Plans shared with defence contractors additionally present a brand new missile subject within the American Midwest, in accordance with report.
The administration of United States President Donald Trump has circulated plans for its $175bn “Golden Dome” missile defence system, revealing a attainable new missile subject within the Midwest and particulars of the mission’s plans to shoot down missiles in area, the Reuters information company reviews.
In response to a collection of slides, titled “Go Quick, Assume Massive!”, introduced to some 3,000 defence contractors in Huntsville, Alabama, final week, Reuters says that plans for the Golden Dome embrace three layers of missile interceptors, radar arrays and lasers, along with its space-based defences.
Whereas the presentation highlighted that the US “has constructed each interceptors and re-entry automobiles” for space-based missile interception earlier than, the plans additionally acknowledged that the US has by no means constructed a car that may deal with the warmth of reentry whereas concentrating on an enemy missile, in accordance with Reuters.
Trump has estimated his Golden Dome may price $175bn.
Thus far, Congress has appropriated $25bn for the system within the president’s tax and spending invoice handed in July. One other $45.3bn is earmarked for the Golden Dome in Trump’s 2026 presidential price range request.
“They’ve some huge cash, however they don’t have a goal of what it prices but,” a US official cited by Reuters mentioned.
Plans for the dome included a map displaying {that a} new large-scale missile subject, with methods constructed by Lockheed Martin, could possibly be situated within the US Midwest, Reuters reported.
The positioning can be along with two related missile fields that exist already in southern California and Alaska.
Lockheed Martin has described the Gold Dome as “a defence system that shields America from aerial threats, hypersonic missiles and drone swarms with unmatched velocity and accuracy”.
“Due to President Trump’s imaginative and prescient, Golden Dome will make this a actuality, securing our future,” Lockheed Martin wrote in a publish on social media in March.
Reuters mentioned the slides didn’t embrace any references to Elon Musk’s SpaceX, which was a part of a bid for Golden Dome contracts, alongside the software program maker Palantir and defence methods producer Anduril.
Trump campaigned on constructing “a missile defence protect round our nation,” within the lead-up to the 2024 presidential election. At an earlier marketing campaign occasion in July 2024, Trump in contrast his plans with Israel’s Iron Dome.
The Iron Dome is Israel’s missile defence system, which detects an incoming rocket, determines its path and intercepts it. The system was developed with greater than $1bn in funding from the US.
Days after taking workplace on January 27, Trump signed an government order to “instantly start the development of a state-of-the-art Iron Dome missile defence protect, which can be capable of defend People”.
Though Trump secured $25bn for the system in his tax and spending invoice, which additionally included vital cuts to federal funding for different programmes, together with Medicaid, the mission nonetheless faces a big funding shortfall.
Trump urged in Could that the shortfall could possibly be partly made up by Canada paying $61bn in the direction of the mission.
