Another 1,000 defense companies chosen for $151-billion Golden Dome competition

More firms have been tapped to compete for the historic 151-billion Golden Dome contract vehicle, with the number of awards to develop related technology more than doubling as of Thursday evening. 

The Missile Defense Agency made an additional 1,086 awards out of 2,463 offers received for the multiple-award indefinite-delivery/quantity contract dubbed Scalable Homeland Innovative Enterprise Layered Defense, or SHIELD. The latest round of awards follows the initial announcement that the Pentagon had identified 1,014 companies for MDA’s Golden Dome missile defense efforts. Experts said the first award was one of the largest potential contracts of all time, and between the two announcements, 2,100 awardees have been identified. The list of the latest defense firms in the competition is available here.

“This contract encompasses a broad range of work areas that allows for the rapid delivery of innovative capabilities to the warfighter with increased speed and agility, leveraging artificial intelligence and machine learning enabled applications where pertinent, and maximizing use of digital engineering, open systems architectures, model-based systems engineering, and agile processes in the acquisition, development, and sustainment of these capabilities,” the Pentagon said in its Thursday announcement.

The latest list of awardees includes prime contractors such as Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, and RTX’s Raytheon.

Thursday’s announcement came the same day as a new executive order from President Donald Trump, which stated that establishing new technology for a missile defense shield across the country was key to “securing and defending American vital national and economic security interests” in space. 

Trump’s executive order, titled “Ensuring American Space Superiority,” mostly focused on space exploration but also points to his Jan. 27 presidential action establishing the Golden Dome initiative and sets a goal of developing and demonstrating next-generation missile defense technologies by 2028. 

The Pentagon has acknowledged that work for the SHIELD contract vehicle will likely take a decade. Companies will not be paid based on this month’s awards, but rather once orders for the Golden Dome-related technology are placed.

“If all options are exercised, work will continue through December 2035,” the announcement said. “No funds will be obligated on the base IDIQ award; funds will be obligated at the order level.”

Most of the architecture for the ambitious and sprawling Golden Dome initiative—which has been pitched by the president as a one-stop defense against ICBMs, hypersonic missiles, drones, and other advanced aerial threats—has been kept secret. One key component of the architecture that’s been acknowledged is space-based interceptors, which would destroy an incoming missile during various flight stages. 

Last month, the Space Force awarded multiple contracts to several companies under a competitive but secret “other transaction agreement,” which kept the winners' identities out of public view. The service is also seeking prototype proposals for a space-based “kinetic midcourse interceptor,” which would destroy a missile mid-flight by direct collision, versus an explosive warhead.