The (ex Iron) Golden Dome for America

Bar Spazio
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A fine gennaio Trump ha firmato un ordine esecutivo dal titolo “The Iron Dome for America” che impegna il ministro della difesa a preparare entro 60 giorni un piano per lo sviluppo di uno “scudo” antimissile di nuova generazione.

(a) Submit to the President a reference architecture, capabilities-based requirements, and an implementation plan for the next-generation missile defense shield.

L’architettura del sistema dovrebbe comprendere anche elementi collocati nello spazio. Tra i requisiti vengono infatti citati:

(ii) Acceleration of the deployment of the Hypersonic and Ballistic Tracking Space Sensor layer;
(iii) Development and deployment of proliferated space-based interceptors capable of boost-phase intercept; […]
(v) Development and deployment of a custody layer of the Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture;

Qui l’ordine esecutivo completo.

Ieri Breaking Defense ha pubblicato alcuni stralci del memo interno alla Difesa per la redazione del piano chiesto da Trump.

The undated, unsigned “strategic guidance,” obtained by Breaking Defense, lays out a two-phase process — led by the undersecretary for policy and supported by the assistant secretary for space policy — for meeting the 60-day deadline set by President Donald Trump in his Jan. 27 “Iron Dome for America” executive order.

Nel documento si parla di tre opzioni:

three “scalable reference architectures” for “small, medium and large options” for the shield using “kinetic and non-kinetic” weapon systems

… che comprenderebbero anche una costellazione di intercettori in orbita:

The DoD undersecretary for Research & Engineering is to coordinate with DoD Policy, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, the Space Force and the DoD undersecretary for Intelligence and Security to craft a plan for a large constellation of kinetic and non-kinetic space-based interceptors, including for boost-phase intercept shortly after a missile launches.

L’articolo su Breaking Defense.

Oggi il Canada - non so se per sincero interesse o nell’ottica di ammansire l’amministrazione USA ed evitare i dazi minacciati da Trump - si è detto interessato a unirsi all’iniziativa.

Alcuni editoriali che si interrogano su fattibilità e utilità dell’iniziativa.

:newspaper: WP: Could Trump’s Iron Dome work? Only if Canada attacks Detroit. (archive)

Una mappa che mostra il numero di satelliti necessari per assicurare la difesa degli Stati Uniti:

Nota. L’argomento è complementare alle Elucubrazioni sulla NASA e lo spazio nell’amministrazione Trump 2 ma essendo una iniziativa già “definita” e comunque non di competenza NASA né orientata alla ricerca scientifica, ho pensato fosse più opportuno discuterne a parte.

Edit.

Due senatori repubblicani hanno presentato l’Iron Dome Act che riprende nome e finalità dell’ordine esecutivo di Trump.

:scroll: Iron Dome Act [pdf]

There is authorized to be appropriated to carry out this Act $19,548,100,000 for fiscal year 2026, of which:

[…] (11) $900,000,000 shall be available for requirements of this Act relating to research and development of space based missile defense;

Il comunicato stampa:

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Il ministro della difesa avrebbe ordinato al Pentagono di pianificare un taglio al budget dell’8% l’anno per i prossimi 5 anni. “Iron Dome” sarebbe tra i programmi esentati dai tagli.

The Trump administration has directed the Pentagon to reduce its budget by 8% annually over the next five years, However, key administration priority programs will be shielded from cuts, including border security and the newly proposed Iron Dome for America missile defense initiative, according to a statement issued on Feb. 19 by Robert Salesses, who is performing the duties of Deputy Secretary of Defense.

L’articolo del WP con molti più dettagli.

:newspaper: Trump administration orders Pentagon to plan for sweeping budget cuts

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Cambio di nome: da "Iron Dome for America a “Golden Dome for America”.

1321×427 152 KB

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Perché creava confusione con l’Iron Dome israeliano. Poi pare che fosse marchio registrato di una azienda israeliana.

https://x.com/SpcPlcyOnline/status/1894466769303032296?t=UUUFzn87lXpHe7Ku7511WQ&s=19

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Space News riporta il commento del gen. Guetlein, vice chief of space operations of the U.S. Space Force, sulla difficoltà di realizzare il Golden Dome.

:newspaper: Space Force general: ‘Golden Dome’ missile shield requires Manhattan Project-scale effort

“We are not accustomed to having to integrate at the level that’s going to be required,” he said. This is “on the magnitude of the Manhattan Project,” he added. “It’s going to take a concerted effort from the very top of our government. It’s going to take national will to bring all this together. It’s going to be a heavy lift across all the organizations that are going to be participating. And what we’ve got to really push back on are the organizational boundaries and the cultures that are going to try to slow us down or to prevent us from working together.

Il generale suggerisce anche di alleggerire le restrizioni per test e addestramento in orbita (che al sottoscritto suona abbastanza sinistra come idea, qualsiasi cosa implichi).

Guetlein also noted that the Space Force’s ability to support Golden Dome could be strengthened with expanded on-orbit training and testing capabilities, which he said are currently constrained by policy restrictions.

“If I were to ask for one authority for the Space Force, it would be the authority to do on-orbit training and testing that we’re not capable of doing today,” he said. “It’s a very constrained set of authorities that we have today, and we would ask that that open up so that we can increase the readiness of our forces on the front line.”

A dispetto della minaccia di annessione da parte degli USA, il Canada dovrebbe partecipare al progetto, limitandosi però alla ricerca sulla rilevazione delle minacce in arrivo.

:newspaper: Canada looking to help develop sensors for ‘Golden Dome’ missile defence, U.S. general tells conference

Canada’s participation in U.S. President Donald Trump’s planned “Golden Dome” missile-defence system for North America is limited to research involving the detection of incoming threats, the U.S. commander for NORAD told a defence conference on Wednesday. […] “I’ll tell you that Canada is very involved with us in talking primarily about the sensor domain awareness dome that needs to feed the rest of the Golden Dome,” gen. Guillot said.

Edit 15.03

Aggiungo un editoriale di Scientific American che elenca tutte le problematiche del progetto.

:newspaper: Trump’s ‘Iron Dome’ Space Weapons Plan Ignores Physics and Fiscal Reality

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Studio uscito il mese scorso sulla difesa degli Stati Uniti dalla minaccia costituita dai missili balistici.

Lo segnalo perché mi sembra interessante e ricco di dati. Lo scenario preso in considerazione è limitato: un attacco da parte della Corea del Nord effettuato al massimo da una decina di ICBM.

Anche di fronte a una minaccia così limitata, la soluzione Golden Dome sembrerebbe tecnicamente ed economicamente insostenibile.

La presentazione:

:newspaper: Strategic Ballistic Missile Defense. Challenges to Defending the U.S.

The report focuses on questions that are narrow enough to be answered with some confidence but have broad implications for programs and systems whose goal is to intercept ICBMs in flight. In particular, it focuses on the fundamental question of whether US missile defense systems could defend the continental United States against a baseline threat consisting of a single nuclear-armed ICBM launched from North Korea, or a salvo of 10 ICBMs launched in rapid succession. The report describes the capabilities of current and possible near-term missile defense systems to address the baseline threat and the increased North Korean ICBM threat that can reasonably be expected within the 15-year time horizon of this report.

Lo studio.

:scroll: Strategic Ballistic Missile Defense. Challenges to defending the United States A Report by the American Physical Society Panel on Public Affairs February | 2025 [pdf]

Rispetto alla possibilità di intercettare dallo spazio un ICBM in partenza dalla Corea del Nord.

North Korea has now tested and deployed a solid-propellant ICBM, the Hwasong-18, which is thought to have a total burn time of only about 170 seconds, much shorter than the 289-second total burn time of the Hwasong-15. Intercepting the Hwasong-18 during its boost phase would therefore be far more challenging than intercepting the Hwasong-15. […]

Assuming the system would not attempt to defend any cities in Alaska or in the northern parts of the U.S. East and West Coasts or the Midwest, making several other optimistic and simplifying assumptions, and using the methodology of the 2003 APS study, we estimate that if a system were constructed assuming that interceptors would be fired almost automatically, i.e., with no time allowed for a decision whether to fire once the initial trajectory of the ICBM has been estimated, a constellation of about 1,600 space-based interceptors would need to be deployed to ensure that at least one would be in position to intercept each of a “salvo” of four liquid-propellant ICBMs like the Hwasong-15 launched within three minutes or so.

About 4,000 space-based interceptors would be needed to attempt to counter a salvo of ten liquid-propellant ICBMs like the Hwasong-15. If instead the system was designed to allow 30 seconds to decide whether to fire its interceptors, about 2,200 interceptors would be needed to attempt to counter a rapid salvo of four such ICBMs and about 5,500 would be needed to attempt to counter a salvo of ten of them.

Making the same assumptions as before and again using the methodology of the 2003 APS study, we estimate that a constellation of about 16,000 interceptors would be needed to attempt to counter a rapid salvo of ten solid-propellant ICBMs like the Hwasong-18. In order to allow 30 seconds of decision time, about 36,000 interceptors would be required. […]

Just like our estimates for sea-, land-, or aircraft-based interceptors defending against the Hwasong-15, these estimates assume the Hwasong-15 could be detected with confidence 45 seconds after it was launched. They also assume that the ICBM’s trajectory would be sufficiently well understood within another 20 seconds that a firing solution could be constructed, enabling space-based interceptors to be fired 65 seconds after the launch of the ICBM if the constellation of interceptors is designed to require no decision time before interceptors are fired.

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La prossima settimana Trump vaglierà tre opzioni preparate dal Pentagono per la creazione del Golden Dome.

“You probably would need to come up with a new organization to handle that,” the official said. Two other sources familiar with the discussions said a new office is already in the works, with a list of candidates being drawn up to lead it.

The Golden Dome effort will likely include near-term goals—such as improving the accuracy and effectiveness of ground-based missile interceptors—that can be completed before the 2026 midterm elections, enabling the White House to claim some quick success. More ambitious efforts are likely to take at least five to seven years to arrive, like satellites that track, analyze, communicate about, and destroy incoming missiles, according to the defense official.

Una delle proposte ricevute dal Pentagono è BRILLIANT SWARMS™, una costellazione di satelliti controllati da una AI che funzionerebbero sia da sensori che da intercettori.

[…] a networked constellation of thousands of satellites flying in 20 orbital planes some 300 to 600 kilometers up. Each would have artificial intelligence to make sense of data from many sources: their own sensors, ground radars, the Space Development Agency’s nascent tracking constellation, and more. […]

Each satellite—weighing between 40 to 80 kilograms and about the size of a “small refrigerator”—would also be a kill vehicle, able to take out an incoming missile by crashing into it, Bogdan said.

At those speeds, a field of plasma would form around the speeding satellite, increasing the energy it would release upon impact with the missile […] About 40 percent of the satellite “will burn up coming back into the atmosphere,”. The majority of the rest of it—plus the plasma field—would strike the target, while “about 2 percent actually could make it to the ground in some kind of debris,”.

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Intanto Boeing, in vista di un possibile aumento di contratti per la difesa, ha deciso di potenziare la capacità produttiva di una sua controllata che realizza satelliti.

Boeing subsidiary Millennium Space Systems is nearly doubling its satellite manufacturing capacity as it works to deliver on a backlog of defense contracts. […] The company aims to increase production from one or two satellites monthly to between six and 12 — a leap for an industry historically known for methodical, low-volume work.

Millennium’s growth is driven entirely by military programs, as the company currently has no commercial business. […] The main catalyst for expansion is a $414 million contract to build and operate eight missile-tracking satellites equipped with advanced infrared sensors, known as “Foo Fighter” — short for Fire-control On Orbit-support to the Warfighter. A new facility dedicated to this program is being constructed within Boeing’s satellite manufacturing campus in El Segundo, though Gingiss noted Millennium’s facilities remain separate from Boeing’s operations.

The company is also working on a nearly billion-dollar order for 12 missile-tracking satellites for the U.S. Space Force that will operate in medium Earth orbit (MEO). Additional contracts are for classified satellites that Gingiss declined to discuss.

Articolo da Aerospace America su impatto economico ed efficacia del Golden Dome.

If the United States figures out how to shoot down missiles from space, will adversaries throw up their hands and stop making weapons? Or will they simply make more missiles? Jen Kirby digs into the Golden Dome plan.

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Secondo Reuters, SpaceX insieme a Palantir e a una terza azienda, si sarebbe proposto di realizzare il “Golden Dome” offrendo un modello “ad abbonamento”.

:newspaper: Exclusive: Musk’s SpaceX is frontrunner to build Trump’s Golden Dome missile shield

Elon Musk’s SpaceX and two partners have emerged as frontrunners to win a crucial part of President Donald Trump’s “Golden Dome” missile defense shield, six people familiar with the matter said.

Musk’s rocket and satellite company is partnering with software maker Palantir (PLTR.O), opens new tab and drone builder Anduril on a bid to build key parts of Golden Dome, the sources said, which has drawn significant interest from the technology sector’s burgeoning base of defense startups.

[…] The three companies met with top officials in the Trump administration and the Pentagon in recent weeks to pitch their plan, which would build and launch 400 to more than 1,000 satellites circling the globe to sense missiles and track their movement, sources said.

A separate fleet of 200 attack satellites armed with missiles or lasers would then bring enemy missiles down, three of the sources said. The SpaceX group is not expected to be involved in the weaponization of satellites, these sources said.

[…] In an unusual twist, SpaceX has proposed setting up its role in Golden Dome as a “subscription service” in which the government would pay for access to the technology, rather than own the system outright.

[…] SpaceX has estimated the preliminary engineering and design work for the custody layer of satellites would cost between $6 billion and $10 billion, two of the sources said.

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me99 mi riferivo proprio a questo nell altro 3ad, quindi vorrebbe riciclare anche la sua costellazione e utilizzarla come sentinella, poi per progettare tutto il sistema di difesa che oggi è tutto da dimostrare chiedono circa 10 Miliardi, di questi tempi bruscolini.

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