Department of War Gives Update on Progress of Golden Dome for America

The Golden Dome for America (GDA) project is currently ahead of schedule and on budget, according to updates from officials who gathered at the Joint Expeditionary Base Little Creek-Fort Story on Thursday to showcase progress on the program.

Key achievements, so far, include completing the initial architecture blueprint for the Golden Dome, awarding active contracts for critical components of the system, and establishing a consortium for command-and-control capabilities, the Department of War (DOW) said in an April 23 statement. Senior leaders from the DOW, the federal government, and the defense industry attended the event.

The Golden Dome is a multilayered defense system designed to protect the United States from advanced missile and other aerial threats, including complex ballistic, cruise, and hypersonic missiles.

Golden Dome will integrate a persistent space-based sensor network for global tracking of threats, a wide range of interceptors to defend against these threats, and a command and control system to manage them at “machine speed,” according to the DOW.

“Golden Dome is the decisive response to a new era of threats,” Gen. Mike Guetlein, director of GDA, said.

“We are moving with purpose and urgency to forge a shield that is layered, integrated, and automated. The progress on display today is tangible proof that this is not a future concept, but a reality we must build now.”

In August 2025, defense company Lockheed Martin announced it had established a command and control (C2) prototyping hub for Golden Dome.

“C2 capabilities are important to Golden Dome for America as they perform the crucial task of integrating data from various sensors and coordinating direct actions, such as interceptor launches, while also enabling cyber-resilient communications and synchronized decision-making across domains through the fusion of trusted, multi-source data,” Lockheed said.

“This is key to enabling fast, more confident responses to threats.”

At the time, the C2 system was being tested for various capabilities, including threat evaluation, mission planning tools, and the integration and optimization of artificial intelligence and machine learning.

At the Little Creek event, officials explained that the Golden Dome project was a “fiscally responsible, vital investment in national security,” according to the DOW statement. The program has a modular, open-systems approach that helps in controlling costs.

“To defend North America and win tomorrow’s fight, we must maintain our warfighting advantages and operate beyond stovepiped systems operating at human speed,” said Maj. Gen. Mark Piper, deputy director of operations at North American Aerospace Defense Command.

“Golden Dome is forging the integrated, automated battle management network needed to see every threat, make decisions in milliseconds, and keep America safe.”

Golden Dome Costs

President Donald Trump announced in May 2025 that the DOW had selected a design for the Golden Dome, assessing at the time that the project would cost around $175 billion.

“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’re launched from space. And we will have the best system ever built,” the president said.

Trump’s recently unveiled $1.5 trillion defense budget request for fiscal year (FY) 2027 confirms continued investment in Golden Dome.

“In FY26, we began building Golden Dome by focusing on creating the infrastructure to build situational awareness and sense threats,” Jules Hurst, a Pentagon official performing the duties of the comptroller, told reporters during a press briefing on Tuesday.

“In FY27, we will expand that sensing network and invest in next-generation interceptors.”

Concerns have been raised about the project’s cost. A September 2025 report from the American Enterprise Institute said that the Golden Dome will cost more than what Trump has claimed.

“A system that protects against the full range of aerial threats posed by peer and near-peer adversaries could cost $3.6 trillion, and even then, it would fall short of the ‘100 percent’ effectiveness claimed,” the report said.

“In contrast, the $175 billion price tag President Trump cited only affords a much less capable system that is no match for the quantity of missiles China and Russia possess.”

On March 17, Golden Dome director Gen. Michael Guetlein dismissed estimates of trillions of dollars for the project while speaking at a conference in Arlington, Virginia.

Guetlein projected the Golden Dome to cost $185 billion, $10 billion more than Trump’s estimates, rather than trillions. He warned that while developing an advanced missile shield for the entire United States was an expensive affair, the price for not doing so could be incalculable.

“First and foremost, the reason we have Golden Dome is because the nation is relatively undefended,” Guetlein said.

“We have got to rapidly change that equation. World events are showing just how dangerous the environment has gotten. We have numerous amount of threats out there, so we’ve got to start fielding capability to make sure we can defend the American public.”