This article is published in Aviation Week & Space Technology and is free to read until Aug 08, 2025. If you want to read more articles from this publication, please click the link to subscribe.
Lawmakers and Northrop Grumman are looking at increasing Ground-Based Interceptor production as part of the Golden Dome.
In 1991, TRW Space & Technology Group took on a $340.5 million contract to build “Brilliant Pebbles,” the most technologically complex part of the Reagan-era Strategic Defense Initiative.
The ill-fated program, famously known as “Star Wars,” sought to build space-based interceptors that would orbit the Earth and take down missiles launched by the Soviet Union. The plan quickly fizzled, however, because of rising costs and immature technology. Decades after acquiring TRW, Northrop Grumman has, in a way, dusted off that plan—bolstered by massive technological gains and a more affordable era of space launch—as part of its offering for the Golden Dome for America.
- Trump wants the system in place within three years
- Initial focus is on scaling up existing technology
“We were the prime contractor way back when,” says Rob Fleming, corporate vice president and president of Space Systems at Northrop Grumman. “At the time, the technology was not ready for the type of capability that was needed. The capabilities today I am much more optimistic about.”
The Golden Dome has quickly gone from a January executive order that took much of the defense and space world by surprise to a program with a nominated executive and, as of early July, about $25 billion set to be authorized to start. White House plans, the Pentagon’s budget request and a Republican-led bill have all outlined specific steps to ramp up production of existing systems and develop new ones to make the Golden Dome somewhat real by the end of President Donald Trump’s term in 2029; the spending plan includes $175 billion over three years to try to achieve that.
“There’s meaningful capability that can be scaled,” Fleming says. “Is it going to solve every single threat in Year 3? I think that’s optimistic, but we can get a meaningful distance down the track. Absolutely.”
Trump outlined his anticipated architecture for the Golden Dome in the Oval Office on May 20. Standing a few feet to his right was Space Force Gen. Michael Guetlein, vice chief of space operations, who as of early July was still awaiting Senate confirmation to take the lead on the Golden Dome. Guetlein previously worked at critical organizations, including the service’s Space Systems Command, where he oversaw acquisition, as well as the Missile Defense Agency (MDA) and National Reconnaissance Office.
Realizing the Golden Dome will require a “whole-of-government” approach that will bring together the Pentagon and intelligence committees and will require a change of behavior among companies, Guetlein told an audience of intelligence-focused industry representatives on July 2.
“American technology and capabilities exist today to build the Golden Dome,” Guetlein said. “The technology exists today. However, the capabilities are spread across multiple [Defense Department] services, agencies and stovepipes. Golden Dome is not [as much] a technological challenge as it is an organization behavior challenge.”
Guetlein provided an extensive overview of the current vision of a Golden Dome architecture, broken down into four layers. A space layer would be supported by new space-based interceptors, the Space Development Agency’s (SDA) Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture (PWSA), the MDA’s Hypersonic and Ballistic Tracking Space Sensor (HBTSS) and Discriminating Space Sensor, ground and air moving-target-indication capabilities, and new counter-command-and-control systems both on the ground and in space.
An upper-tier layer would rely on Ground-Based Interceptors, Next-Generation Interceptors (NGI), Glide-Phase Interceptors, Standard Missile-3s and space-based interceptors, all connected to Ground-Based Midcourse Defense and over-the-horizon radars to defend against ballistic missiles.
The middle tier would comprise Lockheed Martin Patriot PAC-3 Missile Segment Enhancement and Standard Missile-6 interceptors. A lower tier would combine PAC-3s with newly developed interceptors—including network-enabled, container-launched systems—plus Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense interceptors and a new Joint Laser Weapon System, using AN/TPY-2 radars for hypersonic, cruise and ballistic missile defense. Lastly, new and existing sensors would monitor and target weapons before they are launched.
One company cannot produce or integrate architecture of this scale alone, nor can one part of the government, Guetlein said. “Golden Dome will require the defense industrial base to expand and to change behaviors,” he noted.
Northrop Grumman is pitching ways to bring together existing systems at a new scale to address this problem. For example, Fleming says Northrop is connecting its Ground-Based Midcourse Defense work with the air defense-focused Integrated Battle Command System that it is building for the U.S. Army.
Much of the sensing and space-based interceptor work is classified, although Fleming says Northrop has fielded the most space-based sensing capabilities in the past 40 years, including interceptors “of all different flavors” for different threats. Space-based interceptors dating back to the TRW days are needed to counter weapons in the boost, midcourse and glide phases. Additionally, he says space-based interceptors are needed to target weapons that are put into space to await launch orders.
“When you put all that together, as a company, we’ve got a ton of investment, a ton of technology,” Fleming says. “We have significant capacity to build hundreds of satellites. It’s an extension. . . . It’s more capacity of existing systems that are fielded today, some of which we build in large quantities, and then it’s integration of systems that perhaps historically have been fairly stand-alone.”
A group of Republican lawmakers in late June put forward a new bill further specifying the existing technology they want to see. The Golden Dome Act, which aims to authorize programmatic spending included in the One Big Beautiful Bill reconciliation package, would create a new Southern Hemisphere-facing early warning radar system to help detect and track such threats as China’s Fractional Orbital Bombardment System. The bill also calls for a new Aegis Ashore tracking system in Hawaii, for the SDA to accelerate three more tranches of the PWSA, and for the MDA to speed up its HBTSS by outfitting at least 40 space vehicles with payloads for the system.
The lawmakers want to increase NGI numbers to as many as 80 interceptors, speed up the GPI development and accelerate fielding of ground-mobile interceptors and radars. The bill also calls on the Pentagon to study space-based interceptors. Space Systems Command’s Program Executive Office for Space Combat Power on June 27 released a solicitation for the capability, including the interceptor itself and fire-control capabilities. The request for information calls for a host satellite, inflight target update capability and terminal guidance system to hit targets outside the Earth’s atmosphere or within, below 120 km (75 mi.).
Fleming says technological change, coupled with an unprecedented sense of urgency in the past several months, could make the Golden Dome a reality, if everything lines up right—a “Manhattan Project-type effort” that could create the right acquisition responsibilities as well as significant funding, the right talent and correct contracting responsibilities.
“Pulling all of that together in a structure that is driving toward an outcome is what is needed to be done,” he says. “And the government, I think, is making great starts to get there in general.”
Related Content
