Reconciliation Bill Passes Congress with Billions for U.S. Space Force

The House passed the reconciliation bill today, the final step before sending it to President Trump’s desk in time to meet their self-imposed deadline of July 4.  Officially named the “One, Big Beautiful Bill Act,” H.R. 1 includes $150 billion for DOD, including $25 billion for Trump’s Golden Dome missile defense shield. The U.S. Space Force will get some of that money as well as funding to support operations in the Indo-Pacific.

The reconciliation process is separate from and in addition to appropriations. When the Trump Administration announced FY2026 would be the first trillion dollar DOD budget, and it would also ask for $150 billion for DOD in the reconciliation bill, House and Senate defense appropriators and authorizers were ecstatic thinking it would be $1 trillion plus $150 billion. That turned to disappointment when they discovered the Administration was looking at the two bills collectively and the combined total is $1 trillion using $113.3 billion from the reconciliation bill. The baseline FY2026 DOD request is $848.3 billion, level with FY2025, unadjusted for inflation.

Similarly, the baseline FY2026 request for U.S. Space Force (USSF) is $26.3 billion, a substantial reduction from the $28.7 billion in FY2025.  The House Appropriations Committee increased that by $3 billion though at that point they did not have DOD’s detailed budget request.  DOD finally submitted it on June 26 and it turns out DOD was planning another $13.8 billion for USSF through reconciliation, bringing the total request to $40.1 billion.

If Congress approves even the $26.3 billion through the appropriations process, USSF is poised to do better than that.

Money for the Space Force is spread throughout the final version of the reconciliation bill, but the largest amounts are in Integrated Air and Missile Defense and Indo-Pacific support. The language rarely specifies U.S. Space Force, but it appears these amounts most likely are headed there.

Golden Dome is not specifically mentioned in the bill, but the House Armed Services Committee’s summary refers to section 20003, Enhancement of DOD Resources for Integrated Air and Missile Defense, as Golden Dome for America and it includes next generation missile defense technologies and layered homeland defense. The total is very close to $25 billion. Of that, $15.3 billion appears to be for the USSF.

• $500 million for national security space launch infrastructure
• $2 billion for air moving target indicator military satellites
• $5.6 billion for development of space-based and boost-phase intercept capabilities
• $7.2 billion for development, procurement, and integration of military space-based sensors

Of the funding for Enhancement of DOD Resources to Improve Capabilities of U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, $5.9 billion appears to be for the USSF:

• $68 million for Space Force facilities improvement
• $150 million for ground moving target indicator military satellites
• $528 million for DARC and SILENTBARKER military Space Situational Awareness programs
• $1 billion for X-37B military spacecraft program
• $3.65 billion for development, procurement, and integration of U.S. military satellites and the protection of U.S. military satellites
• $125 million for development, procurement, and integration of military space communications
• $350 million for development, procurement, and integration of military space command and control systems

Other money may also be for USSF, such as in hypersonics, but it is not clear from the bill’s language.

The bill passed both chambers by very close margins after a number of Republicans publicly expressed dissatisfaction with various provisions, though they were unrelated to DOD. In the Senate, it was 50-50, with Vice President Vance casting the tie-breaking vote to make it 51-50. Of the 53 Senate Republicans, 50 voted yes and three voted no along with all Democrats and two independents.

Quite a few House Republicans bitterly complained about changes the Senate made to the House-passed bill and initially vowed not to approve it, but the vote in the House this afternoon was 218-214, with all but two Republicans in favor. All Democrats were opposed. No changes were made to the Senate version.

Trump is expected to sign the bill tomorrow.

The appropriations process is underway separately. The House Appropriations Committee approved its defense bill on June 10. The Senate appropriations defense subcommittee held a hearing on the request for the Air Force and Space Force on June 26. Markup hasn’t been scheduled yet.

 

This article has been updated.