MDA taps over 1,000 vendors for Golden Dome contract opportunities
The Pentagon announced this week that 1,014 companies are eligible to compete for awards from the Missile Defense Agency under the Golden Dome project.
The vendors were tapped as part of the first phase of MDA’s contracting vehicle known as the Scalable Homeland Innovative Enterprise Layered Defense (SHIELD), according to a list of contract announcements published Tuesday. Companies that receive orders from the indefinite-delivery, indefinite-quantity (IDIQ) contract will receive funds from a pool worth up to $151 billion, and work could continue over the next decade.
“This contract encompasses a broad range of work areas that allows for the rapid delivery of innovative capabilities to the warfighter with increased speed and agility, leveraging artificial intelligence and machine learning enabled applications where pertinent, and maximizing use of digital engineering, open systems architectures, model-based systems engineering, and agile processes in the acquisition, development, and sustainment of these capabilities,” officials wrote.
The Defense Department did not disclose which companies were chosen as “qualifying offerors” for the first round of SHIELD. The announcement did note that 2,463 bids were submitted.
The SHIELD contracting vehicle is one of several initiatives dedicated to building out President Donald Trump’s project known as Golden Dome. The homeland missile defense architecture is envisioned as a sprawling network of sensors and weapons deployed across multiple domains that can effectively detect, track and intercept incoming missile threats to the United States.
MDA is also running a second contract vehicle for Golden Dome called the Multiple Authority Announcement (MAA). According to a notice posted to Sam.gov in July, MAA will be used to contract for kinetic and hypersonic defense; command-and-control battle management; integrated non-kinetic and electronic warfare; space-based capabilities; and other disruptive technologies.
At the same time, other agencies across the DOD are working to develop pieces of the Golden Dome architecture.
The Space Force recently awarded contracts to a set of unknown vendors to build prototypes of space-based interceptors (SBIs), according to a report from Bloomberg. The service’s acquisition arm also expects to release another solicitation for SBIs able to conduct kinetic midcourse missile defense before the end of 2025.
The massive Golden Dome effort is being led by Gen. Michael Guetlein, who was tapped by Trump in May to serve as the direct reporting program manager. Since taking helm of the project, Guetlein has begun briefing top officials on Golden Dome and is scheduled to deliver an implementation plan for the program by the end of the year.
