WASHINGTON — Space industry executives said they are continuing to invest in the Golden Dome missile defense initiative despite uncertainty about its scope, cost and long-term political durability.
At the SmallSat Symposium in Mountain View, Calif., industry analyst Chris Quilty raised questions about whether the program will endure or follow the path of past high-profile cancellations.
“We’ve all heard talks about $25 billion in the budget this year, and hundreds of billions or trillions of dollars, depending upon how you size it,” said Quilty, chief executive of consulting firm Quilty Space. He described Golden Dome as a “budget crosswalk … an amalgamation of things” rather than an actual program.
More than a year after President Donald Trump issued an executive order directing the Pentagon to pursue the effort, Quilty asked executives whether they viewed it as durable. “Is this something that has staying power, or is this another Crusader program or Comanche that runs its course for several years and gets canceled?” he said.
Quilty was referring to the Crusader artillery system and the Comanche helicopter, two Army modernization efforts from the 1990s and early 2000s that were canceled after billions of dollars in spending amid concerns over cost growth and shifting priorities.
Golden Dome is envisioned as a layered homeland defense network integrating ground, airborne and space-based systems to detect, track and intercept ballistic, hypersonic and cruise missiles.
Execs see an enduring problem
Mark Hanson, senior mission architect at Redwire, said his company sees the missile defense challenge as enduring beyond any one administration.
“Our position is that it’s a real problem, the budget notwithstanding,” Hanson said. “Whether it’s Golden Dome or some other name, it’s a real problem that does have to be solved to defend the country. So to that extent, we are devoting internal resources, working with teammates to begin to architect and understand how we would go about solving it.”
Hanson said Redwire is using digital engineering to model “system of systems” scenarios. Missile threats are not going away, he said. “And in that sense, however it’s defined as a budget item, a crosswalk or wherever, we are actively looking into solutions as to how you would solve it.”
Chris Daywalt, vice president of growth at Loft Federal, the U.S. subsidiary of Loft Orbital, said the issue is likely to remain a priority beyond the current administration.
“This problem will persist through administrations, through different congresses,” he said. “This is a significant call to action that we need to get after, and the technologies to do that we’ve been developing for years, and we’re continuing to deploy them,” he added. “That call to action represents a reason for us to continue to invest into this and continue to prepare how we’re going to go after the different line items that inevitably will come out.”
John Vargas, executive vice president of growth at Voyager Technologies, said his company is investing in propulsion systems, space electronics, radios and cameras that could support a Golden Dome architecture. Such technologies, he said, “can empower the Golden Dome architecture, but can also empower other solutions that are being developed by the Space Force and others.”
Cost estimates for Golden Dome vary widely. Trump has cited a baseline figure of roughly $175 billion over about a decade. The Congressional Budget Office has said the effort could cost as much as $831 billion over 20 years, while some outside analysts have suggested total life-cycle costs could reach multiple trillions of dollars.
Congress has approved significant early funding. The 2025 budget reconciliation law directed roughly $24 billion to integrated air and missile defense work associated with Golden Dome. For fiscal 2026, appropriators and budget documents show about $23 billion more directed toward the initiative, though lawmakers have pressed the Pentagon for a more detailed spending plan.
Despite those appropriations, there is still a lack of clarity on what the program entails. “I think we still don’t have a good idea of what Golden Dome is,” Quilty said.
The program manager, Gen. Michael Guetlein, has said in public appearances that he does not intend to provide open briefings on Golden Dome because of cybersecurity threats from foreign actors. “So they’ve decided to basically keep the entire program behind the classified wall,” Quilty noted.
John Rood, president and chief executive of in-space transportation startup Momentus, said he has “mixed emotions” about that approach. Rood, a former U.S. defense intelligence official, said he understands the need to protect sensitive information. At the same time, “part of our strength in the United States is this open system by which we can have that innovation.”
Government communication about needs helps guide private capital and companies, Rood said. Large defense contractors “have large teams of people that can spend a great deal of time fleshing out and ferreting out this kind of information. But a bit of a separate set of ecosystems have developed over time as a result.” The commercial space industry “operates very differently, and the demands upon smaller companies that are innovative are different, and so therefore having a more of an open dialog is helpful for encouraging that separate set of players to contribute to the national effort,” he said.
Countries such as China have been “very aggressive” in attempting to access sensitive information, Rood said. However, the U.S. should not lose faith in its system of open communications, he added. “But there is a balance that I understand General Guetlein is trying to strike, but I would personally like to see more of an open dialog about some of the challenges that need to be met, to encourage some of these other players to come in from the tech industry.”
Related