Delays, setbacks loom over Trump's Golden Dome missile shield

The shutdown delayed hiring and pulled crucial personnel away from their normal duties of approving and signing contracts, according to three industry sources and a U.S. official, who along with other sources spoke with Reuters on condition of anonymity fearing reprisals for talking to the press about a program where many aspects are classified as secret.

More critically, the nearly US$25 billion earmarked for Golden Dome as part of the budget reconciliation package approved this summer has not been turned into a spending plan that details exactly how the money will be allocated, two sources from the administration along with a source on Capitol Hill and two of the industry executives told Reuters.

The setbacks threaten Trump's promise that the US$175 billion program, unveiled on the seventh day of his new administration, will be in place to protect the continental United States by 2028.

“I don't think they have made a lot of progress, but I don't think it's going horribly,” one of the U.S. officials told Reuters on condition of anonymity.

Reuters spoke to over a dozen sources from within the administration, the Pentagon, Capitol Hill and in the defense industry to piece together a picture of the headwinds facing Golden Dome, Trump's signature national defense priority.

A spending plan outlined in the bill funding Golden Dome was due to Congress in late August. That plan is now expected to be delivered by Deputy Secretary of Defense Steve Feinberg in December, two sources on Capitol Hill told Reuters.

Delays in defense contracting are routine, but because of Trump's short timeline they have taken on added significance for Golden Dome. Those delays have led some in the defense industry to express fear that key Golden Dome contracts will not be issued by the Pentagon's internal deadline of December 31. Such a delay could potentially drive up costs, according to four defense industry executives who are planning to bid on aspects of the program.

"The Golden Dome is a visionary project led by a visionary President," a White House spokesperson said. "It shouldn’t surprise anyone that it takes hard work to create such a system, and everyone is working well together to put pen to paper and deliver this next-generational technology."

A Pentagon spokesperson said it is closely guarding the progress it is making on Golden Dome. "Recognizing adversaries' intent to exploit Golden Dome's breakthroughs, we are rigorously protecting America's strategic advantages inherent in this program."

Feinberg and Golden Dome program manager General Michael Guetlein declined to comment.

GOLDEN DOME STRUGGLES TO MEET AGGRESSIVE TIMELINE

Guetlein met a mid-November deadline to present an implementation plan for the system and that plan is under review, the Pentagon told Reuters. From that blueprint, the Pentagon plans to begin awarding contracts for companies to test and build satellites, interceptors, ground stations and networking infrastructure.

But sources inside the administration told Reuters the architecture for the plan proposed in September remains in flux, and won't be finalized for several more weeks. A Pentagon spokesperson told Reuters "the baseline architecture has been established” but did not give further details.

Without the final architecture, implementation plan or an approved spending plan Guetlein has been unable to put programs up for contract, effectively freezing the initiative's ability to move from planning to rapid execution, one U.S. official and three industry executives said.

The delays have fueled industry concerns that Golden Dome will need a much larger budget and longer timeline. Todd Harrison, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank, estimated in September the cost of a "robust, all-threat" missile defense system at US$3.6 trillion over 20 years.

Guetlein is scrambling to staff up the Pentagon's Golden Dome office and still has not met the internal headcount goal of 30 staffers. The program has also lost a key technical director from the U.S. Space Command working on the project's architecture, said one administration official and three industry executives familiar with the program.

A new staff member to fill the position has been identified, two of the people said.

Guetlein has managed to mobilize a workforce of contractors, establish internal systems and hire a small team within the Pentagon in addition to borrowing missile defense experts from various facilities like the rocket development center at Redstone Arsenal outside Huntsville, Alabama, an administration official and three industry executives said.

Tom Karako, a weapons security expert at the Washington-based think tank Center for Strategic and International Studies, said the point of having a four-star general like Guetlein in charge is that "he can break glass and get things done."

"As long as there is indecision about every little thing at still higher levels, none of this is ever going to get started," he said.

CONTRACTORS BALK AT DEVELOPMENT COSTS

But Golden Dome's challenges don't end with the bureaucratic delays. Potential contractors have balked at the upfront costs they will have to shoulder to develop the Space-Based Interceptors, a network of satellites that would carry missiles to intercept a threat from launch to just before impact, multiple defense industry sources said.

One of the executives at a top defense contractor told Reuters they are unlikely to compete to build the interceptors because of the costs of the years-long competition and the possibility that the next administration will abandon the program.

The development costs for the interceptors are expected to be borne by the companies competing for the award, according to documents seen by Reuters. Typically this type of risky research funding is partly shouldered by the federal government.

Contractors are being asked to develop four different versions of the interceptors, according to the documents: two versions that can intercept missiles at different altitudes of the boost phase, one version during mid-flight, and another to counter faster-moving hypersonic missiles.

The government envisions groups of as many as five companies competing for different interceptor types. Within each competition group there are "prize pools.” The largest pool for US$340 million would be split among companies that complete an "on orbit" test with first place receiving US$125 million and fifth place, US$40 million, according to a Pentagon presentation to industry viewed by Reuters.

Ultimately companies could win lucrative production contracts worth US$1.8 billion to US$3.4 billion annually, the Pentagon said in its presentation. But industry executives estimate it might cost US$200 million to US$2 billion to build and test a space-based interceptor.

Major defense contractors including Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, RTX and Boeing are expected to compete for various components of Golden Dome once blanket contracts can actually be awarded.

Some things are going right. The Department of Defense is making progress centralizing early-warning systems maintained by disparate government spy agencies intended to defend against ballistic, hypersonic, and advanced cruise missiles, according to two industry sources and two U.S. officials.

Those systems involve hacking into enemy systems, gathering information from satellites and intelligence on the ground and feeding that simultaneously to Golden Dome, greatly aiding preparations to shoot missiles down.