Hegseth Hails First Test Of America's 'Golden Dome' Missile Defense Shield

Authored by Tom Ozimek via The Epoch Times,

The Pentagon has carried out the first milestone test of the Golden Dome for America missile defense program, and Secretary of War Pete Hegseth announced on June 23 that an autonomous targeting system and directed-energy technology successfully intercepted a series of simulated incoming threats.

Declaring the test a “full mission success,” Hegseth said in a statement on social media that the system detected, tracked, targeted, and destroyed multiple drone and cruise missile threats, marking a watershed moment for President Donald Trump’s signature homeland missile defense shield.

“President Trump is making President [Ronald] Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) vision a reality,” Hegseth said. “With Golden Dome, the War Department will defend our homeland more powerfully than ever before. Golden Dome is real, powerful, and on track.”

Hegseth said the demonstration showcased next-generation military technologies and represented a major step toward building what the administration has described as a multilayered shield against ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, hypersonic weapons, and drones.

“Golden Dome is the decisive response to a new era of threats,” Gen. Mike Guetlein, director of the Golden Dome for America program, said in an April update on the system.

“We are moving with purpose and urgency to forge a shield that is layered, integrated, and automated.”

The test comes about a month after Trump announced that the Department of War had selected a final architecture for the Golden Dome.

“It should be fully operational before the end of my term,” Trump said on May 20 at the White House, describing the $175 billion program as a “state-of-the-art” system that includes space-based sensors and interceptors.

“Once fully constructed, the Golden Dome will be capable of intercepting missiles even if they are launched from other sides of the world, and even if they’re launched from space. And we will have the best system ever built.”

Speaking alongside Trump during the Oval Office announcement in May, Hegseth said that there were a number of parallels between the Golden Dome system and the Strategic Defense Initiative put forward by President Ronald Reagan in the 1980s, sometimes referred to as “Star Wars.”

“President Reagan, 40 years ago, cast the vision for it. The technology wasn’t there. Now it is, and you’re following through,” Hegseth told Trump.

During his first week back in office for a second term, Trump signed an executive order directing the Pentagon to develop a comprehensive missile defense plan, initially under the moniker “Iron Dome for America.”

Trump’s order called for expanded use of space-based sensors and interceptors while also directing the Pentagon to develop and deploy nonkinetic technologies such as directed-energy systems, including lasers.

“The threat of attack by ballistic, hypersonic, and cruise missiles, and other advanced aerial attacks, remains the most catastrophic threat facing the United States,” Trump wrote in the order, lauding the Reagan-era vision for a nationwide missile defense shield and the technological advances it brought about—while noting that Reagan’s program “was canceled before its goal could be realized.”

The June 23 test appeared to demonstrate some of the capabilities outlined in Trump’s order. Hegseth highlighted the use of directed-energy technology and an autonomous targeting system known as the dynamic defense autonomous defeat system to eliminate “a multitude of incoming threats.”

“This test was executed on schedule—and dynamically defeated every threat,” he said.

Trump has said Canada is interested in taking part in the Golden Dome initiative as part of broader efforts to bolster North American missile defenses.

“Canada wants to be a part of it,” Trump said during the May announcement. “We'll work with them on pricing.”