An architecture, a price tag, and a development leader have been set for the ambitious Golden Dome anti-missile defense system, President Trump said Tuesday.
“We have officially selected an architecture for this state-of-the-art system that will deploy next-generation technologies across the land, sea, and space, including space-based sensors and interceptors,” Trump said from the White House. “This design for the Golden Dome will integrate with our existing defense capabilities and should be fully operational before the end of my term. So we’ll have it done in about three years.”
The system will cost about $175 billion over those three years, he added.
In March, a defense official said it would take five to seven years to develop Golden Dome’s space-based weapons, though some work might be done earlier, such as integrating existing sensors and interceptors.
The president provided no new details about the architecture.
Golden Dome will provide “close to 100 percent protection” of the U.S. homeland, Trump said, and it will include Canada, which has long worked with the United States on North American missile defense through NORAD.
Space Force vice chief Gen. Michael Guetlein would lead a new office dedicated to creating Golden Dome. Guetlein has an “unmatched background in missile warning technology and defense procurement,” Trump said.
In April, Guetlein told lawmakers that the gigantic defensive system would require unprecedented cooperation between organizations. It is envisioned to combine various existing systems—ground-based missile Patriot and THAAD interceptors, ship-fired Standard Missiles—as well as an extensive constellation of satellites bearing sensors and new space-based weapons.
“The real magic of Golden Dome is going to be our ability to integrate across all of those organizational boundaries,” Guetein said. “That’s going to require the integration of space with missile defense in ways we haven’t traditionally done.”
Such a system is needed to ward off advancing missiles from China and Russia, satellites that can ram satellites or conduct cyberattacks, and other new threats, he said.
“Recent actions by both the Russian Federation and the People’s Republic of China, including space-related cyber attacks, direct ascent anti-satellite demonstrations, and counterspace weapons development demonstrate they do not seek peaceful access to space; but rather intend to conduct aggressive actions that could deny the United States the free use and benefits of space,” Guetlein said in his written testimony.
In a Jan. 27 executive order, Trump called for a system that could defend against “any foreign aerial attack on the homeland,” citing the advent of “ballistic, hypersonic, and cruise missiles, and other advanced aerial attacks.” The envisioned system was later named Golden Dome, alluding to Israel’s Iron Dome system, which was built to defend an area less than 1 percent the size of the continental United States.
About a month later, the Pentagon asked industry for ideas, and received more than 360 responses from Lockheed Martin, Booz Allen Hamilton, RTX, Boeing, and others.
Congress included $25 billion in funding for integrated-missile defense in its budget reconciliation package last month.
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