The U.S. Space Force recently signed approximately six small-scale Golden Dome contracts with competing missile-defense prototypes, sparking a race that could lead to tens of billions of dollars in future deals, two informed sources told Reuters.
The contractors included Northrop Grumman, True Anomaly, Lockheed Martin and Anduril, according to the Reuters article that ran Tuesday.
The development marks progress in the Pentagon’s efforts to improve the U.S. projectile interception capabilities. It includes prototypes of space-based systems, according to Reuters. A July Pentagon presentation suggested awards for the contracts would be about $120,000 each, though the news agency does not have an overview of the total expenditure at this stage.
In May, U.S. President Donald Trump unveiled plans to spend $175 billion on the American missile-defense system dubbed “Golden Dome,” saying it will emulate and expand on the success of Israel’s Iron Dome.
The design “will integrate with our existing defense capabilities and should be fully operational before the end of my term,” Trump said in an Oval Office announcement. “Once fully constructed, the Golden Dome will be capable of intercepting missiles even if they are launched from other sides of the world and even if they are launched from space.”
A Space Force spokesperson confirmed the awards to Reuters, but the contracts have not yet been publicly announced. The spokesperson, who declined to name contractors, noted that deals under $9 million are exempted from public disclosure.
The final production of the systems based on the prototypes built with the awards may be worth tens of billions of dollars. The prototypes are of phase interceptors designed to shoot down a missile as it enters space, Reuters reported. Fire control stations will coordinate signals from satellites and help interceptors launch and acquire their targets.
Under the deal, contractors are to develop four different versions of interceptors to address threats at various altitudes and speeds that have yet to be awarded. A third source told Reuters that the four interceptor pools may be consolidated into three.
A Northrop spokesperson declined to comment to a query and Anduril, Lockheed, and True Anomaly did not immediately respond to a request for comment, the news agency said.
The various interceptor competitions have “prize pools” to incentivize rapid development, the report said. The largest pool has $340 million to be split among companies that complete an on-orbit test successfully.
Final production contracts will be worth $1.8 billion to $3.4 billion annually. Industry executives, however, estimate that it could cost between $200 million and $2 billion to build and test a single space-based interceptor prototype, the Reuters report said.
Space-based interceptors can eliminate threats earlier than ground-based systems currently in use.
Separately, Israel’s Defense Ministry last week signed a major procurement agreement to accelerate production of the Iron Dome air defense system. The contract with Rafael Advanced Defense Systems will deliver a substantial quantity of Iron Dome interceptors to the Israeli Air Force. The deal is funded through a $5.2 billion allocation from an $8.7 billion U.S. aid package Congress approved in April 2024.
