Trump’s plan could launch new era of weapons

US President Donald Trump's Golden Dome missile defence concept revives a controversial, decades-old initiative whose ambitious construction could upend norms in outer space and reshape relations between the world's top space powers.

The announcement of Golden Dome, a vast network of satellites and weapons in Earth's orbit set to cost $175 billion, could sharply escalate the militarization of space, a trend that has intensified over the last decade, space analysts say.

While the world's biggest space powers - the US, Russia and China - have put military and intelligence assets in orbit since the 1960s, they have done so mostly in secrecy.

Under former President Joe Biden, US Space Force officials had grown vocal about a need for greater offensive space capabilities due to space-based threats from Russia and China.

When Trump announced his Golden Dome plan in January, it was a clear shift in strategy, one that emphasizes a bold move into space with expensive, untested technology that could be a financial boon to US defense contractors.

The concept includes space-based missiles that would launch from satellites in orbit to intercept conventional and nuclear missiles launched from Earth.

"I think it's opening a Pandora's box," said Victoria Samson, director of space security and stability at the Secure World Foundation think tank in Washington, referring to deploying missiles in space.

"We haven't truly thought about the long-term consequences for doing so," she added.