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Defense & National Security Space

Defense space encompasses companies providing military-grade satellite communications, persistent surveillance, missile warning, navigation warfare, and space domain awareness. Government spending on space defense is accelerating globally, driven by great-power competition and the recognition of space as a warfighting domain.

Market Size

$73.5B government defense space spending (2025, Novaspace Government Space Programs, 25th edition, 2026)

Key Metric

$137.4B global government space spending in 2025, 54% of it defense (Novaspace Government Space Programs, 25th edition)

Checked 10 October 2026. Source

Companies in This Sector

7 tracked

Market Leaders

Northrop GrummanSatellites, solid rocket motors, missile warning, Cygnus resupply

Lockheed Martin SpaceGPS III/IIIF, Next-Gen OPIR GEO missile warning satellites, Orion spacecraft

L3Harris TechnologiesMissile warning and tracking satellites (SDA Tracking Layer), ground systems

Boeing SpaceWGS military SATCOM satellites, ISS, Starliner

Raytheon (RTX)Missile-warning sensor payloads (Next-Gen OPIR GEO), GPS OCX ground system

Challengers

York Space SystemsProliferated LEO defense satellites (SDA Tranche 1 and 2 Transport Layer)

Emerging

True AnomalySpace domain awareness and proximity operations (Jackal)

Key Trends

→Proliferated LEO constellations (SDA Tracking and Transport layers) for missile warning, tracking and data transport
→Governments buying commercial launch, imagery, RF sensing and in-orbit services ('Buy Before Build')
→Military surveillance and inspection assets in LEO expanding
→Hypersonic missile tracking from space driving sensor development