When Golden Dome was first announced (under a different moniker) in January 2025, companies immediately got to work, positioning themselves to compete for the ambitious missile defense program aiming to protect the US.
What is it: The Golden Dome is a missile-defense system modeled after Israel’s Iron Dome. It’s intended to be a four-layer system of terrestrial and space-based infrastructure to detect and intercept a range of missile types, before the rockets can do any damage.
Context: President Donald Trump first announced the program as the Iron Dome for America in a January 2025 executive order. He rebranded it to Golden Dome during a May 2025 event, where he also announced he would put Space Force Gen. Michael Guetlein in charge of overseeing the $175B architecture.
The players: The Missile Defense Agency has approved more than 2,000 companies to compete for Golden Dome projects, under its Scalable Homeland Innovative Enterprise Layered Defense (SHIELD) program. The agency announced 1,104 companies on Dec. 2 and 1,086 on Dec. 18 that could compete for the IDIQ contract–worth $151B if fully exercised. The list of companies ranges from legacy primes, to newer partners.
What’s next: Trump has said his goal is to have the missile shield operational by the end of his term in January 2029, but experts widely agree that timeline isn’t realistic. However, it’s likely a demo could happen during the second Trump administration.
- Lockheed Martin is working towards conducting an on-orbit space based interceptor (SBI) demo by 2028.
- Apex is also aiming to demo commercial SBI tech in orbit as soon as this year.
Read more:
- Golden Dome: 2025 Wrapped
- NDAA on Golden Dome, Acquisition, Nat Sec Launch
- Rep. Jeff Crank On the Mission of the Golden Dome Caucus
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