The Department of Defense’s (DoD) Missile Defense Agency (MDA) is seeking ideas to meet the missile defense architecture’s requirements for creating President Donald Trump’s proposed “Iron Dome for America.”
On Jan. 27, President Trump signed an executive order calling for the development of a new missile defense system. The order, titled “The Iron Dome of America,” directs the DoD to “deploy and maintain a next-generation missile defense shield” to defend against hypersonic weapons and other advanced aerial threats, which it designates as the “most catastrophic threat facing the United States.”
In a Jan. 31 request for information (RFI), the MDA sought input from industry experts on “innovative missile defense technologies …, architectures, concepts, and Concepts of Operations” to detect and defeat threats posed by ballistic, hypersonic, and cruise missiles, along with other advanced aerial attacks.
Additionally, MDA is seeking insight into the deployment of a Hypersonic and Ballistic Tracking Space Sensor layer, developing and deploying proliferated space-based interceptors capable of boost-phase intercepts, and establishing underlayer and terminal-phase intercept capabilities to counter a potential countervalue attack.
MDA also emphasized the need to create a custody layer within the Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture and to develop capabilities that can defeat missile attacks prior to launch and in the boost phase. A secure supply chain with next-generation security and resilience features, as well as the development of non-kinetic capabilities to augment kinetic defenses, were also highlighted as crucial components of the initiative.
MDA has established several time epochs for “the delivery or demonstration of capabilities, asks industry to align each with a specific timeline.” Epoch 1 requires capabilities to be delivered or demonstrated by Dec. 31, 2026; Epoch 2 by Dec. 31, 2028; Epoch 3 by Dec. 31, 2030; and Epoch 4 beyond Dec. 31, 2030.
MDA is preparing to hold an industry day on Feb. 18, followed by one-on-one industry sessions on Feb. 19 to collaborate and provide clarification to industry.
Responses to the RFI are due by Feb. 28.
Republican Lawmakers Introduce Bill for America’s Iron Dome
Beyond the DoD, Republican lawmakers on Capitol Hill are also preparing to lay out a plan for America’s version of the Iron Dome.
Sens. Dan Sullivan, R-Alaska, and Kevin Cramer, R-N.D., introduced the Increasing Response Options and Deterrence of Missile Engagements (IRON DOME) Act, which would establish more detailed plans “to strengthen and expand the U.S. missile defense system.”
According to a joint statement, the “legislation is intended to work in concert with President Trump’s executive order, ‘Iron Dome for America.’”
The bill would authorize approximately $19.5 billion for the creation of a new missile defense shield in fiscal year (FY) 2026, a jump from MDA’s FY2025 budget request of $10.4 billion. If passed, the bill would require the transfer of all missile defense system operations and sustainment to the services, allowing MDA to focus solely on capability research and development.
“The IRON DOME Act dovetails with and reinforces President Trump’s historic ‘Iron Dome for America’ EO … Our legislation invests billions of dollars to develop new capabilities, like space-based sensors and new intercept technologies, significantly expand and modernize existing infrastructure,” Sen. Sullivan said.
