WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump has announced the concept he wants for his future Golden Dome missile defense program \u2014 a multilayered, $175 billion system that for the first time will put US weapons in space.
\nSpeaking Tuesday from the Oval Office, Trump said he expects the system will be \u201cfully operational before the end of my term,\u201d which ends in 2029, and have the capability of intercepting missiles \u201ceven if they are launched from space.\u201d
\nIt\u2019s likelier that the complex system may have some initial capability by that point, a US official familiar with the program said.
\nTrump, seated next to a poster showing the continental US painted gold and with artistic depictions of missile interceptions, also announced that Gen. Michael Guetlein, who currently serves as the vice chief of space operations, will be responsible for overseeing Golden Dome\u2019s progress.
\nGolden Dome is envisioned to include ground- and space-based capabilities that are able to detect and stop missiles at all four major stages of a potential attack: detecting and destroying them before a launch, intercepting them in their earliest stage of flight, stopping them midcourse in the air, or halting them in the final minutes as they descend toward a target.
\nFor the last several months, Pentagon planners have been developing options \u2014 which the US official described as medium, high and \u201cextra high\u201d choices, based on their cost \u2014 that include space-based interceptors. The official spoke on condition of anonymity to detail plans that have not been made public.
\nThe difference in the three versions is largely based on how many satellites and sensors \u2014 and for the first time, space-based interceptors \u2014 would be purchased.
\nThe Congressional Budget Office estimated this month that just the space-based components of the Golden Dome could cost as much as $542 billion over the next 20 years. Trump has requested an initial $25 billion for the program in his proposed tax break bill now moving through Congress.
\nThe Pentagon has warned for years that the newest missiles developed by China and Russia are so advanced that updated countermeasures are necessary. Golden Dome\u2019s added satellites and interceptors \u2014 where the bulk of the program\u2019s cost is \u2014 would be focused on stopping those advanced missiles early on or in the middle of their flight.
\nThe space-based weapons envisioned for Golden Dome \u201crepresent new and emerging requirements for missions that have never before been accomplished by military space organizations,\u201d Gen. Chance Saltzman, head of the US Space Force, told lawmakers at a hearing Tuesday.
\nChina and Russia have put offensive weapons in space, such as satellites with abilities to disable critical US satellites, which can make the US vulnerable to attack.
\nLast year, the US said Russia was developing a space-based nuclear weapon that could loiter in space for long durations, then release a burst that would take out satellites around it.
\nTrump said Tuesday that he had not yet spoken to Russian President Vladimir Putin about the Golden Dome program, \u201cbut at the right time, we will,\u201d he told reporters at the White House.
\nThere is no money for the project yet, and Golden Dome overall is \u201cstill in the conceptual stage,\u201d newly confirmed Air Force Secretary Troy Meink told senators during a hearing Tuesday.
\nWhile the president picked the concept he wanted, the Pentagon is still developing the requirements that Golden Dome will need to meet \u2014 which is not the way new systems are normally developed.
\nThe Pentagon and US Northern Command are still drafting what is known as an initial capabilities document, the US official said. That is how Northern Command, which is responsible for homeland defense, identifies what it will need the system to do.
\nThe US already has many missile defense capabilities, such as the Patriot missile batteries that the US has provided to Ukraine to defend against incoming missiles as well as an array of satellites in orbit to detect missile launches. Some of those existing systems will be incorporated into Golden Dome.
\nTrump directed the Pentagon to pursue the space-based interceptors in an executive order during the first week of his presidency.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump has announced the concept he wants for his future Golden Dome missile defense program \u2014 a multilayered, $175 billion system that for the first time will put US weapons in space. Speaking Tuesday from the Oval Office, Trump said he expects the system will be \u201cfully operational before the end of …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":81336,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-81323","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81323","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=81323"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81323\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":81337,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81323\/revisions\/81337"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/81336"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=81323"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=81323"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=81323"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}