Missile test / Envato Market
by Emmitt Barry, with reporting from Washington D.C. Bureau Staff
(Worthy News) – The U.S. Space Force has quietly awarded roughly half a dozen “Golden Dome” contracts to build competing space-based missile-defense prototypes, kicking off an industry race for future production deals worth tens of billions of dollars, according to multiple sources briefed on the awards.
The early contracts went to a mix of major defense firms and fast-rising startups — Northrop Grumman, Lockheed Martin, True Anomaly, and Anduril — though the Space Force has not publicly released the list. A spokesperson confirmed the awards but noted that contracts valued under $9 million do not need to be disclosed.
The awards represent one of the most significant steps yet in the Pentagon’s push to build a space-layered missile defense network, capable of tracking and destroying enemy missiles earlier in flight than any existing ground-based system.
The new contracts fund competing designs for space-based interceptors and fire-control systems that will fuse satellite data to guide those interceptors toward incoming missiles. Early prototype awards were estimated at about $120,000 each, though Northrop Grumman and Anduril received a combined $10 million. The Pentagon initially sought four interceptor variants, though one source says that may be reduced to three.
To accelerate development, the Pentagon created a $340 million performance “prize pool” for companies that complete an on-orbit test, with payouts ranging from $40 million to $125 million. But reaching that stage is costly — industry officials estimate it could take $200 million to $2 billion to build and test a single prototype.
Firms that advance past the prototype phase will compete for production contracts worth $1.8 billion to $3.4 billion annually, reflecting Washington’s growing shift toward orbit-based missile defense designed to intercept threats far earlier than ground systems allow.
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