The Trump Administration has tried to keep planning for the Golden Dome, the President’s multibillion-dollar pet project to build a missile-defense system for the continental U.S. and potentially Canada too, secret. But details keep leaking.
Since Donald Trump formally announced plans for the shield in May—after ordering the “Iron Dome for America” a week into his second term—the Pentagon has tried to keep discussion of its development under wraps, including by reportedly banning officials from discussing it at a military-industrial conference earlier this month and asking organizers to keep it off the general agenda, according to Politico. Organizers said they were told to keep discussion of the Golden Dome to a specific, closed-to-the-press summit on the sidelines of the main conference.
The Atlantic’s Tom Nichols, who expressed doubts over the viability of the Golden Dome, described the choice to “go silent” on the ambitious and expensive undertaking, at the 2025 Space and Missile Defense Symposium in Huntsville, Ala., which “is exactly the kind of place where the government can tell its story and get science, industry, and the military on the same page,” as “strange.”
Even former military officials have been baffled by the clamp down. “We gotta be able to talk about it,” Ret. Army Lt. Gen. Daniel Karbler, who served as commander of the U.S. Army Space and Missile Defense Command from 2019-2024, told the Washington Times.
“We have to be able to share with the American public what we are intending to do with Golden Dome for America. We gotta share with the industry what the architecture is going to look like. We have to share with the services what is going to be called upon for their forces,” said Karbler. “We have gotta do a good job at just communicating.”
A Defense Department official told media in a statement that “it would be imprudent for the Department to release further information on this program during these early stages,” citing “operational security.” The Washington Times theorized that the secrecy “could be explained by spying concerns,” particularly from geopolitical rivals like Russia and China.
But despite efforts to keep details out of the public eye, Reuters this week obtained a government-prepared slideshow presented to thousands of defense contractors at the industry summit that reveals new information about the plans for the Golden Dome.
Here’s what that and other reporting so far has revealed about the project.
Four ‘integrated’ layers
Trump said in May that he envisioned the Golden Dome as a latticework of missiles, satellites, and sensors that would be “capable of intercepting missiles even if they are launched from other sides of the world.” According to the slides obtained by Reuters, the structure of that latticework will come in four layers.
One layer would reportedly be in space, tasked with sensing and targeting to track and warn against missiles. Another task for the space layer is “missile defense,” though it wasn’t elaborated; the U.S. has been studying space-based missile interceptors, which are technologically difficult to execute.
Three land-based layers of the Dome would then, according to the slides, be made up of ground missile interceptors, radar arrays, and possibly lasers. Reuters said an “upper layer” will include Next Generation Interceptors (NGIs) and Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) Aegis ballistic missile systems made by defense contractor Lockheed Martin. An “under layer” and “Limited Area Defense” will serve as the last line of defense and will include new radars, the Patriot missile defense system, and a new but unspecified “common” launcher.
A missile field in the Midwest
The Dome reportedly will include a new missile field in the Midwest to hold the NGIs from Lockheed Martin, on top of the existing Groundbased Midcourse Defense (GMD) launch sites in southern California and Alaska.
The GMD is the U.S.’s “sole hit-to-kill defense” against intercontinental ballistic missiles, according to a Congressional Research Service report last year. It is designed to thwart a missile attack in its midcourse phase, though it’s neither able nor intended to defeat more sophisticated attacks from Russia or China.
No mention of Elon Musk’s Space X
Reuters flagged that the slides did not mention Elon Musk’s SpaceX, which earlier bid for Golden Dome contracts along with software firm Palantir and drone manufacturer Anduril before the billionaire tech mogul and the President had a very public falling out.
Since Trump and Musk’s friendship fizzled, the Trump Administration has reportedly been looking for alternatives, and leading defense manufacturers like Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, and Boeing have presented themselves as potential contractors for the project.
A scheduled 2028 test date
Other details beyond Reuters’ slides have also leaked. Unnamed sources told CNN that the Pentagon has scheduled the first major test for the Golden Dome missile-defense system for the fourth quarter of 2028, just before the November presidential election. The test will reportedly involve the Golden Dome’s sensors and weapons systems.
This aligns with Trump’s initial proposed timeline, but many remain skeptical of its feasibility. “In the end, a lot of money could be spent trying to make this work, and then it might not even meet testing requirements or do what they want it to do,” an unidentified defense official told CNN.
Canada removes hurdles to join Golden Dome
Canada has also reportedly cleared the path to partner with the Trump Administration for the Golden Dome. The Ottawa Citizen reported that Canada’s Defense Minister David McGuinty said that outdated restrictions and roadblocks had been removed during a July visit to the North American Aerospace Defense Command headquarters in Colorado.
“The threat environment has drastically changed and Canada needs to be prepared,” McGuinty told the paper.
Trump had previously said that Canada would have to pay billions to be a part of the Golden Dome but that it could join at no cost if it cedes its sovereignty to the U.S. and becomes the 51st state.
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