Footnote 6 The administration quickly advanced the project by appointing a Space Force general to lead the initiativeFootnote 7 and securing $24.4 billion in funding for “integrated air and missile defense.”Footnote 8
The Golden Dome has attracted international criticism on the ground that it may contravene or erode the peaceful use principles articulated in the 1967 Outer Space Treaty (OST), to which the United States is a party.Footnote 9 There are three potential issues. The OST prohibits the “place[ment] in orbit around the earth [of] any objects carrying nuclear weapons or any other kinds of weapons of mass destruction.”Footnote 10 The scope of Article IV’s prohibition of weapons of mass destruction is unclear, particularly as dual-use technologies blur the line between “permissible” and prohibited capabilities.Footnote 11 Nevertheless, if the Golden Dome project steers clear of placing nuclear weapons in orbit, it would be hard to credibly argue that the project violates this provision. The treaty also limits the use of the “moon and other celestial bodies” to “exclusively … peaceful purposes,” prohibiting any weapons or military installations on them.Footnote 12 Assuming the Golden Dome does not include plans to weaponize celestial bodies, this prohibition should also pose no legal bar.
Most significantly, however, the Golden Dome project implicates the OST’s overarching commitment to the peaceful use of outer space. The treaty obligates states to “carry on activities in the exploration and use of outer space … in accordance with international law, including the Charter of the United Nations, in the interest of maintaining international peace and security.”Footnote 13 The term “international peace” is not defined in the treaty, but military activities such as satellite reconnaissance and communications have been generally accepted, and more than 3,000 satellites serving military purposes have been put into orbit.Footnote 14 Some have suggested that the treaty is best interpreted as requiring “non-aggressive” rather than strictly “non-military” activity.Footnote 15 Nevertheless, the Golden Dome’s anticipated space-based missile interception is a clear step beyond reconnaissance and communications activities. It puts the United States even farther out of step with the view of the majority of states regarding the prevention of an arms race in outer space.Footnote 16
The Golden Dome announcement provoked criticism from U.S. foes and rivals. Russia and China issued a joint statement describing the Golden Dome as “[d]eeply destabilizing in nature,” and stating that “[t]he two Sides oppose the attempts of individual countries to use outer space for armed confrontation.”Footnote 17 A Chinese Foreign Ministry official said that the Golden Dome “violates the principle of peaceful use in the Outer Space Treaty” and will “heighten the risk of turning [outer] space into a war zone and creating a space arms race, and shake the international security and arms control system.”Footnote 18 North Korean state media suggested that the Golden Dome is an “[outer] space nuclear war scenario supporting the U.S. strategy for uni-polar domination,” and that the U.S. “pretext of defending its mainland” is a thinly veiled excuse for “preemptively attain[ing] military superiority … and accelerating space militarization.”Footnote 19
These complaints about the Golden Dome project came with a reiterated call by China and Russia for negotiations on the Russian-Chinese draft Treaty on the Prevention of the Placement of Weapons in Outer Space (PPWT), initially proposed in 2008.Footnote 20 The draft treaty would ban the placement of weapons in outer space and the use of force against space assets, thus effectively extending the OST’s ban on weapons of mass destruction to all forms of weapons. The treaty has not drawn widespread support, however, and the United States has called it “fundamentally flawed,”Footnote 21 arguing that the PPWT has no provisions to verify compliance, ignores ground-based anti-satellite systems, and is too ambiguous, particularly with respect to dual-use technologies.Footnote 22
The Golden Dome project could galvanize further support among other UN member states for the disarmament effort known as the Prevention of an Arms Race in Outer Space (PAROS).Footnote 23 PAROS is a diplomatic initiative aimed at preserving space as a peaceful domain by preventing weaponization and the escalation of military competition. It has been a recurring agenda item at the UN General Assembly since the early 1980s and has generated a long series of resolutions affirming the need for multilateral measures.Footnote 24 PAROS has not progressed beyond General Assembly resolutions.Footnote 25
Further reinforcing the U.S. shift toward a militarized posture in space, the U.S. Space Force conducted Resolute Space 25 in July of this year, its largest-ever space exercise. The exercise involved simulated “orbital warfare” scenarios such as satellite jamming and electromagnetic warfare.Footnote 26 U.S. Space Force Guardians received training about the weaponized “payload capacities and capabilities” of satellites.Footnote 27 While framed as a defensive readiness measure, the exercise conceives of space as a warfighting domain, further pressuring the OST’s fundamental principle that space should be used “for the benefit and in the interests of all countries” and in a way that “maintain[s] international peace.”Footnote 28
Continued Diplomatic Engagement
Even as the Golden Dome initiative has challenged aspects of the legal regime of outer space, the Trump administration, in a second trend, has continued the efforts of the Biden administration to try to shape the development and interpretation of space law through diplomacy. The administration has repeatedly affirmed U.S. commitments to international space law, even as it conducts a general review of U.S. treaty obligations.Footnote 29 It has continued to participate in COPUOS and its legal subcommittee. For example, in a May 2025 statement before the legal subcommittee, a U.S. representative affirmed that the “United States remains committed to the essential work of UNCOPUOS and its Subcommittees and looks forward to fostering mutually-beneficial space activities with our fellow member states.”Footnote 30 The United States also reaffirmed core principles of the OST. On geostationary orbits, it noted that they are “governed by the 1967 Outer Space Treaty,” citing Articles I and II.Footnote 31 Regarding space resources, the U.S. representative reiterated the longstanding U.S. view that commercial utilization is consistent with those provisions.Footnote 32
The U.S. commitment to existing space law, however, is not a commitment to creating new binding legal instruments. At meetings of COPUOS’s legal subcommittee, U.S. representatives repeatedly stated that “the four core space treaties created a legal framework which adequately addresses the fundamental issues.”Footnote 33 The United States instead advocated for soft law formats, such as “high-level, non-legally binding principles that are well-informed by activities underway by the private sector and space agencies”Footnote 34—and the Artemis Accords project.Footnote 35
While the Accords are not a binding agreement,Footnote 36 the United States consistently promotes the idea that they are a legally relevant “elaboration” of the OST.Footnote 37 In a recent press release, NASA described the Accords as “grounded in” the OST, the Registration Convention, and the Rescue and Return Agreement.Footnote 38 U.S. officials have also described the Accords in normative terms, suggesting they will establish the practice and opinio juris necessary to support new customary rules of space law.Footnote 39 By steadily expanding the number of signatories and convening workshops to socialize their principles, the United States seeks to consolidate this position. Accordingly, during the second Trump administration, the State Department has continued to garner signatories for the Accords, bringing on Bangladesh and Norway as the fifty-fourth and fifty-fifth signatories, respectively. NASA and the State Department also participated in an “international Artemis Accords workshop” hosted by the United Arab Emirates in Abu Dhabi in May.Footnote 40 This was the third such workshop, with the prior two conducted during the Biden administration. Thirty Artemis signatories gathered to “share best practices, address emerging challenges, and strengthen the collective commitment to sustainable space exploration.”Footnote 41 In this context NASA emphasized, again, its view that Artemis operates within and contributes productively to the development of international space law.Footnote 42
Taken together, these initiatives illustrate the United States’ characteristic approach to international space law: affirming the continued vitality of the Outer Space Treaty and related instruments while resisting proposals for new binding obligations. By coupling participation in COPUOS with the promotion of soft-law instruments such as the Artemis Accords, the United States seeks both to anchor its positions in the existing treaty framework and to generate interpretive momentum through state practice and opinio juris. This dual strategy enables the United States to present itself as a responsible steward of the existing legal order, even as it incrementally reshapes that order to accommodate expanding military and commercial uses of space.
Commercialization and Privatization of Space
The third defining trend of the early months of the second Trump administration is the increasing turn toward commercialization and privatization of outer space activities. This was vividly personified in the close relationship between President Trump and Elon Musk. Musk, already a frequent presence on the campaign trail, was appointed as a special government employee to serve as head of the newly established “Department of Government Efficiency” (DOGE).Footnote 43 Musk was an influential early advisor to the president, appearing alongside him in the Oval Office to conduct press interviews.Footnote 44 At the same time, Musk’s company SpaceX remained deeply embedded in U.S. space infrastructure. Its Dragon capsule is the sole vehicle for transporting U.S. astronauts to and from the International Space Station (ISS), and SpaceX continues to be a key provider of national security launches.Footnote 45 Notably, the National Reconnaissance Office, the U.S. government agency in charge of America’s intelligence satellites,Footnote 46 tapped SpaceX in 2021 to build out a multibillion-dollar network of spy satellites in low-Earth orbit based on its Starshield platform.Footnote 47
The personal rapport between President Trump and Musk may have influenced early space policy. In his inaugural address, the president pledged that the United States would “pursue our manifest destiny into the stars” and send astronauts to plant the American flag on Mars by the end of the decade.Footnote 48 Musk, who has frequently stated an ambition to colonize Mars, offered an “enthusiastic thumbs up” in response.Footnote 49 At the time, SpaceX was already in the process of developing the fully reusable Starship spacecraft and Super Heavy rocket in anticipation of future Mars missions.Footnote 50 President Trump’s remarks sparked speculation that he might pivot away from the Artemis program, aimed at returning astronauts to the Moon, in favor of Mars.Footnote 51
That speculation was short-lived. Within months, the Trump-Musk relationship publicly unraveled. President Trump threatened to revoke SpaceX’s federal subsidies and cancel its government contracts; Footnote 52 Musk responded by threatening to decommission the Dragon spacecraft, currently critical to the operation of the International Space Station.Footnote 53 Although Musk ultimately withdrew the threat and both sides stepped back from confrontation, the rift raised doubts about the stability of U.S. space policy in light of external influences and whether Mars ambitions would remain on the agenda. The episode highlighted how reliance on powerful private actors can destabilize U.S. space policy, threatening not only national priorities but also the credibility of U.S. commitments under international law.
President Trump’s initial nomination of tech billionaire Jared Isaacman to lead NASA further illustrated the administration’s deepening links with the private sector. The choice of Isaacman, who privately financed the first all-civilian orbital flight, seemed to portend a shift toward greater public-private integration at NASA.Footnote 54 However, Isaacman was reportedly appointed at Musk’s suggestion, and when the Trump-Musk relationship soured, President Trump withdrew Isaacson’s nomination, just days before the expected Senate confirmation vote.Footnote 55
The Artemis project has always been a product of public-private collaboration, and the president has continued this approach in his second administration. A NASA overview of Artemis highlights the agency’s intent to “leverag[e] pioneering private-sector approaches while providing industry early opportunities to stake their claim in the emerging lunar economy.”Footnote 56 That approach has included extensive collaboration with major contractors: Aerojet Rocketdyne, Axiom Space, Bechtel, Blue Origin, Boeing, Amentum, Jacobs, Lockheed Martin, Maxar, Northrop Grumman, and SpaceX—all contributing to hardware ranging from the SLS rocket and Orion capsule to the Gateway station and lunar landers.Footnote 57 As NASA points out, “[these firms support] more than 2,700 suppliers across 47 states.”Footnote 58 Additional NASA investments have supported small business participation in systems designed to support long-term lunar habitation.Footnote 59 The Artemis privatization is not complete, however. The original draft of the “Big Beautiful Budget Bill” proposed sharp cuts to Artemis funding, prompting speculation that the administration would fully outsource the Artemis project to the private sector.Footnote 60 This did not materialize. After Musk’s exit from the administration and a funding amendment introduced by Senator Ted Cruz, the final legislation ultimately preserved fairly robust financial support for Artemis.Footnote 61
Public-private collaboration is also central to the Golden Dome project. Reportedly, SpaceX, Palantir, and Anduril emerged as frontrunners to supply key system components, including satellites that would detect and track missile threats, and more than one hundred eighty companies expressed interest in contributing in some way.Footnote 62 SpaceX’s pitch involved a novel “subscription model,” in which the government would not own the system, but would merely pay for access to data and services.Footnote 63
The United States has continued to actively promote the acceptability and benefits of space commercialization on the international stage, particularly within the framework of COPUOS. U.S. representatives at COPUOS advocated for “better consultation and increased collaboration … between governments and commercial industry” and “building cooperation among nations and the private sector.”Footnote 64 In response to potential COPUOS budget cuts, the U.S. delegation proposed privatization, urging the Committee “to find ways to more directly integrate non-governmental actors into its information gathering and analytical work.”Footnote 65 The U.S. delegation also urged COPUOS to welcome direct private sector participation in the forum, to “bring innovative ideas, new perspectives, and new opportunities.”Footnote 66 As in prior years, the United States welcomed private sector actors to take part in its delegation to the legal subcommittee, this time seeking those with expertise in lunar resource exploration, a topic of keen commercial interest.Footnote 67
From an international law perspective, the implications of this embrace of the private sector are complex and undeveloped. The primary legal framework is still the OST, which mandates that governments regulate all launches originating from their territory and maintain responsibility for the activities of their nationals in outer space.Footnote 68 Beyond this foundational obligation, international law currently lacks comprehensive guidelines or regulatory mechanisms specifically addressing the challenges posed by an expanded private-sector role, particularly concerning liability, environmental sustainability, and equitable access.
Consider the Trump-Musk dynamic. Under the OST, the United States is internationally responsible for all space activities carried out by national actors, including private entities. Yet when a contractor like Musk simultaneously serves as a presidential advisor and a lead supplier, the line between state and non-state conduct begins to blur. This ambiguity could become especially problematic when disputes, such as the standoff over the Dragon capsule, raise questions about the government’s ability to meet its “continuing supervision” obligation under Article VI.Footnote 69 Moreover, if a private company can unilaterally disrupt access to the International Space Station, the United States may not be able to satisfy other obligations such as the “mutual assistance” and “due regard” principles of the OST.Footnote 70
More broadly, the privatization trend revives scrutiny of the OST’s commitment to ensuring that space is used “for the benefit and in the interests of all countries.”Footnote 71 Chinese commentators portray Washington’s commercialization push as part of a new “Enclosure Movement” that violates the common-heritage spirit of space law.Footnote 72 Russia has decried Artemis as a new form of “colonialism.”Footnote 73 The two have also criticized “the use of commercial space systems to interfere in the internal affairs of sovereign States and armed conflicts involving third countries,” an apparent reference to the use of SpaceX’s Starlink terminals in the Ukraine war.Footnote 74 These critiques are not merely rhetorical. They accompany alternative projects such as the International Lunar Research Station jointly proposed by China and Russia as a cooperative, non-commercial alternative to Artemis. The U.S. emphasis on commercialization therefore not only raises normative disputes but also risks accelerating the fragmentation of international legal norms, with states coalescing around two competing lawmaking streams: one centered on the United States, the other on Russia and China. Commentators have observed that Russia’s deepening alignment with China may further polarize the international community, effectively forcing countries seeking to participate in space to choose between a U.S.-led North Atlantic–Japanese bloc and a China–Russia bloc anchored by China’s growing technological capacity.
Ultimately, the United States’ continued turn toward commercialization as a central pillar of its space strategy highlights a fundamental weakness in international space law: the existing framework was designed for intergovernmental exploration and does not adequately address profit-driven private activity. Although the United States professes fidelity to established legal norms, this approach risks eroding the legitimacy of that order. Without new rules to govern liability, sustainability, and equitable access, outer space may evolve less as a commons rooted in shared principles than as a contested domain shaped by the bargaining power of states and their corporate partners.
Conclusion
Taken together, these three themes—assertive securitization and commercialization of space together with perfunctory multilateral engagement—reflect a strategic balancing act by the second Trump administration. By advancing initiatives like the Golden Dome while reaffirming commitments to the OST and COPUOS and engaging diplomatically through the Artemis Accords, the administration seeks to characterize and interpret international space norms according to its agendas, rather than abandoning those norms. In the space arena, the United States is not disengaging from the international legal order but actively seeking to redefine it in ways that accommodate its security imperatives and commercial ambitions.
This strategy of “reinterpreting without rejecting” may appear to preserve legal continuity, but it also tests the resilience of core principles of international space law. The line between peaceful and military use is becoming increasingly contested, the distinction between public and private actors more blurred, and the adequacy of existing legal instruments increasingly uncertain. In particular, the U.S. posture of securitization and commercialization strains fundamental legal principles including cooperation, non-appropriation, and universal benefit.
The challenge for the United States and the international community will be to find renewed consensus through law to respond to emerging pressures. Otherwise, the legal order for space will likely drift toward fragmented governance shaped by competing powers.
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