President Donald Trump’s ambitious “Golden Dome” missile defense initiative is rapidly gaining momentum within the Pentagon, with military officials scrambling to develop a nationwide shield designed to protect the entire United States from long-range missile attacks. The project, which faces significant technical and financial hurdles, has been designated as a top White House priority with instructions that financial resources will not be constrained.
The President signed an executive order in January directing Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to develop a strategy for a next-generation defense shield. The order tasks the Secretary of Defense with submitting a reference architecture, capabilities-based requirements, and an implementation plan by March 28, 2025.
Trump has asked Congress to fund the “Golden Dome” missile defense shield, indicating that congressional approval will be necessary for allocating resources to the project. GOP lawmakers in both the House and Senate are pushing for at least a $100 billion increase in defense spending over the next decade to support President Trump’s agenda, including the creation of his missile defense system.
Originally called “Iron Dome for America” in reference to Israel’s successful short-range missile defense system, the Pentagon renamed the initiative to “Golden Dome” in February 2025. The name change helps distinguish the U.S. project from Israel’s system while aligning with President Trump’s rhetoric about ushering in a “golden age in America”.
According to Vice Chief of Space Operations Michael Guetlein, implementing the Golden Dome will require collaboration on a scale comparable to the Manhattan Project that developed the atomic bomb.
The initiative aims to create a comprehensive defense system capable of countering various threats, including ballistic missiles, hypersonic weapons, and advanced cruise missiles. While Israel’s Iron Dome is designed to protect a territory comparable to New Jersey from short-range threats, Trump envisions a space-based missile defense system capable of safeguarding the entire United States from sophisticated ballistic and hypersonic missiles.
While specifics of the system remain largely undefined beyond its name, Pentagon officials have been instructed to incorporate future financial allocations for the Golden Dome into budget forecasts for 2026 to 2030.
A 2024 study published in Defense and Peace Economics estimates that developing a multi-layered missile defense system with a 50% interception success rate could cost anywhere from $430 billion to $5.3 trillion. The U.S. Department of Defense fiscal year 2025 (FY2025) budget request was $849.8 billion.
According to GovExec Space Project, the missile defence system may include the following components:
- A defense against ballistic, hypersonic, advanced cruise missiles, and other next-generation aerial attacks from peer, near-peer, and rogue adversaries.
- Acceleration of the deployment of the Hypersonic and Ballistic Tracking Space Sensor layer.
- Development and deployment of space-based interceptors capable of boost-phase intercept.
- Deployment of underlayer and terminal-phase intercept capabilities to defeat a countervalue attack.
- Development and deployment of capabilities to defeat missile attacks prior to launch and in the boost phase.
- Development and deployment of non-kinetic capabilities to augment the kinetic defeat of ballistic, hypersonic, advanced cruise missiles, and other next-generation aerial attacks.
Defense contractors are positioning themselves to secure portions of what promises to be a lucrative long-term project. Lockheed Martin has already established a dedicated webpage for the Golden Dome initiative.
