Golden Dome: A Golden Opportunity for the Space Industry?

The planned development of Golden Dome, the Trump administration’s ambitious space-based missile defense system, continues to galvanize the space industry, from defense primes to space startups and data analytics firms. Large, medium, and emerging space players are investing in facilities and capabilities as well as pursuing strategic partnerships in hopes of winning a piece of the lucrative Golden Dome pie.

With nearly $25 billion earmarked for the first year in the reconciliation bill, and the White House expecting it will cost $175 billion by the time it begins projected operations in 2029, experts say the proposed multi-layered defense network represents a significant opportunity for manufacturers and suppliers, but challenges around scale, supply chains and delivery must be overcome.

“This is going to be a make-or-break moment in collaboration for the industry for sure,” says Erik Daehler, senior vice president of Sierra Space Defense, which is focused on building satellites that support the missile warning and tracking part of the Golden Dome mission. “No company can do the Golden Dome mission alone.”

What is the Golden Dome?

Designed to expand U.S. superiority in space, Golden Dome will be built specifically to intercept and destroy foreign threats, predominantly missiles. While more specific details on the planned architecture have not been released at press time, a slide shared by the Missile Defense Agency (MDA) with contractors at an industry day in early August, shows a space layer for space-based sensing, targeting and missile warning, missile tracking and missile defense; an upper layer that expands the defensive capabilities to detect, decide and defeat any adversarial attack on the homeland; and an under layer to provide defensive capabilities with agility to defeat ballistic, hypersonic, advanced cruise missile and other next-generation attacks.

The program, which continues to dominate discussions at space and defense conferences, won’t operate alone. The Space Development Agency (SDA)’s Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture (PWSA) transport and tracking layers, which have advanced in tranches, the nuclear-hardened AEHF (Advanced Extremely High Frequency) constellation, designed to continue operating after a nuclear attack, and the MUOS (Mobile User Objective System) for mobile comms on the ground “are all going to be important,” says Jeff Schrader, vice president of Strategy & Business Development for Lockheed Martin Space.

Experts expect the new homeland defense shield to follow the tranche and multiple supplier approach championed by SDA for PWSA; however, Golden Dome requires “a much more robust and complicated communications infrastructure and architecture,” observes Dallas Kasaboski, principal analyst and head of the Space Infrastructure practice at Analysys Mason.

“I believe the technology behind Golden Dome is feasible. This is an engineering and an integration challenge, not a science challenge,” stated Kari Bingen, director of Aerospace Security Project and a senior fellow in the Center for Strategic and International Studies’ (CSIS) International Security Program in a “Golden Dome Explained” video from CSIS in June.

Elaborating with Via Satellite, she acknowledged that Golden Dome is challenging, but not insurmountable: “This isn’t an area where you need basic science and technology miracles. I don’t see that as the limiting factor. But being able to model those interfaces and model how the data flows and how these disparate systems built by different companies interoperate in real time is the hard work to be done.”

Bingen emphasizes the need for a better understanding of “what’s going to be prioritized over what time period and at what cost.”

The Need for Precision: Space Interceptors

The space layer will play an important role in Golden Dome’s architecture, with sensors needing to detect missile launches and track them in flight with precise targeting information.

John Borrego, senior vice president of Aerospace and Defense at Machina Labs, an AI and robotics company that builds heat-resistant aerostructures that form the outer skins of hypersonic aircraft, highlighted the difficulty facing the space interceptors, especially when it comes to hypersonic missiles.

“Hypersonic missiles can maneuver their trajectory on the fly at high speeds. They’re going Mach 5 up to Mach 20 and they’re adjusting their course and altitude. The interceptor has to adjust its course and altitude as well as be able to intercept,” he says.

The industry has seen interceptors operate effectively, with Borrego noting that the Patriot missile surface-to-air system has successfully intercepted hypersonic missiles from Iran and Russia.

“In Ukraine, when you have hundreds of launches that can overwhelm the system, even if you capture 50 percent of them, that’s a lot of casualties based upon our current missile defense system,” he notes, adding, “That’s a lot of communications covering the entire globe. It needs to be flawless because it’s multiple targets and they’re constantly maneuvering and adjusting their trajectories.”

Borrego compared the precision required of the space interceptors to that of two people sitting on opposite sides of a football field where one individual has a 306 rifle, and the other has a 22-long rifle, and where both fire their weapon at the same moment in hopes of the two bullets connecting.

“It’s incredibly difficult and really the biggest struggle is going to be the sensor-based systems being able to adapt and adjust,” he says.

The Critical Role of Data Fusion

Several space and defense experts emphasized the role data fusion will play to integrate multiple satellites and systems.

“Golden Dome is going to require new levels of fusion and frankly, multi-phenomenology fusion,” notes Lockheed exec Schrader, calling fusion “a key capability that makes the kill chain actionable and efficient.”

“True fire control quality data comes from integrated sensing targeting and machine speed. Because we need to squeeze that timeline down to actually affect a real fast target, the fusion of the data will be very, very important,” he adds.

CSIS’s Bingen spells out the complexity of handoffs, where “one satellite may detect the launch, and it’ll have to pass off the information to the next satellite that comes along, which may detect that missile’s boosting phase … and then to another satellite that may track that missile at a later point in its trajectory.”

“That kind of chain-of-custody handoff we really haven’t done in space at that level, so this is going to be a big challenge for the space technology and engineering community to bring to fruition,” Bingen adds.

Eyeing AI and Digital Engineering

To deploy Golden Dome with speed, the industry will rely heavily on digital engineering to model performance of systems as well as determine how different systems integrate.

“You can’t create a big test environment to be able to do all the handoffs necessary without [digital engineering],” says Schrader.

Lockheed has significant experience in this area, having applied digital transformation using digital twins in its bid for the U.S. Missile Defense Agency’s Next-Generation Interceptor (NGI) program. “We modeled the performance of the entire architecture for NGI. That was one reason we were down selected for that program,” he says.

Because Golden Dome will no doubt face jamming from adversaries, “we must accelerate the pace of ISR and comms resilience to make sure that the Golden Dome architecture is resilient enough to defend against those threats,” Schrader explains.

Calling AI and digital engineering’s role for Golden Dome “indispensable,” Borrego emphasizes the need to collaborate industry-wide to ensure systems integrate and work together.

“You’re talking about a mix of advanced software/AI and advanced hardware that hasn’t been done on this level or scale in history.”

A ‘Make or Break Moment’ in Collaboration

The Pentagon hosted a Golden Dome for America Industry Summit in early August in Huntsville, Alabama. While the media was not permitted to attend, over 3,000 industry representatives participated. During the day-long session, an AI-enabled fire control concept was circulated to attendees, but the detailed architecture plans remained unclear.

“It has taken a long time to figure out what exactly is the acquisition strategy,” notes one industry participant, speaking on anonymity, expressing frustration with the government’s lack of clarity.

According to the space veteran, the U.S. administration is planning “an XPRIZE-like acquisition” for space-based interceptors, where the government expects commercial companies to invest ahead of need.

“It’s not the right answer. Firms that rely on venture capital backing will have difficulty getting funding approved when there is no guaranteed ROI. It also leads to a monopolistic win solution instead of the entire industry building as fast as possible,” the attendee says.

When it comes to collaboration to bring Golden Dome to fruition, Bingen foresees several different dimensions of partnerships emerging, whether they involve a software developer helping to stitch together battle management command and control system between prime contractors’ systems and the new fleet of LEO spacecraft that will serve as sensors, or a commercial space company developing an interesting concept for a space-based interceptor, but which may not have built up manufacturing or production facilities that the primes have.

How well industry partners collaborate may well determine Golden Dome’s ultimate success.

Space companies, says Daehler from Sierra Space Defense, are in a similar place to what American manufacturers faced in the years preceding the United States’ entry into World War II.

“The country knew it was facing a world war crisis that required it to retool,” he explains. “If you were good at making transmissions, then the government asked you to make transmissions all day long.”

Daehler says firms should look at companies with strong government relationships as well as non-traditional players that bring unique capabilities.

Scaling Up and Investing for Speed

Across the space industry, companies are touting their capabilities that could play a role in the Golden Dome and racing to scale up manufacturing with new factories.

Power systems in space is a niche Sierra Space Defense hopes to fill with Golden Dome. The Colorado-based space technology company has both a new solar cell and patented process and a system for manufacturing power systems at scale. In June, Sierra Space opened a $45 million solar power system facility that will enable manufacturing of “a panel a day” and “a wing a week.” The company also announced Sierra Space Defense and unveiled its “Victory Works” satellite manufacturing facility.

In addition, L3Harris recently completed a $100 million expansion of its satellite integration and test facility in Palm Bay, Florida. The facility is designed to produce next-generation satellites that will identify, track and defend against hypersonic and advanced missile threats. That follows the expansion of the company’s Fort Wayne, Indiana, payload manufacturing facility in April. L3Harris has also made additional investments in both its Aerojet Rocketdyne business in Arkansas and its Wilmington, Massachusetts, facility, which manufactures infrared payloads for the Fire-control On Orbit-support-to-the-war Fighter (FOO Fighter) satellite system. These payloads serve as a key component of the Golden Dome Custody Layer, which will enable global detection and precision tracking of hypersonic missiles.

“We saw this day coming and we invested ahead,” says Rob Mitrevski, appointed in July as L3Harris’s president of Golden Dome Strategy and Integration, a new position.

Mitrevski says that the investments will enable L3Harris to produce a payload and a space vehicle per week for more advanced missions, and potentially faster “depending on the demand signal.”

“It’s not just the facilities you have to set up, it’s priming the pump with the supply chain,” he explains. “We’ve ensured our second and third tier suppliers also have that capacity for example, on the tracking space sensor layer. All the capacity assessments are done and…our own capacity is ready to integrate as well.”

Yet experts didn’t voice universal consensus on whether the commercial space sector is ready to deploy a program of this scale so quickly.

“Generally, we’re not ready for this kind of speed,” says Daehler, speaking from his experience working at major primes and now at Sierra Space, a venture-backed defense tech company. “It’s not that commercial space isn’t ready; it’s that the decades of acquisition strategies, where we positioned our resources for national utilization, have had people aiming in a [particular] direction. There’s still time for us to move to this new direction, but it takes time to pivot.”

He notes that defense primes already have the infrastructure, from environmental chambers to test and operate spacecraft to accredited staff needed for national defense missions like Golden Dome. He also points to the process of cyber-hardening networks to ensure that companies are operating in a safe environment.

“The bigs start already with that in their infrastructure and are ready to pivot to national asset kinds of missions,” says Daehler. “Startups for a long time have been truly commercial focused, so they may not have all that infrastructure in place. Getting a company to be in that sweet spot where they have the infrastructure and can still move fast is hard, and we are there.”

While adversaries like China and Russia focus on speed and scale, the U.S. “is still in the realm of producing very high-end, bespoke type of defense projects,” says Borrego. “They’re very strategic and very precise, but in this type of conflict, you need to be able to scale so your industrial capability is just as important as the systems you develop. Your factory (your ability to scale and produce weapons at the same rate as your adversary) essentially becomes a weapon itself.”

As the space and defense sector looks to rapidly scale up production for the Golden Dome system, there are also valuable lessons from the auto industry, which evolved from bespoke, hand-built vehicles to mass production, notes Borrego.

“Before Ford, cars were hand built. They were all unique, very much like a Ferrari,” observes Borrego, explaining that the shift toward simplification, standardization, and the use of off-the-shelf materials could help the defense industry meet the urgent demands of modern conflict.

One way to increase speed is through innovation sprints, says Bingen with CSIS. Prior to joining the policy institute, Bingen worked in the DoD with the Project Maven team on an initiative to use AI to analyze large volumes of drone and satellite imagery to identify potential targets and enhance military decision-making.

Bingen recalls how competitors faced off during these sprints, and those who came to the table at the end of the exercise to deliver capability were selected for the next phase.

“It snowballed from there,” says Bingen. “At the end of the day, they were able to field a beta capability with the warfighter, who was able to provide feedback and improve it.”

The Right Leader for the Moment

Selecting General Michael Guetlein as program manager was viewed positively by the experts, who point to his experience across multiple offices and agencies, and how he embraces commercial capabilities.

“This is exactly the type of experience … and type of leadership we need to drive the acquisition reform needed for Golden Dome,” says Mitrevski.

The L3Harris executive acknowledges that each line item in Golden Dome has “unique schedules and unique risks,” but he remains optimistic that the commercial industry is up for the challenge, but only if there is the “right acquisition structure, the right oversight and the right commercialized best practices that we can implement into the contracts and acquisition approach.”

While acknowledging that Golden Dome is a major opportunity, Kasaboski emphasizes that manufacturers and service providers face a very challenging road ahead.

“A technology audit will be necessary to understand and develop the technologies and services within the cost, timeline and capabilities that Golden Dome will require,” he concludes. VS