MDA seeks new missile defense launcher for Golden Dome within two years

The Missile Defense Agency (MDA) is starting market research to find an “innovative missile defense launcher” and support equipment technologies that could be delivered within two years as part of the Golden Dome initiative.

A Request For Information (RFI) published last week said the agency is seeking responses encompassing system-level, component-level, upgrades to existing systems, architectures, and concepts of operation for employment.

MDA said it anticipates responses from both small and large businesses as well as Federally Funded Research and Development Centers, University Affiliated Research Centers, academia, and non-traditional defense contractors. The responses are due by Aug. 18.

MDA said the RFI is geared towards understanding concepts to develop and deploy “an Under Layer, Glide Phase, and Terminal Phase Intercept capabilities to maintain a rapidly deployable next-generation missile defense shield to defeat ballistic, hypersonic, advanced cruise missiles, and other next-generation aerial attacks from peer, near-peer, and rogue adversaries.”

According to the RFI, the technology and intercept capabilities will be postured to defeat a countervalue attack, which in nuclear weapons policy refers to targeting civilian and population centers rather than focusing on military targets.

While a smaller nuclear weapons state like North Korea has missiles that are likely less accurate to long-range targets, Russia and China have many nuclear warheads deployed on missiles that could hit the U.S. According to open-source analysis by the Federation of American Scientists, Russia has over 1,700 nuclear warheads on deployed long-range missiles and bombers.

While the notice does not explicitly say so, the descriptive terms of the launcher encompass the Donald Trump administration’s new Golden Dome initiative.

MDA also said responses should be able to incorporate the current missile defense interceptors “and be suitable to accommodate future interceptors.”

In a July 24 RFI, MDA also said it envisions the new radar as a mobile sensor that can be physically emplaced and operational within 24 hours and that can acquire, track and discriminate missile threats to the homeland, but this includes multiple phased array panels combined for a larger system.

Exchange Monitor affiliate Defense Daily originally published this story.