President Donald Trump speaks with officials and staff of the Oval Office before his announcement of the defending system of golden dome missiles, Tuesday 20 May 2025. Credit: White House/Joyce Boghosian
On May 20, 2025, President Donald Trump announced his intention to build the “Golden Dome”, a missile defense system of billions of dollars who would have used weapons and satellites based on space to intercept the ballistic attacks against the United States. This announcement derives from the executive order of January 27 of Trump entitled “Iron Dome for America”. Inspired by the Iron Dome of Israel and the Strategic Defense initiative of President Ronald Reagan, Trump’s executive order declared his commitment to “distribute and maintain a next generation missile defense shield”.
For some, this initiative marks a significant change from the long -standing principle according to which space should be used for peaceful purposes. A version of this principle was sanctioned in the 1967 external space treatise, which prohibited signatories to place nuclear weapons or other weapons of mass destruction in space and designated celestial bodies as a domain for exclusively peaceful use. However, the treaty does not forbid all military activities in the terrestrial orbit, including conventional weapons systems such as the golden dome. However, the golden dome is seen by many analysts as an escalation in the militarization of space.
What is the golden dome?
Trump’s golden dome will be a missile defense shield that uses a constellation of satellites and space -based weapons to intercept the ballistic missile attacks against the United States. In his announcement on May 20, Trump said that his administration had chosen architecture for the program and that the system could be operational within three years, before the end of his second term.
“Once built completely, the golden dome will be able to intercept the missiles even if they are launched by other sides of the world and even if they are launched by space and we will have the best system ever built,” said Trump, as reported by The Washington Postin the oval office. In the same briefing, the defense secretary Pete Hegseth described the project as a “turning point”.
The system is designed to counter the increasingly sophisticated threats from countries such as Russia, China, North Korea and Iran. According to the Pentagon, these nations have developed long -range advanced weapons, including ballistic, hypersonic and cruise missiles capable of hitting the United States with conventional or nuclear newspapers.
How would it work?
The proposed “Golden Dome” missile defense system, described by Hegseth in a declaration of May 20 as a “system of systems”, aims to detect, keep track and intercept the missile threats before the impact. Echoing to the proposal of the strategic defense initiative of President Ronald Reagan-Spesso nicknamed “Star Wars” for its futuristic-golden ambitions would merge the existing missile defense technologies with systems not yet developed.
Trump’s first layer of Golden Dome would expand the deployment of current missile defenses on the ground, which are already skilled in monitoring and intercepting intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM). In addition, a constellation of new satellites would be in charge of monitoring threats emerging from space, including hypersonic missiles and fractional orbital bombing systems (FOB), which can evade the traditional detection of the radar. This dedicated sensor layer would identify the launch sites and the types of missiles and to deal with the trajectory of these new types of missiles.
The final phase involves the development of interceptors based on space, the most controversial step. While the design for these interceptors remains unclear, it will effectively use data from the level of the sensor to affect the types of advanced missiles during the initial boost phase, when vehicles are still gaining speed and are more vulnerable. At the moment, this technology does not exist.
The challenge here, according to the Space Systems expert, Patrick Binning, “Is Speed”. In an interview with Johns Hopkins Whiting School of Engineering, Binning explained: “These early stages last only 10-20 minutes and the decisions must be made in seconds. Golden Dome must quickly detect the launch, identify the type of threat, calculate a interception solution and perform everything in real time.”
US officials have constantly framed the golden dome as a defensive system. However, if the United States manage to introduce these space -based interceptors, technology could be used for offensive skills.
Space force has recently moved its public position to the final border, explicitly treating it as a potential battlefield. As Gen. Chance Saltzman said in a 2024 story by Ars Technica, “space is a war combat domain. Ten years ago, I couldn’t say it. This is the starting point”. These statements have pushed the debate that the golden dome would remain a purely defensive measure or contribute to the space of space.
What are the concerns surrounding the golden dome?
The announcement of the golden dome has caused strong reactions both internationally and nationally. While supporters consider it essential for national security, critics have raised concerns about the potential of the project to trigger a new armament race, as well as its feasibility and costs.
The Chinese Foreign Ministry warned, as reported by Reuters, that the system “violates the principle according to which the safety of all countries should not be compromised and undermines strategic balance and global stability”. Likewise, AFP reported that the North Korea Foreign Minister condemned the plan as “the height of justice [and] Arrogance “, warning that it could” transform the space into a potential nuclear war field “.
These reactions highlight the concerns that the golden dome could accelerate a spatial armament race. Hong Min, analyst at the Korea Institute for National Unification in Seoul, said to AFP: “If the United States complete his new missile defense program, the North will be forced to develop alternative means to combat or penetrate it”.
At national level, the project must face control over its feasibility and costs. Senator Jack Reed, the democratic maximum of the Senate’s armed services committee, described the initial funding as “essentially a mud fund at this point”, second The Washington Postnoting the absence of a detailed implementation plan. The Congress Budget Office estimated that the implementation and operation only space -based interceptors could cost between $ 161 billion and $ 542 billion in the next two decades, significantly higher than the projection of $ 175 billion Trump.
The main scientific organizations have also expressed skepticism on the golden dome. The American Physical Society, in a study published in March, discovered that the development of an effective defense against a limited number of ICBM would also be a “discouraging challenge” and that the problems associated with a large -scale missile defense system probably “remain formidable in the 15 -year -old time horizon that the study took into consideration”.
In the meantime, the union of interested scientists (UCS) has indicated the historical record of the United States when it comes to missile defense. In a declaration of January 28, Dr. Laura Grego, director of the research and senior scientist of the Global Security Program at the UCS, said: “In the last 60 years, the United States have spent more than $ 350 billion for efforts to develop a defense against nuclear Mibms. This effort has been afflicted by false departures and failures and no one has yet been proven to be effective against a threat to be effective against a threat. of the real world. “
What are the potential consequences of space militarization?
Trump’s golden dome represents a significant step in the militarization of space – a trend in contrast with the vision of the space of the 1967 space treaty as a kingdom for peaceful exploration and scientific progress.
A war on vast staircase in space would have significant risks, including the threat of space debris. As Colonel Shawn Fairhurst of the Air Force Space Command warned Colonel in a history of 2018 Astronomy“The problem is that when you explode something in space, it creates debris that never drop.” A single test of the anti-Satellite weapon by China in 2007 created over 3,000 objects of traceable debris-the largest cloud of space debris in history-on-ongoing dangers in progress to the satellites in orbit.
The satellites are also vulnerable to nuclear detonations in space. In addition to issuing energy in the explosion itself, a nuclear explosion generates an electromagnetic impulse (Emp), which can disable satellites and electronics on the ground in large areas. Nuclear explosions also release intense explosions of radiation and charged particles. Some of these particles can be trapped by the Earth’s magnetic field, forming artificial radiation belts that may persist for months or year. This effect – demonstrated in particular in the aftermath of the 1962 Nuclear Prime Starfish Nuclear Test in space – can seriously damage or disable satellites in the orbits concerned.
The development of Trump’s golden dome also occurs on a background of growing competition in space. While the United States, Russia and China have shown all the anti-Satellite skills, there has been a general reluctance to formalize the rules that would limit their actions. As Pj Blount said, an expert in space law Astronomy In 2018, “you see a lot of talking about the desire to disconnect the space, but you don’t see many movements in defining the rules”.
Trump’s golden dome is seen by some as a fundamental moment in space policy, raising questions about the balance between national security and the peaceful vision of the exploration of the space that the external treaty of 1967 supported.
In the end, as Colonel Fairhurst warned, “our entire goal is not to have a war in space. A war in space is not good for anyone”.
