New details emerge about Trump’s US$175 billion Golden Dome missile defence system
Golden Dome, which faces an ambitious 2028 deadline, will be equipped with satellite tracking and 11 short-range missile batteries
The Trump administration’s flagship Golden Dome missile defence system will include four layers – one satellite-based and three on land – with 11 short-range batteries located across the continental US, Alaska and Hawaii, according to a US government slide presentation on the project first reported by Reuters.
The slides, tagged “Go Fast, Think Big!”, were presented to 3,000 defence contractors in Huntsville, Alabama, last week and reveal the unprecedented complexity of the system, which faces an ambitious 2028 deadline set by US President Donald Trump.
The system is estimated to cost US$175 billion, but the slides show uncertainties still loom over the basic architecture of the project because the number of launchers, interceptors, ground stations and missile sites needed for the system has yet to be determined.
“They have a lot of money, but they don’t have a target of what it costs yet,” said one US official. So far, Congress has appropriated US$25 billion for Golden Dome in Trump’s tax-and-spend bill passed in July. Another US$45.3 billion is earmarked for Golden Dome in his 2026 presidential budget request.
Intended as a multilayered missile defence 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 it will face.
According to the slides, the system architecture consists of four integrated layers: a space-based sensing and targeting layer for missile warning and tracking as well as “missile defence” and three land-based layers consisting of missile interceptors, radar arrays, and potentially lasers.