More than 1,000 firms have been tapped to potentially work on the planned “Golden Dome for America,” an ambitious, multi-layered missile defense system intended to protect the United States from ballistic, cruise, and hypersonic missile threats.
Earlier this month, the Missile Defense Agency (MDA) announced the first phase of staggered awards under its Scalable Homeland Innovative Enterprise Layered Defense (SHIELD) contract. It was provided to 1,014 qualifying offerors, with an indefinite-delivery, indefinite-quantity contract valued at up to $151 billion over a decade.
“All responsive offerors have been notified of their inclusion or exclusion from the competitive range, via email to the User Email identified in the PIEE proposal submission. If a company did not receive notification of inclusion or exclusion from the competitive range, they were not considered responsive,” an MDA notice explained.
This first phase was intended to establish a portfolio of qualified firms capable of working on the Golden Dome for America or similar programs.
“These initial awards are not for firm requirements – Golden Dome or otherwise,” MDA spokesman Mark Wright said in an email to Defense News. “Rather, these IDIQ awards are the first of many in establishing a portfolio of qualified SHIELD IDIQ holders.”
18 OTA Contracts Awarded
It was also reported this week that the Department of Defense (DoD) awarded 18 contracts for the space-based interceptor (SBI) technology, a core component of the Golden Dome for America program. It follows news of the issuance of contracts last month to Northrop Grumman and Anduril, valued at $10 million.
However, the specific companies were not named.
During a panel discussion at the Reagan National Defense Forum on December 6, in Simi Valley, California,
U.S. Space Force General Michael Guetlein, the Golden Dome program director, confirmed the award of 18 other transaction authority contracts for boost-phase SBIs.
Guetlein highlighted the need for SBIs, comparing them to the “Brilliant Pebbles,” the space-based ballistic missile defense (BMD) system proposed by Lowell Wood and Edward Teller of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) in 1987, near the end of the Cold War.
The “Brilliant Pebbles” were considered a key component of President Ronald Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), the space-based missile defense system known as “Star Wars.” Guetlein noted that the Brilliant Pebbles worked, but failed on scalability and cost.
The goal of this effort is to use today’s technology to make the system scalable and affordable.
The Golden Dome chief also called for the U.S. to flip the paradigm: instead of employing a few SBIs with tiny magazines and a “huge cost per shot,” it must pursue high magazine capacity with a low cost per shot.
“It is highly effective, highly lethal, but it costs an enormous amount of money, and as a result, we have a minimal magazine depth of that kit. When we start talking about things like space-based interceptors, I’ve got to flip that equation on its head. I’ve got to have high magazine depth, low cost per shot,” said Guetlein.
Space 2028
General Guetlein has called for a change in the industry and in contracting, even as he acknowledged that the industry has delivered what the DoD has requested. Instead of building in small quantities, the Golden Dome for America will require a greater focus on capacity, depth, and stable multi-year buys.
It will also need to leverage other services’ contracts rather than building everything “from scratch.” Moreover, while the Golden Dome is meant to protect the continental United States, the technology could be transferred and utilized in other theaters.
“Golden Dome is about partnering with industry in new and innovative ways to tap into the innovation and to do it in a partnership and to do it with transparency,” the general added.
The goal of the program is for it to reach “operational” capability by 2028.
“That will not be the final capability, but we will have the ability to protect and defend the nation against advanced threats by the summer of 2028,” Guetlein explained.
“Space is not a sanctuary anymore,” Guetlein also warned, noting that potential near-peer adversaries such as China and Russia are fielding anti-satellite weapons, including robotic “kidnappers” or “nesting doll” kill vehicles. In that regard, Golden Dome shouldn’t be seen as starting a space-based arms race, but rather is responding to one.
“For years, decades, we’ve relied on the oceans to keep us safe and to take the fight to the enemy. And our adversaries have become very capable and very intent on holding us at risk in the homeland,” said Guetlein. “And unfortunately, we don’t have a lot of capability to protect and defend ourselves, which makes deterrence by denial a challenge.”
