OPINION — “The Golden Dome for America Business Summit will probably be held on June 11, 2025 on the Von Braun Heart downtown Huntsville, Ala., on the UNCLASSIFIED stage…The purpose of the Summit is to equip non-traditional and trade companions with the data and understanding of MDA’s [Missile Defense Agency] and Area Power’s function in Golden Dome for America, empowering them to take concrete actions that help and align with authorities necessities. There will probably be no deliberate One-on-One classes, or panels throughout the occasion. Non-Conventional Contractors are extremely inspired to attend as MDA is extraordinarily fascinated with ‘outdoors the field’ considering and we consider that non-traditional contractors are important to shaping the way forward for missile protection.”
That was a Might 13, MDA announcement to contractors of an trade day to listen to extra about Trump’s Golden Dome thought for an anti-missile protection for all the United States.
On Might 20, President Trump introduced from the Oval Workplace that he had chosen an structure for the system that “could be totally operational by the top of my time period,” which means January 20, 2029. He added, “We’re in all probability speaking about $175 billion whole value.” That’s an quantity and a timeframe that most individuals with expertise in related businesses consider are completely unrealistic.
Then on Might 22, MDA launched a pre-solicitation discover to publicize its intent to concern — someday in June — the primary contract proposals associated to the Golden Dome structure. MDA has given the bureaucratic identify Scalable Homeland Enterprise Layered Protection (SHIELD) to the general contracting car for use by it and different taking part Protection Division (DoD) businesses.
MDA defined, “As a long-planned technique, SHIELD will permit MDA and different DoD entities to quickly concern orders underneath one enterprise versatile [contracting] car.”
However maybe extra importantly, these proposed contracts, in response to the MDA discover, anticipate “a interval of efficiency of 10 years, which is able to encompass a base ordering interval and a number of non-obligatory ordering intervals.” As well as, MDA’s pre-solicitation discover mentioned, “The anticipated said most worth [of the proposed contracts] is $151 billion. Particular person order awards will consist of assorted contract varieties.”
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MDA’s assertion of labor is breathtaking: “The MDA requires a sophisticated, multi-domain protection system able to detecting, monitoring, intercepting, and neutralizing threats to the USA homeland, its deployed forces, allies, and mates throughout all phases of flight by ballistic, hypersonic, and cruise missiles, and different superior aerial assaults.”
It additionally requires “steady, layered safety in opposition to air, missile, house, cyber, and hybrid threats originating from any vector – land, sea, air, house, or our on-line world. This effort helps companies and provides of each categorized and unclassified applications on a number of safety domains.”
Maybe SHIELD’s most formidable purpose is: “This contract will present fast supply of progressive capabilities to the warfighter with elevated velocity and agility, leveraging synthetic intelligence and machine learning-enabled functions the place pertinent, and maximizing use of digital engineering, open techniques architectures, model-based techniques engineering, and agile processes within the acquisition, growth, fielding, and sustainment of those capabilities.”
It first needs to be understood that Golden Dome is known as a plan to develop on varied present native and regional U.S. missile protection techniques that are already deployed, plus new parts presently in growth.
What these techniques have in widespread are sensors and interceptors. The sensors should be capable of monitor the goal from launch by way of trajectory to terminal dive. Interceptors should be capable of get shut sufficient to destroy targets all through their increase part, midcourse, and terminal descent.
Gen. Michael Guetlein, Area Power’s vice chief of operations, who’s Trump’s selection to steer the Golden Dome effort, has instructed Congress that Golden Dome would require unprecedented cooperation amongst present navy anti-missile techniques, together with ground-based Military Patriot missiles and THAAD interceptors, the Navy AEGIS ship-fired missiles, and the Air Power and Area Power satellites for sensors and space-based weapons.
Earlier, earlier than he was named, Guetlein seemed to the long run telling a Senate subcommittee, “Investing in maneuverable satellites geared up with state-of-the-art sensors will improve our skill to detect and monitor rising threats, making certain we will keep fixed consciousness of the battle-space, present well timed warnings, and in the end, deny our adversaries the ingredient of shock. These capabilities [will] help to ship on the President’s Golden Dome for America initiative and spotlight the central function space-based capabilities will play in bringing that effort to fruition.”
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Guetlein additionally raised an fascinating, unpublicized concern: One of many largest wants is the approval to conduct on-orbit testing and coaching. “It’s a really constrained set of authorities that we have now…We might ask that that [on-orbit testing, training] open up in order that we will improve our readiness of our forces on the entrance line to have the ability to try this shield and defend mission,” he mentioned.
Trump’s Golden Dome plan requires “growth and deployment of proliferated space-based interceptors (SBIs) able to boost-phase intercept,” a weapon that doesn’t but exist.
As many consultants have identified, SBIs must be positioned on satellites in low-earth orbit so they might spot the flame/warmth from launched missile throughout the three-to-four minutes of the increase part that begins a missile’s flight.
Right here is the tough half. Somebody or one thing has to provide the order to shoot inside a minute or two and your SBI must be in place to hit the rising missile. Since SBIs are at all times in movement, you want a parade of SBI-armed satellites to defend in opposition to one missile, and twice that many in opposition to two, and so forth.
Since Golden Dome should think about each Russia and China, plus North Korea as potential missile threats, which means the U.S. may very well be 10,000 or extra SBI satellites for even minimal deterrence.
There was a logical motive why the Reagan administration dropped the concept of its Strategic Protection Initiative (Star Wars), and I consider the SBI ingredient of Trump’s Golden Dome plan might face the identical future.
For sure simply proposing Golden Dome defenses has drawn threats from Moscow and Beijing that their reply might very nicely be extra offensive weapons – and maybe a few of them in house – resulting in a complete new arms race – in house.
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