The Pentagon’s Golden Dome missile defense effort has stood up its first operational site and begun construction work at sites across the United States as it pushes toward an operational capability in 2028, program director Gen. Michael Guetlein said Sept. 14.
Speaking at the Air and Space Forces Association’s Air, Space & Cyber Conference in National Harbor, Md., Guetlein pointed to the construction activity and recent testing as evidence that the ambitious homeland missile defense program is progressing on schedule.
“We’re already digging dirt, we stood up our first operational site already, and have been digging dirt across the homeland, building the construction of our sites,” Guetlein said. “So, we have the evidence that says we’re making the progress that we told Congress and told the president that we would make, and we have the testing evidence that says we’re on the right path.”
“I firmly believe that we will deliver an operational capability in the summer of ’28,” he added.
The project – initially priced at $175 billion – is now estimated to cost $185 billion. Guetlein said the program is “progressing on schedule.”
Guetlein said Golden Dome has put space-based interceptors, command-and-control capabilities, radars, and some munitions under contract. The program has also twice tested its command-and-control capability – once last December and again this summer – with successful results, he said.
“We’re not talking a lot about the architecture to the general public because we don’t want to give the adversary a heads up,” Guetlein said. “We are sharing it with our stakeholders. We’re not sharing it with our adversary. That is very intentional.”
Sustaining Golden Dome’s funding
Sen. Deb Fischer, R-Neb., chair of the Senate Armed Services Strategic Forces Subcommittee, warned that sustaining Golden Dome will require continued funding commitments from Congress and future administrations.
Fischer said she is worried about maintaining that commitment and said that Golden Dome funding should move through the regular appropriations process to provide greater long-term certainty.
“We had $24 billion in reconciliation last year for Golden Dome. That was fine, but in my opinion, that’s not the way we can have certainty going forward,” Fischer said. “I believe we have to go through an appropriations process, and we have to have that commitment.”
“When I look at Golden Dome and the support we have, I would say that there still is a lot of work that has to be done,” the senator added.
The Golden Dome program, announced by executive order on Jan. 27, 2025, is the centerpiece of President Donald Trump’s missile defense strategy. The administration describes it as a next-generation missile defense shield intended to protect the United States homeland from hypersonic and other advanced missile threats.