Golden Dome Update
- Jessie Desmond
- Jul 25
- 4 min read
The US Golden Dome Missile Shield Program is a space defense project is considered the "next generation defense shield" that will be capable of identifying incoming projectiles, calculating trajectory and deploying interceptor missiles to destroy them mid-flight, safeguard the nation, and to project American Strength, per Lockheed Martin's website. Lockheed Martin also claims that this is "a Manhattan Project-scale mission". Lockheed Martin is planning on being a major contractor on this project. The Golden Dome will be run by General Michael A. Guetlein of the US Space Force. Space Force bases and stations are located in Alaska, California, Colorado, Florida, Massachusetts, North Dakota, Hawaii, New Hampshire, and Greenland.
On July 22, 2025, the Innovate Space conference, hosted by the Space Foundation, was held in Arlington, VA and provided some extra insight into the upcoming Golden Dome project. The government is planning on utilizing the commercial space industry to help build and operate this project, which means that there should be an increase in employment opportunities from a wide variety of sectors in the near future.
According to Heather Pringle, CEO of Space Foundation, the 2024 global space defense spending total was only $60B with $47.8B of that for the US and the majority of that spending going towards Space Force. The new Golden Dome Missile Shield Program will be funded up to $175B, 1.25 times as much as what was spent in 2024 globally.
General Michael A. Guetlein of the US Space Force, having just reached day 2 of his official position on the Golden Dome, talked at the Innovate Space conference on threats, Golden Dome capabilities, and upcoming innovation. China and Russia have been developing a nuclear arsenal. Additionally, they have been creating ballistic missiles with decoys, jammers, spoofers, etc; stealth cruise missiles; hypersonic missiles that can fly at an excess of 6000 mph; launching weapons that look like satellites but can target any place on the earth they want; submarines that can sneak up on the US shores. Due to these threats, the US decided to implement the Golden Dome.
Overall it will start to combine a number of individual defenses into one. The first year goals will include the capabilities to integrate various command and control across multiple platforms (Military, Department of Defense, etc), create an integrated network of sensors and interceptors across the entire military, and demonstrations at 6-month intervals.
General Guetlein was given the authority for direct-hire. His aims are to pull from the military and from the academic realms. He plans on keeping his new program core small, aiming around 30 people. This should be a fast-paced work environment, as the time frames are short and expectations are high.
"Basically, I've been given 60 days to come up with the objective architecture. I owe that back to the Deputy Secretary of Defense in 60 days," Guetlein said. "So, in 60 days, I'll be able to talk in depth about, 'Hey, this is our vision for what we want to get after for Golden Dome.'"
One aspect of the Golden Dome plan is to leverage the commercial space industry, a sector that has a lot of research and development and innovation. This move will increase government-commercial and government-institution partnerships and could warrant an increase in future research and development funding. Guetlein wants to change the culture to increase government-commercial-institution communication and trust, increase transparency, and create a better space industry community as a whole.
Planned partnerships for the Golden Dome will likely include: Lockheed Martin, Northrup Grumman, Amazon Kuiper Government Solutions, SpaceX (though this is subject to change), Stoke Space, and Rocket Labs. According to Guetlein, they are open to working with well established and new players in the industry.
Rick Freeman, President of Amazon Kuiper Government Solutions, stated that the national defense sector should expect increasing speed and connectivity through the new Amazon Kuiper satellites, a high-speed low-latency low earth orbit (LEO) satellite constellation. While this will benefit consumers, it will also provide Amazon Secured Global Broadband for national defense, including: space domain awareness, space situational awareness, artificial intelligence, internet of military things enabled optical mesh networking, and other space-as-a-service capabilities. Amazon Kuiper Government Solutions expects to expand its reach to remote locations, increase users and outreach, provide sustainable solutions and strong leadership, lower RDT&E (research, development, testing, and evaluation) costs, reduce time to market, increase job availability, and help grow the commercial space economy.
What About Alaska?
Alaska, which is a strategic location against the main threats of China and Russia, will see an increase of infrastructure at Clear Space Force Base, Fort Greely, and the Cobra Dane Radar System in the Aleutian Islands.
In a Newsmax interview, President Donald Trump stated, "Alaska is involved and Alaska is a big part of it because the location is sort of perfect. I think it’s your first line of defense in certain instances."
In the same interview, Senator Dan Sullivan joined the conversation stating, "I will tell you, the big difference is, it's not just the ground-based missile interceptors that we have in places like Alaska that can take out intercontinental ballistic missiles. It's the space layer. That's really different. That's important. The space layer in the Golden Dome is going to be not only detecting missiles and detecting threats, but intercepting them, shooting them down from space. That's something different. That's a much more significant technology, but we have the capacity to do it. That's what is exciting. We need to do it."
Alaska should plan on seeing some new space-related infrastructure projects come up for bid by the end of 2025. Anyone considering manufacturing for the space industry within the state, this is the time to take those steps. Alaska may see an increase in ground stations, the need for space logistics, and an increase of launch industry as a result of the Golden Dome.
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