Trump selects concept for $175 billion 'Golden Dome' missile defense
system
[May 21, 2025]
By TARA COPP
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump has announced the concept he
wants for his future Golden Dome missile defense program — a
multilayered, $175 billion system that for the first time will put U.S.
weapons in space.
Speaking Tuesday from the Oval Office, Trump said he expects the system
will be “fully operational before the end of my term," which ends in
2029, and have the capability of intercepting missiles “even if they are
launched from space.”
It's likelier that the complex system may have some initial capability
by that point, a U.S. official familiar with the program said.
Trump, seated next to a poster showing the continental U.S. painted gold
and with artistic depictions of missile interceptions, also announced
that Gen. Michael Guetlein, who currently serves as the vice chief of
space operations, will be responsible for overseeing Golden Dome's
progress.
Golden Dome is envisioned to include ground- and space-based
capabilities that are able to detect and stop missiles at all four major
stages of a potential attack: detecting and destroying them before a
launch, intercepting them in their earliest stage of flight, stopping
them midcourse in the air, or halting them in the final minutes as they
descend toward a target.
For the last several months, Pentagon planners have been developing
options — which the U.S. official described as medium, high and “extra
high” choices, based on their cost — that include space-based
interceptors. The official spoke on condition of anonymity to detail
plans that have not been made public.
The difference in the three versions is largely based on how many
satellites and sensors — and for the first time, space-based
interceptors — would be purchased.
The Congressional Budget Office estimated this month that just the
space-based components of the Golden Dome could cost as much as $542
billion over the next 20 years. Trump has requested an initial $25
billion for the program in his proposed tax break bill now moving
through Congress.
The Pentagon has warned for years that the newest missiles developed by
China and Russia are so advanced that updated countermeasures are
necessary. Golden Dome's added satellites and interceptors — where the
bulk of the program's cost is — would be focused on stopping those
advanced missiles early on or in the middle of their flight.
The space-based weapons envisioned for Golden Dome “represent new and
emerging requirements for missions that have never before been
accomplished by military space organizations,” Gen. Chance Saltzman,
head of the U.S. Space Force, told lawmakers at a hearing Tuesday.
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President Donald Trump speaks in the Oval Office of the White House,
Tuesday, May 20, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
China and Russia have put offensive weapons in space, such as
satellites with abilities to disable critical U.S. satellites, which
can make the U.S. vulnerable to attack.
Last year, the U.S. said Russia was developing a space-based nuclear
weapon that could loiter in space for long durations, then release a
burst that would take out satellites around it.
Trump said Tuesday that he had not yet spoken to Russian President
Vladimir Putin about the Golden Dome program, “but at the right
time, we will,” he told reporters at the White House.
In a joint statement earlier this month, China and Russia called the
Golden Dome idea “deeply destabilizing in nature,” warning it would
turn “outer space into an environment for placing weapons and an
arena for armed confrontation.”
There is no money for the project yet, and Golden Dome overall is
“still in the conceptual stage,” newly confirmed Air Force Secretary
Troy Meink told senators during a hearing Tuesday.
While the president picked the concept he wanted, the Pentagon is
still developing the requirements that Golden Dome will need to meet
— which is not the way new systems are normally developed.
The Pentagon and U.S. Northern Command are still drafting what is
known as an initial capabilities document, the U.S. official said.
That is how Northern Command, which is responsible for homeland
defense, identifies what it will need the system to do.
The U.S. already has many missile defense capabilities, such as the
Patriot missile batteries that the U.S. has provided to Ukraine to
defend against incoming missiles as well as an array of satellites
in orbit to detect missile launches. Some of those existing systems
will be incorporated into Golden Dome.
Trump directed the Pentagon to pursue the space-based interceptors
in an executive order during the first week of his presidency.
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Associated Press writers Seung Min Kim and Michelle L. Price in
Washington contributed reporting.
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