President Donald Trump’s order for the military to build an advanced homeland missile shield will require a level of government cooperation akin to World War II’s Manhattan Project, a top Space Force official said this week.
“It’s going to take concerted effort from the very top of our government,” Vice Chief of Space Operations Gen. Michael Guetlein said Wednesday. “It’s going to take national will to bring all this together. It’s going to be a heavy lift across all the organizations that are going to be participating.”
In an executive order signed just one week into his second term, Trump directed the Pentagon to start making plans for a “Golden Dome” missile defense capability made up of advanced sensors and interceptors designed to track and neutralize both traditional and high-end missile threats.
In response, the Space Force, Missile Defense Agency, National Reconnaissance Office and other Defense Department agencies have been crafting options for achieving that vision. They plan to provide a response to the White House by the end of March.
Experts and officials have pointed out the technical challenges the Golden Dome presents — particularly when it comes to space-based interceptors. But speaking this week at the National Security Innovation Base conference in Washington, D.C., Guetlein said he thinks the biggest hurdles will be collaboration among the various organizations tasked with contributing to the project.
“Without a doubt, the biggest challenge is going to be organizational behavior and culture,” he said. “We are not accustomed to having to integrate at the level that’s going to be required.”
The Pentagon hasn’t yet delegated responsibilities for the Golden Dome. And while Chief of Space Operations Gen. Chance Saltzman has said the Space Force will likely play a central role, Guetlein noted that the effort must be collaborative because of the different expertise each organization offers.
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The Missile Defense Agency, for example, specializes in defending against ballistic missile threats and integrating complicated systems. MDA also has a robust testing enterprise, Guetlein said, with advanced modeling and simulation capabilities that will be crucial for the project.
The Space Force, on the other hand, has a fleet of missile-warning satellites in orbit now, and the service is launching a proliferated low Earth orbit constellation developed by the Space Development Agency. Those spacecraft will provide key communications capabilities to link the space sensors that detect a target to the “shooters,” or weapon systems, designed to attack it.
“All of that kit has got to come together and be integrated in a system-of-systems type fashion,” Guetlein said.
Trump’s executive order also directed DOD to consider whether it would need additional authorities to deliver these capabilities quickly. One of the biggest needs from the Space Force perspective is the approval to conduct on-orbit testing and training, Guetlein said.
“It’s a very constrained set of authorities that we have to do on-orbit test and on-orbit training, and we would ask that that open up so that we can increase our readiness of our forces on the front line to be able to do that protect and defend mission,” he said.
Courtney Albon is C4ISRNET’s space and emerging technology reporter. She has covered the U.S. military since 2012, with a focus on the Air Force and Space Force. She has reported on some of the Defense Department’s most significant acquisition, budget and policy challenges.
