Slides reveal details of prosed Golden Dome
By: Mike Stone
Reuters
WASHINGTON - The Trump administration's flagship Golden Dome missile defense system will include four layers - one satellite-based and three on land - with 11 short-range batteries located across the continental United States. Alaska and Hawaii, according to a federal government slide presentation on the project first reported by Reuters.
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The slides -tagged "go Fast, Think Big!" were recently presented to 3,000 defense contractors in Huntsville, Alabama, and reveal the unprecedented complexity of the system, which faces an ambitious 2028 deadline set by President Donald Trump.
..... The system is estimated to cost $175 billion, but the slides show uncertainties still loom over the basic architecture of the project because the number of launches, interceptors, ground stations and missile sites needed for the system have yet to be determined.
..... "They have a lot of money, but they don't have a target of what it costs yet," said one official.
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So far, Congress has appropriated $25 billion for the system in Trump's tax-and-spending bill passed in July. [2025] another $45.3 billion is earmarked in Trump's 2026 presidential budget request.
..... Intended as a multi-layered missile defense shield for the United States, Golden Dome draws inspiration from Israel's Iron Dome, but is significantly bigger due to the geography it will need to protect and the complexity due to the varied threats in will face.
..... According to the slides, the system architecture consists of four integrated layers: a space-based sensing and agenting layer for missile warning and tracking as will as "missile defense" and three land-based layers consisting of missile interceptors, radar arrays and potentially lasers.
..... One surprise was a new large missile field - seemingly in the Midwest according to a map contained in the presentation - for Next Generation Interceptors, which are made by Lockheed Martin," and would be a part of the "upper layer" alongside Terminal High altitude Areas Defiance Aegis systems, also made by Lockheed.
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NGI the modernized missile for the Ground-Based Mid-course Defense, or GMD, network, of radars, interceptors and other equipment -currently the primary missile defense shield to protect the United States from intercontinental ballistic missiles from rogue states. The United States operates GMD launch sites in Southern California and Alaska. This plan would add a third site in the Midwest to counter additional threats.
..... The presentation highlighted that the United States "has built both interceptors and er-entry vehicles" but has never built a vehicle that can handle the what of reentry while targeting an enemy missile. The last lies of defense, dubbed the "under layer" and "Limited Area Defense," will include radars and current systems and a new "common" launcher that will launch current and future interceptors against all threat types. These modular and relocatable systems would be designed to minimize reliance on prepared sites, allowing for rapid deployment across multiple theaters.