President Donald Trump's Golden Dome missile defense system could be ready for initial tests this summer, with defense tech firms Anduril Industries and Palantir Technologies jointly developing the software backbone for the initiative. The firms are rushing to have the software ready for testing as soon as this summer, but the initiative has shown little visible progress to date. Growing missile threats from adversaries underscore the urgency of the Golden Dome's purpose.
The 2026 Annual Threat Assessment said that the US currently could be hit with thousands of missiles held in its adversaries' stockpiles. The Intelligence Community projects threats to the Homeland will expand to more than 16,000 missiles by 2035, from the current figure of more than 3,000 missiles. China and Russia are actively developing weapons to penetrate or bypass current US missile defense systems.
After Iran launched ballistic missiles at Diego Garcia, Trump has warned that the Islamic Republic has been developing weapons that soon could hit the US mainland. The massive Golden Dome project aims to develop technologies that can track incoming airborne threats and neutralize them before they reach US shores. Space Force Gen.
Michael Guetlein, the leader of the Golden Dome project, has stressed repeatedly that the US must stand up a system capable of defending the homeland from increasingly sophisticated long-range threats, notably from Russia and China, but now perhaps Iran as well. Japan is poised to announce its intention to join the United States' Golden Dome missile defence initiative next week. C.
China, Russia, North Korea, Iran, and Pakistan have been researching and developing an array of novel, advanced, or traditional missile delivery systems with nuclear and conventional payloads, that can strike the Homeland.
on 19 March. The specifics of Japan's involvement remain undefined. Japan hopes the initiative will provide a defence against new hypersonic glide weapons being developed by China and Russia.
Tokyo anticipates that Trump may request Japan to produce or co-develop missiles that could help replace stocks of US munitions depleted by the US-Israeli war on Iran, as well as its support for Ukraine. Japan exported a batch of surface-to-air Patriot missiles built under license to the United States late last year, marking a historic break from its long-standing ban on lethal weapons exports. Tokyo is seeking to bolster its own munitions reserves to deter an increasingly assertive China and nuclear-armed North Korea.
In a broader missile defense context, the Golden Dome project, unveiled last year with an ambitious 2028 target, aims to bolster existing ground-based defences with more experimental space-based components designed to detect, track, and potentially neutralise incoming threats from orbit. The Trump administration is pushing defense contractors to step up production of missiles and other munitions that have been drawn down in recent years. S.
and Israel launched their air war against Iran earlier this month. Ukraine has also relied on Patriots to defend its energy and military infrastructure since Russia invaded it in 2022. An FBI terrorism notice went out in California, warning of a potential Iranian drone strike in the Golden State.