A missile-tracking satellite has demonstrated the ability to track hypersonic missiles from space, a potential key component in the White House-mandated Golden Dome for America program to develop an orbital shield to defend the United States.
Defense experts say the U.S. faces growing threats from competitors’ development of hypersonic weapons, long-range cruise missiles and orbital bombardment systems.
The Missile Defense Agency (MDA) confirmed that a Hypersonic Ballistic Tracking Space Sensor (HBTSS) satellite developed by U.S. contractor L3Harris Technologies met performance targets in tests, according to an April 2025 report by SpaceNews online. The MDA launched the L3Harris prototype in February 2024 along with one built by Northrop Grumman.
“While a full assessment of proven payload performance has not yet been concluded, MDA can confirm that [only] the L3Harris satellite is successfully demonstrating its primary functions,” an agency spokesperson told SpaceNews.
HBTSS is designed to track hypersonic weapons that maneuver unpredictably in the atmosphere, which is difficult for traditional radar and sensors.
“Unlike ballistic missiles that follow predictable arcs, hypersonics require real-time, high-fidelity tracking data to enable interception,” SpaceNews said.
Air Force Lt. Gen. Heath Collins, the MDA’s leader, told the U.S. House Armed Services Committee (HASC) that the Department of Defense (DOD) is preparing for the next step in satellite development, according to InsideDefense.com.
“Following an extremely successful HBTSS program, we are pursuing the same approach in developing the Discriminating Space Sensor (DSS) to perform birth-to-death tracking and discrimination of in-flight ballistic missiles and their payload objects,” said Collins, one of the DOD leaders who testified before the HASC.
In April 2025, U.S. Space Command finalized options for the Golden Dome and sent recommendations to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to review the system designed to destroy ground-based missiles within seconds of launch. For fiscal year 2026, the White House called for increasing defense spending by 13% to $1 trillion.
During the HASC hearing, Andrea Yaffe, the acting assistant secretary of defense for space policy, said that previous U.S. missile defense primarily was focused on intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) threats posed by rogue states.
“The direction [of] the Golden Dome executive order is to focus on the whole range of missile threats … from all nations, and that’s a significant shift in both policy and direction,” she said.
The government’s directive calls for the “acceleration of the deployment of the Hypersonic and Ballistic Tracking Space Sensor layer” as part of the Golden Dome, according to SpaceNews.
Air Force Gen. Gregory Guillot, Commander of U.S. Northern Command and North American Aerospace Defense Command, summed up that shift between Golden Dome and current missile-defense architecture. “Golden Dome,” he told the HASC, “takes all of the existing requirements that we had [and] — for the first time — integrates multiple layers into one system.”