Golden Dome Expected to Supercharge Space Economy, Development Challenges Ahead

President Donald Trump's "Big Beautiful Bill" approved in early July allocated $25 billion for Golden Dome, a missile defense system that could bring a windfall of investment to Colorado's space economy.

U.S. Rep. Jeff Crank, R- Colorado Springs, is shepherding the initiative as the co-chair of the newly created House Golden Dome Caucus and he is enthusiastic about its local potential.

“The $25 billion for Golden Dome will supercharge the Colorado space economy, bringing more jobs and investment to El Paso County," he said in a statement to The Gazette.

Crank's fellow co-chair on the caucus is Alabama U.S. Rep. Dale Strong, who represents Huntsville, Colorado Springs' rival for Space Command.

The Alabama town also is shaping up as competition for Golden Dome spending. Northrop Grumman, a major defense contractor, is centralizing its efforts to secure a position as a key Golden Dome contractor in Huntsville because it is home to the Missile Defense Agency, company Vice President Raymond Sharp told Space News this week.

Typically, the Missile Defense Agency prototypes new technologies and then turns over space assets to the Space Force, Lt. Gen. Heath Collins said in May.

But there is likely going to be plenty of investment to go around and many challenges to solve, including securing additional funding through Congress, a tight three-year timeline and a Space Force civilian workforce that has shrunk by 14%.

While large defense contractors are likely to play a role in Golden Dome, no one company and no one government agency can take on the whole project that will bring together ground-based and space-based systems, said Chris Bogdan, an executive vice president leading Booz Allen Hamilton's space strategy.

"One of the biggest keys is how you stitch it all together," he said.

The nation has existing ground-based missile defense, with 40 interceptors in Alaska and four in California, but there are gaps in the system and Trump expects to spend $175 billion on Golden Dome to fill them. The president said in May he would like to see a working system in three years.

"We do not have a homeland missile defense system that is intended to guard against adversary threats beyond North Korea or rogue state actor threats," said Andrea Yaffe, acting principal deputy assistant secretary of defense for space policy, in a May hearing.

"Meanwhile, the threats themselves have been expanding significantly with Russia and China pursuing a breadth of capabilities," Yaffe said.

Hypersonic missiles are one of the main new threats because they travel five times faster than ballistic missiles and glide from side to side. The U.S. could have four to five minutes to detect one, The Gazette reported previously.

Gen. Gregory Guillot, who leads Northern Command and the North American Aerospace Defense Command, said the initial push for Golden Dome should prioritize more sensors to detect threats as Russia invests in its Navy, including submarines.

"Awareness of the undersea bed is critical to homeland defense," Guillot said.

It's also likely the early stages of Golden Dome will build on existing technologies, he said.

Bogdan noted that every aircraft flying into the nation's capital is tracked, so there is an opportunity to respond to threats, and such a system could be replicated elsewhere. The nation could also add Terminal High Altitude Area Defense systems, also known as THAAD systems or Patriot missile defense systems.

Wes Rumbaugh, a fellow in the Missile Defense Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said he expects space systems will be a large component of Golden Dome's architecture based on the budget so far, but details await the Department of Defense's submission of a spending plan.

The budget includes $5.6 billion for space-based interceptors and $7.2 billion for space-based sensors and $250 million to develop directed energy, also known as lasers. California-based Space Systems Command may play a role in buying space-based technology because it put out a request for information on them in June, Bogdan said.

Rumbaugh noted the ambitious vision faces challenges such as the tight three-year timeline because of limitations on scaling up production of existing technologies and completing the research and development. For example, directed energy technology still needs work because lasers struggle with environmental factors such as dust, which can absorb the light or scatter it.

"I think directed energy in space is probably a longer term research and development project," Rumbaugh said, noting there are concepts in the area but not many developed prototypes.

Bogdan, the Booz Allen Hamilton executive, said he expects the atmosphere will place limits on lasers, explaining that the atmosphere would dissipate and distort a laser in space. But those weapons could be used on another space target or below the atmosphere.

Space-based interceptors also could include satellites with a "kill vehicle" on board that could bring down a missile.

Booz Allen is pitching "Brilliant Swarm," a network of satellites connected via artificial intelligence that could track a threat and then select one among them to fire on it, Bogdan said. He likened the interceptor to a bullet in a gun, which would only need to be 10 to 20 kilograms to bring down a missile. It's a solution that would be built on technology that already exists.

Speaking generally, Bogdan said, it's possible prototypes of satellites with kill vehicles could fly within three years, giving the country initial capability.

While Rumbaugh called the investment in Golden Dome a start, a "considerable hurdle" will likely be securing the additional $150 billion in funding, because Congress has struggled to pass regular budgets, relying instead on continuing resolutions that leave funding in place but do not add money for new programs.

Another challenge could be recent cuts to the Space Force's civilian workforce. The military branch has lost 14% of its civilians this year through deferred resignations and retirements.

Many civilians in the Space Force have exquisite knowledge of systems and to lose them seems problematic, said retired Air Force Col. Jennifer Reeves, now a senior resident fellow in Spacepower Studies with the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies.

She said it would make sense to walk back the cuts so Space Force can work on Golden Dome. Reeves said it's likely civilians with the Space Force may go into the private sector and take their knowledge of systems with them.

"I absolutely see our big contracting companies wanting to snatch them right up," she said.

As the Space Force absorbs the workload, it's likely tasks will be picked up by contractors, Reeves said, a solution she said would carry heavier upfront costs than employing civilians.

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