HUNTSVILLE, AL—The US is likely to start the fiscal year under a continuing resolution—and that’s a problem for Golden Dome, according to Gen. Michael Guetlein, the program’s director.
Funding woes: Congress provided $24B for Golden Dome in fiscal 2026 as part of a reconciliation bill in 2025. In fiscal 2027, the administration has requested $17.5B for Golden Dome—which would also be appropriated under a reconciliation bill, instead of as part of the Pentagon’s topline budget.
The reconciliation process allows Congress to fast-track funding with just a simple majority approval. However, it also has a significant drawback:
- When Congress passes a CR, it locks in funding at the prior year’s level (so a CR to start FY27 would cap offices at their FY26 spending level).
- Because Golden Dome was not part of the base budget, it has no prior-year spending to revert to in case of a CR.
“A CR doesn’t help me at Golden Dome because I don’t have a topline to fall back on,” Guetlein said Tuesday at the Space and Missile Defense Symposium. “We have to figure out as a nation a different way to fund Golden Dome…Both sides of the aisle in the House and Senate are working on how to do this in [FY]27.
“I will tell you, if they don’t figure it out, there is no Golden Dome—because there’s no funding,” he continued.
Open door: Guetlein said he has met with 500+ companies one-on-one in his role at Golden Dome—but that the office is looking to do more to grow partnerships outside of DoD. He announced two initiatives, including:
- A digital ecosystem where industry, academia, and other government agencies with the appropriate clearance can dig through Golden Dome’s dataset. Five partners are already “playing with the data,” according to Guetlein.
- A Golden Dome for America Ecosystem Hub website where companies can submit proposals for how their tech can solve problems in the missile-defense architecture, which will be reviewed and screened by officials.
Guetlein also shared that two companies are under contract to look at the Golden Dome supply chain—both looking for bottlenecks and searching for alternative suppliers.
And the rest: Other takeaways from Guetlein’s remarks include:
- The Golden Dome team has conducted two tests that were “phenomenally successful,” although Guetlein declined to go into more details.
- Golden Dome officials say they are responding to—not launching—an arms race. “We are not the ones causing an arms race,” he said. “All of that was happening before Golden Dome stood up a year ago.”
- The acquisition mindset needs to catch up to the urgency of this moment. “Our culture is holding us back,” he said.
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“Communist China is expanding its military activities in space, and the United States cannot afford to fall behind,” Cortez Masto said in a statement. “I know that by providing Guardians with the tools, training, and resources they need, they will continue to be ready to confront any threat.”
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