The United States plans to deploy the Golden Dome for America (GDA) missile defense shield in two phases to meet its goal of having an operational system in 2028. The Department of War (DOW) is combining existing technology to field an initial shield before moving to an architecture built specifically for homeland defense by 2035, according to U.S. Space Force Gen. Michael Guetlein, the GDA direct reporting program manager.
The U.S. government created the program through an executive order in January 2025. GDA is a layered defense intended to protect the homeland from ballistic, hypersonic and cruise missiles as well as other advanced aerial threats. It relies on a space-based sensor network for global tracking, advanced interceptors for missile defense, and an integrated command and control (C2) system that responds to threats at “machine speed,” according to the DOW.
Guetlein, speaking by video to the Ohio Space Forum in September 2026, called the first phase Epic 1, according to an Aviation Week report. Epic 1 combines current weapons, sensors and networks to form an initial shield ahead of the full GDA architecture, according to a SpaceNews report. “In order to rapidly change the homeland defense equation in 2028, I need to take a lot of what we already have … and get it into the field to deter a coercive decapitation or rogue-nation attack,” Guetlein said, according to Aviation Week. His remarks suggest an Epic 1 focus on areas around the White House, U.S. Capitol and select National Command Authority elements, Todd Harrison, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, told Aviation Week.
The challenge is that existing systems were designed for overseas operations rather than for interoperability, Guetlein told SpaceNews. “We built kit for the Navy. We built kit for the Army. We built kit for the Air Force. We built kit for the Space Force, and [we] never intended for that kit to be integrated and networked together,” he said, according to SpaceNews.
Guetlein, speaking at the Air, Space and Cyber Conference near Washington in September 2026, characterized Epic 1 as an organizational behavior and social-engineering challenge, according to SpaceNews. The technology challenge arrives with Epic 2 and the full GDA architecture, which requires capabilities that are not yet available, he said, according to Aviation Week.
“Coming out of 2028, then we need to start bringing to bear all next-generation technologies,” he said. “That means directed energy, next-generation communications and sensing and quantum.”
The GDA office made communications an initial program priority and formed an industry consortium to develop the system’s C2 architecture, which Guetlein has called its secret sauce, according to a report in National Defense magazine. The office tested the C2 system twice, and those events confirmed the program is moving in the right direction, Guetlein said at the conference.
“We know, based on those tests, that the munitions that we are planning to bring to the fight, the sensors we are planning to bring to the fight, are going to be effective against the threats that the president identified in the executive order,” he said.
GDA must meet those threats with systems that are affordable enough for DOW to buy in quantity. “I need something that’s affordable and scalable,” said Guetlein, who noted the defense industry has stepped up to address those priorities. “They’ve got some great ideas on how to make this scalable and affordable.”.