Star wars: Trump's Missile Defense Initiative's name changed from Iron Dome to Golden Dome

A graphic showing, in a very rudimentary way, the difference in trajectories between a traditional ballistic missile and a hypersonic boost-glide vehicle. GAO

“Please note the Department of Defense has renamed this program from ‘Iron Dome for America’ to ‘Golden Dome for America,” the U.S. Missile Defense Agency (MDA) wrote in a recent request seeking input from industry on how it could contribute to this effort, writes ‘The War Zone’ (TWZ).

This follows what seemed to be an off-hand comment Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth made on Feb. 20. In a video explaining the Pentagon’s budget realignment plans, he listed “the Golden Dome, or Iron Dome,” as among defense programs that will be protected from any cuts. The MDA RFI seems to have codified that.

The new name is starting to gain traction. During his confirmation hearing for the position of deputy defense secretary earlier today, Stephen Feinberg was asked by U.S. Sen. Mike Rounds (R-SD) if he supported the creation of the “Iron Dome missile defense shield for America, I think some people called it the Golden Dome…”

Feinberg answered in the affirmative.

The choice of the new name was likely made to invoke Trump’s famously favorite color, gold.

One of Trump’s first official acts of his second term was to order the U.S. military to move forward with plans for a massively enlarged missile defense architecture. Dubbed, at the time, Iron Dome, it notably included a call for new space-based anti-missile interceptors. The concept was something Trump talked about on the campaign trail and made official in a Jan. 27 executive order.

It calls for a “next-generation missile defense shield” that “shall include, at a minimum, plans for” the following eight components:

• Defense of the United States against ballistic, hypersonic, advanced cruise missiles, and other next-generation aerial attacks from peer, near-peer, and rogue adversaries;
• Acceleration of the deployment of the Hypersonic and Ballistic Tracking Space Sensor layer;
• Development and deployment of proliferated space-based interceptors capable of boost-phase intercept;
• Deployment of underlayer and terminal-phase intercept capabilities postured to defeat a countervalue attack;
• Development and deployment of a custody layer of the Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture;
• Development and deployment of capabilities to defeat missile attacks prior to launch and in the boost phase;
• Development and deployment of a secure supply chain for all components with next-generation security and resilience features;
• Development and deployment of non-kinetic capabilities to augment the kinetic defeat of ballistic, hypersonic, advanced cruise missiles, and other next-generation aerial attacks.

MDA is seeking industry feedback on “innovative acquisition methods or contract vehicles” that could be used to speed up the procurement process of making Golden Dome a reality.

…The US airspace is considered to be poorly protected - enemy missiles can easily hit the territory of the United States. But the creation of the American missile defense system takes a lot of time, and world conflicts are growing so quickly that Trump has to turn to diplomatic means to extinguish these conflicts, not defensive ones. This is exactly what we are witnessing in world politics right now.

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