President Trump’s aggressive timeline for the Golden Dome missile defense system has left defense experts puzzled, with many questioning the feasibility of completing such an ambitious space-based program within just three years. Trump, speaking from the Oval Office on Tuesday, touted the system as vital to America’s future security, describing it as a space-deployed shield capable of intercepting missiles from orbit and protecting the entire continental United States.
Golden Dome, ordered via executive action in January, envisions a constellation of space-based sensors and weapons capable of detecting and destroying incoming missiles in real time. However, experts warn the technology is still in its early stages and far from operational readiness. Melanie Marlowe, a senior associate at the Center for Strategic and International Studies’s Missile Defense Project, said the president’s projected timeline of “two and a half to three years” is wildly optimistic.
“Golden Dome is not going to be an impenetrable missile shield across the entire United States of America,” Marlowe said, adding that the system will require sustained development over both the short and long term. She pointed to the enormous logistical and technological hurdles involved, including the deployment of anywhere from 400 to over 1,000 satellites to ensure continuous coverage and missile tracking capability, as first reported by Reuters.
In addition to the sensing satellites, an entirely new fleet of around 200 armed satellites would be required to actually intercept and destroy threats. These satellites would need to carry experimental weapons like missile interceptors or directed-energy systems none of which have yet been proven in space-based scenarios. No country has ever fielded such offensive satellite capabilities, making Trump’s timeline even more difficult to take seriously, according to analysts.
Marlowe noted that the broader effort to develop Golden Dome will likely unfold in two phases: a more immediate push to expand missile and munitions stockpiles, some of which the U.S. has been deploying in the Red Sea against Houthi militants and sending to Ukraine; and a longer-term investment in advanced radar and sensor networks capable of tracking hypersonic threats.
While the vision behind Golden Dome may represent a future-forward approach to national defense, defense policy experts say the speed at which Trump expects it to be completed ignores the immense scale, cost, and complexity of building and launching an entirely new class of military infrastructure in space. His timeline, they argue, might be politically convenient but is far removed from technological reality.