Podcast: Why Everyone Is ‘Not’ Talking About Golden Dome

Aviation Week’s Vivienne Machi and Brian Everstine are back from their trip to the annual Space and Missile Defense conference. Here’s what was new or surprising, from counter-UAS to in-space mobility. 

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Robert Wall (00:20): Welcome to Check 6, where today we're absolutely, definitely in no way talking about Golden Dome, or are we? If I've got you confused, welcome to the club of Golden Dome watchers, trying to make sense of the Trump administration's effort to build an expansive missile shield for the U.S. Here to help untangle some of this for you are Vivienne Machi, Aviation Week's military space editor, and Brian Everstine, Aviation Week's Pentagon editor, both just back from the annual Space and Missile Defense Conference in Huntsville, Alabama, that dates back to a much earlier era of building a national missile defense program. I'm Robert Wall, Aviation Week's executive editor for defense and space and a former regular attendee at the event. Vivienne, why don't you tell us why we're not supposed to be talking about Golden Dome and why we still are?

Vivienne Machi (01:08): Yeah, thanks Robert. So I guess for the very, very quick background of Golden Dome and the SMD conference, quick factoid, SMD 2024 was the first conference I attended as a new member of Aviation Week, and the disparity between the two – last year's conference and this year's conference – I think could not be more different. This year it really was all about President Donald Trump's initiative to field a new multi-layer missile defense architecture called Golden Dome. But virtually nobody from the U.S. government, none of the officials who were actually in charge of creating, of manifesting this architecture were allowed to say the words Golden Dome. And that made it a very interesting conference. I heard leaders saying things like next-generation defense architecture in order to reference what we are trying to talk about as Golden Dome. The only government official I saw on stage who could say the words Golden Dome was a leader from NASA, for example, because to back up, this is all due to an initiative from the Office of the Secretary of Defense, so the Pentagon, who is asking that all references, all queries for Golden Dome go through OSD and not any other DOD departments. So to sum up, that just made it a very interesting conference where again, the people in charge in the military of fielding Golden Dome could not say the word Golden Dome, but companies could say Golden Dome all they want. And they certainly did.

Robert Wall (02:47): Just like on the earnings call where Golden Dome is almost the first word that they drop. But it's kind of weird, you were there for basically almost the whole week, two days of SMD conference, and then the next day was actually the Golden Dome Industry Day, or the equivalent, wasn't it?

Vivienne Machi (03:01): Yes, that was really funny because a few months ago the Missile Defense Agency had scheduled an industry day in Huntsville, Alabama, to talk about Golden Dome. And that industry day was canceled pretty abruptly just a week or two before it was scheduled to occur. People had bought plane tickets, booked hotels, it was open to the press, and then they canceled it. And our understanding is that was because the Pentagon really wanted to make sure that the military leader in charge of Golden Dome General Michael Guetlein would be confirmed and in the role before they start making any news, discussing it in any other way. I've also heard that they wanted to make the event more unclassified so that smaller companies could also participate. And that was another reason for delaying the industry day. What that resulted in is, yes, having the industry coincide with SMD, which is typically for very, I don't want to say niche, but very specific businesses tied to the missile defense mission area. And with the industry day coinciding with it, that made it a huge draw for any space company especially or missile defense company that is interested in taking a part of what looks like a very big budget pie for Golden Dome.

Robert Wall (04:25): Brian, you were down there with Vivienne. What was your take? I mean, just on the Golden Dome shenanigans. How much were people talking your ear off on this and anything that struck you as particularly different or unusual?

Brian Everstine (04:39): Well, I think shenanigans is kind of a good way to put it because I mean there was all this confusion. The event's website posted, oh, nope, we can't take any questions. The Pentagon came out with a statement saying that because it's in such early stages, we need to keep things close for operational security, which I thought was kind of interesting because we've already heard a lot of the initial steps for Golden Dome coming from both the Hill and General Guetlein, who outlined kind of his expectation of the different layers based on an existing tech with what the SDA and the MDA are doing in space for the upper layer going down to the lower layer for existing systems like Patriot or THAAD. So there are some details out there of what existing systems are going to play into Golden Dome and then to pull it back and claim operational security, I thought was kind of an interesting move.

(05:27): And they said that everything needs to come from OSD. And there was one speaker, Emil Michael, the undersecretary of defense for research and engineering, who had a fireside discussion, and it was not mentioned at all. It was a lot of just kind of platitudes of how important your job is and how can OSD help out these new companies, et cetera, et cetera. So it really was kind of the elephant in the room with General Collins, the director of MDA said, “Just call it you-know-what, I can't take any questions on you-know-what, because when I do, I only get asked about you-know-what.” So it was such an awkward discussion, especially in the main hall compared to going to the expos when every single company is like any trinket, anything they have, “This is for Golden Dome. This small drone this company makes, we can do it for Golden Dome.” So every company is just grasping for this big, big funding that's coming down the pipeline, $175 billion initially over the next five years. “So we have this little trinket, this is definitely best for Golden Dome.” So the thing that can't be named on the official side, which is what all everyone else wanted to talk about on the company side.

Vivienne Machi (06:35): And if I could tack onto that, I do think another element there is that when we ask companies what they were looking to learn most immediately at the Golden Dome Industry Day, it was very specifically about what requirements will be set for Golden Dome and what will the acquisition process look like, who will be in charge of the acquisition process? And it struck me that that was happening after SMD and a lot of the media roundtables and discussions we had with industry at SMD were essentially saying, “We are ready for Golden Dome no matter what it looks like.” And again, that just seemed very interesting to say on one hand, “we're waiting for the requirements, but whatever the requirements are, we're ready.”

Robert Wall (07:22): I mean, it is a kind of interesting, given the ambitious timeline that we see behind it. And there is no, the building is not known for its speed of procurement processes and awarding contracts sometimes, for obvious reasons. So it does seem like quite a bit of a challenge that they've set themselves here to get something out on the timeline they're putting down for themselves, right?

Brian Everstine (07:47): And related to that, actually just kind of some late breaking news alert today. I'm about to file a story. One of the main parts of Golden Dome that we saw come out of the Golden Dome Act that was put forth by Senator Sullivan about a month or two ago. One of the aspects was a new southern-facing radar for potential ballistic and hypersonic glide vehicle threats coming from the southern hemisphere, which was kind of born out of China's FOBS test from a couple of years ago. Now we have a solicitation looking to have this radar built by 2028. So there are parts of this they are moving out pretty quickly on before they even can talk about it publicly.

Robert Wall (08:20): That is very interesting. One of the things about SMD is, of course, that it is air and missile defense. And while with Golden Dome we tend to think of Brilliant Pebbles, the space-based interceptor part or even the hypersonic intercept capability, there's a lot more to it. And if you really think of it as a whole, and there's obviously a lot more to the air and missile defense challenges. And in that respect, it's been a super fascinating year, of course. We've had the Spider Web operation that the Ukrainians pulled off with launching drones in Russia against the air bases there and taking out some of their bombers. And Israel obviously doing something similar to help take down the Iranian air defenses on the opening day of that 12-day operation. So I'm kind of curious to what extent that was discussed, given counter drone is such a big thing right now. How did it play out down there?

Brian Everstine (09:18): Yeah, it's important to remember that it is the Space and Missile Defense Conference because it's related to the space and missile defense command of the U.S. Army that is based down there. And the only government representative to sit down and talk with us at the event was General Gainey, the commander of SMDC, who's finalizing kind of a new long-term strategy for his command, looking at some of these emerging threats. And out of the strategy, one big takeaway, and as an aside, it's kind of remarkable that the Spider Web attack didn't come up really at all throughout the discussion. They would say in generally lessons from Ukraine, UAS, the prevalence of UAS, et cetera. Iran came up a lot more, and this came up a lot in the context of General Gainey's strategy. The recent attacks from Iran toward Israel from the Houthis toward U.S. and international shipping is just a complexity of a barrage and how many missiles threats need to come in.

(10:10): And we have such exquisite systems, Patriot, THAAD, et cetera. And the Army is developing things like IBCS to try to make sense of such a large salvo, but it's still too many, really, to take down one by one. So part of this strategy is trying to look as what they say is left of launch, trying to kind of take down or take out missiles really before they're even launched so you don't have as many to deal with while in the air. So that was one kind of takeaway from what we've seen through Iran and Israel that came up a few times. That's going to be a focal point of this new strategy.

Robert Wall (10:40): Certainly it was a pretty, seemed to have been at least a pretty big part of the Israeli operation in Iran at least to attempt to take off a lot of these ballistic missile launchers as they were getting ready. But it's also obviously been a challenge. It's also a policy challenge when do you feel free to bomb something if it hasn't actually launched yet. So yeah, that's very interesting. The other thing I'm curious about, how much did inventory challenges come up? I mean, obviously a lot of ballistic missile interceptors fired by the Israelis, by the U.S. both from land and from ship. THAAD, obviously, having been deployed to Israel as well.

Brian Everstine (11:22): Yeah, it came up in a few of my conversations. Specifically Patriot was probably the one that came up most often. For example, talking with Lockheed Martin, who build the PAC-3 MSE interceptors, they're up at a rate they could sustain right about now of 650 per year related to over the past three months. And that's something that they're contractually required to by 2027, if I recall correctly. And Lockheed said that they've had discussions with the government to get that rate up to 2,000 per year, which is a pretty gigantic increase. I mean, obviously they need the money to do that. You can build as many as you want as long as the funding comes, but there have been studies to look at that. And we've seen Boeing talk about the same thing for their seekers. On the THAAD side, Lockheed builds 96 interceptors per year, and they're looking at ways to increase that, too. I mean, the intercept over Qatar, that was pretty spectacular entry we all saw that night was the biggest intercept of the system's history. So they're looking at ways to really increase that as well.

Robert Wall (12:20): Well, that's interesting because about a year ago, almost a bit less than a year ago, having similar conversation on a PAC-3 MSE production increases, which the Army had been already kind of thinking about then, but then the idea was go from 650 to a thousand, so now that's doubled in a year. That's pretty incredible. I mean, you can see why, but it's still a pretty stunning reset of the requirements expectation.

Brian Everstine (12:46): But there's a lot still to get there. I think one of the biggest threads, one the biggest themes I've seen over the past several months is just how industries try to meet the solid rocket motor demand to fuel a lot of these systems. It seems like every week we have a new unveiling of a new capacity increase. I mean just at SMD, Anduril announced that their full-rate facility is opening. L3Harris had just opened a new facility in Huntsville. Northrop is massively expanding its capacity over three sites. So that facilitation increase is happening pretty broadly, but I think even more is needed to get to some of these numbers that they're talking about.

Vivienne Machi (13:22): And that's a huge concern on the space-based layer side as well, right? Scalability, production, facility expansions. That was a big topic of conversation, especially around the newest element of Golden Dome, and the most intriguing on my beat is the space-based interceptor. And that was something that we, on the space side, we're hoping to get a lot more information about, again, the requirements, how different companies were setting themselves up to position themselves to build SBIs. And while I wish that we had gotten more information, I think the most notable element on the SBI side that we got at SMD was Lockheed Martin saying that they are planning to perform an on-orbit demonstration of a space-based interceptor by 2028, which would fit in nicely to President Donald Trump's desire to have initial operating capability of Golden Dome by the end of his presidential term. But it certainly, again, scalability is going to be a big concern for Golden Dome writ large, whether it's the space-based layer, under layer, every part of it, really. And that's what I'm going to be looking for over the next year is how companies are responding in that fashion.

Robert Wall (14:39): Yeah, and I mean, I believe on an earlier Check 6, so at Golden Dome we kind of had that conversation about just how many space-based interceptors you would actually need to realize this vision of a fairly robust defense given the challenges of physics and speeds and engagement scenarios. So yeah.

Vivienne Machi (15:04): Yeah, that's again, a big question going forward, and I'm working on a story right now that will be out in the near future, but about how some smaller companies at SMD are proposing new technologies that could contribute to the space-based interceptor problem set and then are looking to develop them very cheaply, very efficiently, and then sell them to one of the big integrators or primes that would be presumably one of the bigger parts of Golden Dome, the Northrop Grummans, the Lockheed Martins and so forth. There were a couple of companies, at least at SMD, who are really looking at that problem set and again, want to do it cheaply because that's the way you're going to scale is making it affordable.

Robert Wall (15:49): You also spent a lot of time this year, obviously writing about on-orbit mobility. We've heard a lot about it, not just in the U.S. also more and more talk about that here in Europe, but it seems to have been definitely still one of the big themes for some of the space folks who came down to Huntsville.

Vivienne Machi (16:09): Yeah, just a step back, when I was at Space Symposium earlier this year in April in Colorado Springs, I was already talking to some companies about how launch infrastructure was the big topic, maybe two or three years ago. Space domain awareness was the big topic last year, and now they feel this is the era of on-orbit mobility. Lots of companies, again, nontraditional companies in the sense that you would not typically see them at SMD, were present at SMD this year. Both I think to get face time with people like the U.S. Space Command Commander General Stephen Whiting, who did a keynote speech on the first day, and also just to again, see where they might fit into the Golden Dome conversation. On-orbit mobility is a priority area for people like General Whiting who say, we need to be able to refuel satellites in orbit, maneuver in and between orbits much more efficiently.

(17:09): He specifically called out the need for maneuvering without regret for space situational awareness in GEO. But as we've seen in the U.S. Space Force budget documents that came out earlier this summer, they're really not putting a lot of R&D dollars behind furthering these demonstrations more than they already have. There are a couple of demonstrations already on through in 2026, so General Stephen Whiting used his keynote speech to say that on-orbit maneuvering is one of U.S. Space Command's top five priority areas for 2025 and beyond. And I found that to be extremely notable that he would use his platform at SMD to really foot-stomp this. His deputy, Lieutenant General Thomas James, did the same. And I think there's, yes, some intrigue from the companies that are working in sort of the in-space logistics, in-space servicing industry as to how they might be able to fit into Golden Dome. And again, that's kind of a stay tuned for more kind of discussion going forward.

Robert Wall (18:18): Any gut feeling on if it's such a priority, why we're not seeing more in the budget yet? Do you think they're being so public about it now because they haven't succeeded messaging internally yet?

Vivienne Machi (18:30): So while U.S. Space Force leaders have emphasized that there is a need for on-orbit mobility capabilities, they are also juggling a huge amount of different budget priorities. They're trying to fund Golden Dome as well. They're trying to fund space domain awareness. It has the smallest budget in the U.S. military, 3% or so of the entire DOD budget goes to the U.S. Space Force. And what leaders like the Chief of Space Operations, General Chance Saltzman have said publicly, they're very interested in this technology, but want commercial companies to take the lead essentially on the R&D and then see how it matures and which applications really fit into the mission area. So I think it's a combination of they're trying to tell commercial companies that the need is out there, but the budget doesn't reflect a near-term investment in small R&D projects beyond what has already been funded.

Robert Wall (19:33): Right. Poses of course, a challenge if there are real dollars coming elsewhere and you're kind of the same, going to the same companies or similar companies at least, so.

Vivienne Machi (19:42): Absolutely

Robert Wall (19:44): Watch this space. Alright, well Brian, as your parting shot, tell us what's something you are looking for to watch in the months ahead as you come out of this SMD meeting?

Brian Everstine (19:54): Well, one thing that kind of comes to mind both related to Golden Dome and more broadly is just the future of the funding for it. We've seen a big plus-up in reconciliation, I think it was $25 billion in the reconciliation package is supposed to be a one-off thing. How is General Guetlein and MDA and all the stakeholders going to plan for long-term funding? Are we going to have these plus-ups every year? I mean, it's a big question in Golden Dome getting to this $175 billion over five years, but it kind of impacts all services. I talked to the Air Force chief about this about a month ago where they're relying on reconciliation for a lot of big programs, but you can't build a POM on that without an understanding that these are going to be the high levels that you can plan for. So will there be a cut if there isn't a reconciliation package next year? How is this long-term steady funding going to play out?

Robert Wall (20:44): Yeah, and actually it's interesting also playing on Vivienne's thought here and asking industry to invest. Our colleague on the data side, Craig Caffrey, likes to make this point. He and I talk about this a lot. It's hard for a company to make an investment long-term investment decision on reconciliation money, which may or may not be there next year. So making those big multi-year investments on CapEx, personnel, whatever you would really like to see a proper future year defense plan with annual dollars against it to give you the confidence that you're not throwing money away. So yeah, very interesting. Vivienne, how about you? Any last-minute observations?

Vivienne Machi (21:28): Well, yeah, again, I think I totally agree with Brian that the budget conversation is the big one to look for in the near- and long-term with regards to Golden Dome. Again, like I said earlier, companies were saying the key things we want to learn from the industry day are what are the requirements? Who's taking the charge in acquisition, and how is that $175 billion going to be distributed? And my sources tell me, they didn't get a lot of concrete answers on that yet, and that's probably to be expected. It's early days still; it was unclassified. But what they did tell me is that they got a better understanding of the full scope of Golden Dome and that none of it looked easy. And this is a quote from a source that it will take a miracle for it to all come together.

Robert Wall (22:20): Alright, well there you go. Looking for miracles. That's a recipe for success. Anyway, I'd say let's wrap it there. Hoping for miracles. Thanks both of you for your time and also spending your time at Huntsville. As I said, an event I used to enjoy going to. I hope you had a good time, even though if it was a bit of a weird one. I also want to recommend to our readers check out the stories that Brian and Vivienne wrote. You can find them on aviationweek.com. And also look for our future stories on Golden Dome on aviationweek.com or Aviation Week & Space Technology magazine. Beyond that, just as usual, special thanks to our producer, Andrea Copley-Smith this time, and of course to all of you for listening. As always, I hope you enjoy this episode. And don't forget to check back soon for another episode of Check 6.

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