Sirotin Intelligence Briefing: September 28–October 3, 2026: Starship Reaches Orbit on Flight 14, Guetlein Tells the Senate an Early Golden Dome Can Stand Up in 2028 as the CR Freezes 150 New Starts, and SpaceX Flies Three Rockets in 13 Hours

This week's Sirotin Intelligence analysis covers Starship's first orbital flight on September 28, which lost a ship engine on ascent, reached orbit anyway, deployed 26 Starlink V3 satellites, and came down north of Hawaii after nearly two orbits instead of the planned ten hours, alongside Gen. Michael Guetlein's September 29 testimony to the Senate Strategic Forces Subcommittee that an early version of Golden Dome could be operating by 2028 even as senators pressed him on the $185 billion program estimate versus the Congressional Budget Office's $1.2 trillion, and the start of fiscal year 2027 on October 1 under a continuing resolution that freezes more than 150 new program starts, including Golden Dome's $17.1 billion reconciliation request. We also cover SpaceX's three launches in under 13 hours on October 1 (Crew-13, the 130-payload Transporter-18, and NROL-97, the National Reconnaissance Office's first Falcon Heavy), Raytheon's up-to-$20.7 billion AMRAAM award that nearly doubles production to 1,900 missiles a year, the Space Force's retirement of the Defense Support Program after 56 years, the Army's new Futures and Autonomous Systems Command, and the Pentagon's $142 billion reconciliation obligation that left about $10 billion exposed to sequestration. Rounding out the week: Boeing's crewed Starliner slipping to 2028, Varda's $251 million Series D, Rocket Lab's largest Electron deal, the Theodore Roosevelt carrier group heading to the Middle East as tankers are hit in Hormuz, ISW's read on Putin's September claims, ESA's €10 billion case for European crew transport, and Christophe Bosquillon's column on how a former PLA Academy of Military Science specialist is framing the U.S. Space Academy executive order.

🛡️ Defense Highlights

• Guetlein tells the Senate an early Golden Dome can be online by 2028 – senators hear a $1 trillion gap between the Pentagon's estimate and CBO's: Gen. Michael Guetlein testified before the Senate Armed Services Strategic Forces Subcommittee on September 29 that an initial operational version of Golden Dome, built from existing radars, interceptors, and command systems stitched together under a common battle manager, could be in place by 2028. "We are making the progress that we told Congress and told the president we would make," he said. The hearing, chaired by Sen. Deb Fischer with Sen. Angus King as ranking member, spent much of its time on money. The program office projects roughly $185 billion through 2035; the Congressional Budget Office estimates $1.2 trillion over 20 years, and CBO received its first briefing on the classified objective architecture only the Friday before the hearing. Sen. Mark Kelly warned that Russia and China could expand their arsenals if they read the shield as a threat to their deterrents. Sen. Mike Rounds said of the reconciliation route that funded the program's first $25 billion: "Should it have been necessary to go to reconciliation to get this started? I would say no. This should have been on a bipartisan basis." King called the funding process "very bothersome." CSIS's Tom Karako told the panel the program "suffers from a serious lack of strategic messaging" and suggested merging it with the Missile Defense Agency, the same prescription Thane Clare offered in Defense News the week before. Fischer acknowledged the practical problem: appropriations need 60 votes and Republicans hold 53. Democrats and Sen. Bernie Sanders asked for more transparency, saying "Congress and the American public have a right to know what they are paying for." The 2028 date is real only if the FY27 money arrives, and the next item explains why that is in doubt.
• FY27 opens under a CR – more than 150 new starts frozen, Golden Dome's $17.1 billion stuck in reconciliation, and $10 billion of last year's money exposed to sequestration: Fiscal year 2027 began October 1 under the continuing resolution that runs through December 11, and the Pentagon's new-start list tells the story. More than 150 programs cannot begin, per Breaking Defense's tally. Golden Dome's FY27 request is $17.5 billion, of which less than $400 million sits in the base budget and $17.1 billion depends on a reconciliation bill that has not passed; Guetlein has said "the entire program ends without continued funding." The Defense Autonomous Warfare Group, requested at $54.6 billion ($1 billion base, $53.6 billion reconciliation), is in the same position. Army programs on hold include $921.9 million for THAAD production, $132.1 million for AN/TPY-2 radars, $131.7 million for HADES surveillance aircraft, and $108.1 million for M-SHORAD Increment 4. Separately, the department obligated about $142 billion of the $152 billion it received under last year's reconciliation act before the September 30 deadline, leaving roughly $10 billion unobligated and subject to an 8.3% sequester, about $830 million in purchasing power gone. A spokesperson confirmed the 93% figure and declined to say which accounts missed. The pattern is the one Christophe described last week: the fastest-growing parts of the budget sit in the funding stream with the least certainty, and the services spent September racing a deadline rather than executing a plan.
• Raytheon gets up to $20.7 billion to nearly double AMRAAM output – 1,900 missiles a year, signed before the CR shut the window: The Pentagon announced a multiyear AMRAAM contract with Raytheon worth up to $20.7 billion, awarded September 25 and made public September 28 and 29, with a five-year base and two option years covering the Air Force, the Navy, and allied buyers in Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. Under framework agreements signed in February, RTX committed to at least 1,900 AMRAAMs a year, roughly double the prior rate, and the company says it already nearly doubled AMRAAM and other munitions output in 2025 over 2024. Michael Duffey, undersecretary for acquisition and sustainment, said the deal "strengthens our ability to equip the Joint Force and our allies with a proven air-to-air capability." The award was issued as an undefinitized contract action to beat the October 1 CR deadline, and it remains provisional until Congress appropriates the full amount. The context is the inspector general's finding that Operation Epic Fury's $22.3 billion in munitions expenditures produced "strategic inventory shortfalls." AMRAAM is the missile that defends tankers, AWACS, and fighters over the Gulf, and the Arsenal of Freedom campaign now has a signed production contract behind it. RTX is also exploring international co-production to hit the rate.
• Space Force retires DSP after 56 years – the last two satellites go to graveyard orbit after a final contested-environment exercise: The Space Force decommissioned the Defense Support Program on October 1, sending the final two satellites to a supersynchronous graveyard orbit. DSP launched 23 geosynchronous infrared satellites between November 6, 1970, and November 10, 2007, watched for Soviet ICBM launches through the Cold War, and spotted Iraqi Scud launches during the 1991 Gulf War. Before retirement, the 2nd Space Warning Squadron flew the two spacecraft through dynamic on-orbit maneuvers in a contested-environment scenario during U.S. Space Command's Apollo Maneuvers 2026 exercise in early September. "These last two satellites were the culminating end to over a half century of space-based early warning," said Col. Brandon Davenport, commander of Mission Delta 4. Missile warning now rests on SBIRS, with six GEO and four highly elliptical orbit satellites, until the first Next-Gen OPIR GEO satellite launches in the coming months; Lockheed Martin Space received a $15.7 million modification on that program this week, bringing its cumulative value to $8.26 billion. The retirement coincides with the Senate hearing above. The sensing layer Golden Dome depends on is transitioning from a 1970s constellation to one that has not launched yet, which is a fact the 2028 date has to absorb.
• NRO flies its first Falcon Heavy – NROL-97 closes a 13-hour SpaceX tripleheader and four booster landings in a day: A Falcon Heavy lifted off from Kennedy Space Center's LC-39A at 11:54 p.m. EDT on October 1 carrying NROL-97, the first National Reconnaissance Office mission on the heavy-lift vehicle after 22 on Falcon 9. The mission was procured under the National Security Space Launch Phase 3 Lane 2 contract and was the NRO's fifth of 2026. The new core booster B1106 was expended; side boosters B1072 (fourth flight) and B1104 (second flight), which had launched NASA's Roman Space Telescope a month earlier, landed at Cape Canaveral about eight minutes after liftoff. SpaceX withheld orbital parameters at the NRO's request; the choice of Falcon Heavy on a northeasterly trajectory implies a heavy payload, a distant orbit, or both. The launch was SpaceX's third in under 13 hours, after Crew-13 that morning and Transporter-18 that afternoon, and the company recovered four boosters in a single calendar day for the first time. Combined with Starship three days earlier, every operational SpaceX vehicle flew within a 96-hour window. The NRO's proliferated architecture gets most of the attention, but a classified Falcon Heavy payload is a reminder that the agency still buys large, exquisite spacecraft when the mission calls for one.
• Army stands up Futures and Autonomous Systems Command – a Portfolio Acquisition Executive for Autonomy and a fiscal 2028 deadline for six capability areas: Acting Army Secretary Adam Telle signed a memorandum on October 3 creating the U.S. Army Futures and Autonomous Systems Command, three days after Secretary Hegseth's September 30 State of the Force address announced a four-star Autonomous Warfare Command at the department level. FASCOM will push autonomy into six formation areas (aviation, armor, fires, sustainment, engineer, and training), and the memo designates a Portfolio Acquisition Executive for Autonomy to run priority programs: autonomous fires, combat vehicles, watercraft resupply, breaching, reconnaissance and target acquisition, and crewed-uncrewed teaming, all with a fiscal 2028 fielding deadline. The Army will also expand authorizations for 15X tactical UAS specialists and 390A robotics technicians and move them closer to tactical formations. "We are forging the U.S. Army Futures and Autonomous Systems Command to get cutting-edge technology into Soldiers' hands," Telle said. The directive builds on the Capability Program Executive Office for Mission Autonomy activated earlier this year. Read with the DAWG's $54.6 billion request and ISW's note this week that Chinese forces operated more than 600 UAVs in Russia's Center-2026 exercise, the Army is reorganizing around a capability that both adversaries are already fielding at scale.

Major Contract Awards This Week:

• Raytheon Co. – AMRAAM multiyear production: An up-to-$20,700,000,000 multiyear, undefinitized contract for Advanced Medium-Range Air-to-Air Missile production for the Air Force, Navy, and allied customers, with a five-year base and two option years, awarded September 25.
• SAP National Security Services – Cloud services: A $903,000,000 indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity Defense Logistics Agency contract for cloud services, with a one-year base and six one-year options, through September 22, 2027 for the base period.
• Raytheon Missiles and Defense – SPY-6 radars: A $511,533,484 fixed-price incentive (firm-target), firm-fixed-price, and cost-only Navy contract modification to exercise options and purchase spares for hardware production of the AN/SPY-6(V) family of radars, through November 2031.
• L3Harris Technologies – Executive airlift satcom: A $461,908,308 firm-fixed-price Air Force definitization for commercial satellite communications connectivity for designated executive airlift aircraft, through October 31, 2028.
• Fortress Government Solutions LLC – Cyber supply chain risk management: A $318,811,963 Navy modification to an indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract for Cyber Supply Chain Risk Management services, including software platform and analysis, through September 2030.
• Northrop Grumman Systems Corp. – F-35 APG-85 radar: A $123,781,000 fixed-price incentive (firm-target) Navy contract for Lot 7 long-lead materials for 67 APG-85 production radars, through February 2031.
• Lockheed Martin Space – Next-Gen OPIR GEO: A $15,721,117 cost-plus-incentive-fee Air Force modification for the Next Generation Overhead Persistent Infrared Geosynchronous program, bringing the cumulative face value to $8,262,513,789, through July 31, 2029.

🌐 Policy, Geopolitical & Legal Developments

• Camp David convenes on Iran as the Roosevelt and Makin Island groups head to the Gulf – tankers hit in Hormuz, Houthis strike near Riyadh, G7 releases 100 million barrels: Vice President Vance, Secretary Rubio, Secretary Hegseth, CIA Director Ratcliffe, and Joint Chiefs Chairman Caine met at Camp David on Friday, October 2, to review the Iran war and the Saudi-Houthi front. The USS Theodore Roosevelt carrier strike group and the USS Makin Island amphibious ready group are en route to the Middle East, a deployment that could bring U.S. forces in the region to roughly 20,000 personnel with hundreds of vessels and aircraft by late October. Unidentified projectiles struck tankers in the Strait of Hormuz on Friday and again Saturday; the Houthis claimed an attack on an Aramco facility south of Riyadh, where flames and smoke were observed, and Saudi aircraft answered with 26 reported strikes on Sanaa. G7 governments agreed to release 100 million barrels of crude and diesel from reserves. Hegseth said Iran "does not control" the strait and called the U.S. blockade on Iranian exports "ironclad." Trump's framing was blunter: "We could leave tomorrow, and it would take them years to rebuild." The war is now past seven months, the IG has already documented $33.4 billion in costs through June 30, and the supplemental request to pay for it remains unresolved. Two more carrier-class deployments in October will not make the FY27 math easier.
• ISW: Putin claimed 1,301 square kilometers in September; the map shows a net loss of 81 – Russia hits Kyiv's Southern Bridge four times and prepares a winter campaign on power and water: The Institute for the Study of War's October 2 assessment took apart Putin's speech of the same week, which claimed Russian forces seized 1,301 square kilometers in September while insisting Russia "is not threatening anyone" and making veiled nuclear threats; ISW's own mapping shows a net Russian loss of 80.81 square kilometers over the month. Neither side advanced on October 2, and Russian claims of encirclements northeast of Kharkiv were disputed by Russian milbloggers. Russian drones struck Kyiv's Southern Bridge in four waves on October 1 and 2, and Ukrainian intelligence says Moscow is preparing an intensified winter campaign against Kyiv, Kharkiv, Lviv, and Odesa with nuclear power plants and water systems on the target list. Zelensky disclosed that Ukrainian air defenses are downing about 57% of Russia's jet-powered Geran drones against 85 to 90% of conventional ones; Ukraine is testing five interceptor drone models and expects 400 units of one by the end of October. ISW also flagged that Chinese forces participated in Russia's Center-2026 exercise rather than observing as in 2025, working with more than 600 UAVs and 60 unmanned ground vehicles developed through the Ukraine war. The Patriot production licenses Trump approved last week address the ballistic missile problem; the jet-drone gap is a different problem, and it is the one Russia is pressing as winter approaches.
• Starliner's crewed return slips to 2028 – NASA and Boeing add a $359 million modification, name Woody Hoburg commander, and talk about restoring two cancelled flights: NASA and Boeing briefed reporters at Kennedy on September 28 with Administrator Isaacman, Boeing's John Mulholland, and astronaut Woody Hoburg. Starliner-1, an uncrewed cargo flight, is now no earlier than December 2026; Starliner-2, the first crewed mission since the 2024 Crew Flight Test, targets mid-2028 with Hoburg as commander. The driver is the reaction control system's thruster valve poppets: five of 28 RCS valves failed during the 2024 ascent, which left Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams on the station for more than nine months. "We're not able to address that with the current design," said NASA program manager Dana Weigel. "That's what's driving the need to do a modification to the poppet." NASA and Boeing agreed a $359 million contract modification and opened discussions on reinstating two of the flights cut earlier, which had reduced the program from six missions to four. Boeing has absorbed roughly $2 billion in overruns on the fixed-price contract. Isaacman: "NASA has been committed to having multiple crew transportation options since the beginning of the Commercial Crew Program." Crew-13 flew three days later on a Dragon that reached the station in under eight hours. The dual-provider policy stands, and Boeing's vehicle is now about two years from carrying crew, four years after it last did.
• ESA puts a number on independence – €10 billion and about ten years for European crew transport, as Parmitano is slotted to pilot Artemis III: Director General Josef Aschbacher told NASASpaceFlight this week that ESA aims to field an independent European crew transport capability within roughly a decade at an estimated €10 billion. "If we don't do it, that means we would still want astronauts in space. We would need to buy this capacity in the United States." The Exploration Company's Nyx capsule and PLD Space's LINCE are the two candidate vehicles. Two nine-month feasibility studies on a European-led orbital station, led by Airbus Defence and Space and OHB, began in June, in parallel with partnership talks with Axiom, Starlab, and Vast. The European Launcher Challenge has placed contracts with Isar Aerospace, Rocket Factory Augsburg, PLD Space, and MaiaSpace; Isar's September orbital success was the first, and ESA expects launch demand to peak around 2030 above current European capacity. Norway's Andøya Spaceport will add a second orbital pad for nearly NOK 650 million, and RFA One's maiden flight has been added to the manifest for December 31. On Artemis, Europe is renegotiating its contribution after the Gateway pause, and ESA astronaut Luca Parmitano is set to pilot Artemis III. Read against Isaacman's "coalitions for the sake of coalitions" line last week, Aschbacher's €10 billion figure is the first time ESA has priced the alternative to buying seats in the United States.

🛰️ Technology & Commercial Developments

• Starship reaches orbit on Flight 14 – one engine down on ascent, 26 Starlink V3s deployed, and an early deorbit after nearly two orbits: Starship lifted off from Starbase at 8:48 a.m. EDT on Monday, September 28, on the program's first orbital flight. One of the ship's six engines shut down during ascent, and SpaceX's Dan Huot briefly announced the orbital attempt was off before reversing within moments: "We are not giving up yet. We will continue to hang out." Engineers judged the remaining engines sufficient, and the ship executed its insertion burn about 25 minutes after liftoff. Super Heavy Booster 21 splashed down in the Gulf around T+7 minutes but failed to relight all of its engines on descent, a problem that has persisted across recent flights. From T+34 minutes the ship deployed 26 Starlink V3 satellites over roughly 30 minutes through the "Pez dispenser," a batch SpaceX says carries about ten times the capacity of a Falcon 9 Starlink launch; three satellites carried cameras to photograph the heat shield after separation. After nearly two orbits, SpaceX commanded an early deorbit burn, cutting the planned 9-hour-50-minute mission by close to seven hours. The ship reentered, went subsonic, and splashed down intact north of Hawaii about three hours and eight minutes after liftoff, then toppled and exploded on the water. Musk: "First orbital flight of Starship successful!" SpaceX intends to attempt a tower catch of the ship on the next flight; Musk had put the odds at "at least 50% to 60%" if Flight 14 went smoothly. What matters for the next two years: V3 deployment works, orbital insertion works, and the heat shield survived reentry. What does not yet work: the booster relight sequence, and nothing has been demonstrated on propellant transfer, which is the gating item for the Artemis lander.
• SpaceX flies three rockets in 13 hours – Crew-13 docks in a record 7 hours 55 minutes, Transporter-18 carries 130 payloads, and B1082 lands for the 25th time: Crew-13 launched from SLC-40 at 11:10 a.m. EDT on October 1 aboard Dragon Grace and docked at 7:05 p.m., the fastest American crewed trip to the station on record. Commander Jessica Watkins is the first NASA astronaut to fly Dragon twice; pilot Luke Delaney, CSA's Joshua Kutryk (the first Canadian to fly under Commercial Crew), and Roscosmos's Sergey Teteryatnikov are on their first flights, for a roughly six-month stay. Booster B1101 flew for the third time. At 11:32 a.m. PDT, a Falcon 9 lifted off from Vandenberg with Transporter-18, 130 payloads to sun-synchronous orbit on the 110th Falcon 9 mission of 2026; booster B1082 returned to the launch site on its 25th flight. NROL-97 followed from Florida that night. Across the day SpaceX landed four boosters, two at the Cape, one at Vandenberg, and none expended except the Falcon Heavy core. The company's launch count for the year is now above 110 on Falcon alone, and the worldwide tally stands at 238 orbital attempts with 231 successes as of October 3.
• Transporter-18's manifest is a defense story – Starfish's first full-scale Otter, Google's Suncatcher TPUs, and two Varda capsules carrying DoD hypersonic payloads as Varda raises $251 million at $1.6 billion: Among the 130 payloads: Starfish Space's 335-kilogram Otter, the first full-scale servicing vehicle, under a $15 million NASA contract to autonomously inspect dead satellites over a two-year mission; Google's Project Suncatcher M1 with four Trillium TPUs, testing whether accelerator hardware and cooling survive orbit; four ICEYE radar imaging satellites; NASA's SPRITE CubeSat; and Varda Space's W-8 and W-9 capsules. W-8 carries reentry thermal and environmental sensors for a U.S. military study and tests thermal protection materials; W-9 carries a Department of Defense hypersonic navigation payload with Syensqo heat shield tiles. Varda announced the same week that it closed a $251 million Series D at a $1.6 billion valuation, led by Lux Capital and Natural Capital with Founders Fund, Khosla, Caffeinated, General Catalyst, 8090 Industries, Giant Step, and Also Capital participating, taking total funding to nearly $600 million. The company has completed six reentry missions since 2023 and plans more than a dozen over the next two years. Varda's pitch is pharmaceuticals crystallized in microgravity, and the defense side of its manifest, hypersonic reentry testing for the Pentagon on capsules that return regardless, now rides on every flight.
• Rocket Lab signs its largest Electron deal – 20 dedicated launches for Synspective through 2031, backlog past 100 missions: Rocket Lab announced on October 1 a 20-launch agreement with Synspective, the Japanese synthetic aperture radar operator, for dedicated Electron missions between 2028 and 2031, the largest commercial Electron contract in the company's history. Synspective now has 47 launches booked with Rocket Lab, 34 of them still to fly, and has deployed 13 of its initially planned 30 StriX satellites, including one launched on September 26. CEO Motoyuki Arai said the deal "gives us long-term certainty for our constellation expansion," and Synspective has announced plans for a second constellation. Rocket Lab's total launch backlog now exceeds 100 missions. The deal is a reminder that the dedicated small-launch business has a durable customer in allied SAR operators who want their own orbits and schedules rather than a slot on a rideshare, and that Rocket Lab is holding that market while Neutron's debut window narrows.

💭 A Word From Christophe Bosquillon

Fan Gaoyue, Guest Professor at Sichuan University, Former Chief Specialist at PLA Academy of Military Science, published an article "New Milestone in U.S. Effort to Dominate Space," targeting the 28 August 2026 U.S. Space Academy E.O.. With space critical to national security, economic growth, science and technology, a commission will advise POTUS on a NASA-led Federal Space Academy to combine technical education with leadership development, discipline and public service.

The author frames the E.O. as the latest step in a long-running U.S. drive for "space dominance," arguing this undermines the peaceful shared use of outer space. Tracing one consistent aim from Eisenhower's 1958 policy through the 2011 National Space Security Strategy to the 2018 National Space Strategy, he reads recurring themes (American interests first, commercial leadership, regulatory reform, "unfettered access") as evidence of intent to dominate.

2018 is a turning point when space security was elevated within national security doctrine, followed by Space Command directive, Space Force (established December 2019) with its field commands and Deltas, Space Force Vector 2025 and Systems Delta 85 later (SDA, early warning, C2, intel).

The Chinese author casts the Academy as "final void" in a system meant to supply military space operators, NASA-oriented researchers and commercial-sector managers, bound by a service obligation for long-term competition. Describing space as humanity's "common heritage," he warns U.S. moves will intensify arm races, endangering satellites (debris), and calls for rejecting "hegemony" in favor of multilateral cooperation and peaceful use.

Framing "superiority" and "freedom of operation" language as proof of unilateral intent is rich, coming from the PLA. Presenting U.S. actions as uniquely hegemonic, while omitting China's own military space buildup: PLA Aerospace Force, counterspace tests, ILRS lunar program…

Further, "common heritage of mankind" comes from the 1979 Moon Agreement, which the U.S., China, Russia didn't join. The OST speaks of the "province of all mankind" and bans national appropriation and WMD in orbit, but it does not prohibit military activity generally.

This piece is a clear warning of how Beijing - and sidekick Moscow - are likely to frame U.S. space institution building in diplomatic and information fora.

Have a great Space Week ahead!