North and South Dakota Sens. John Hoeven (R) and Mike Rounds (R), respectively, said the Northrop Grumman future intercontinental ballistic missile Sentinel will be under the Golden Dome project in upcoming defense bills.
“The project itself, it will be a part of an Iron Dome project, or a Golden Dome Project,” Rounds told the Exchange Monitor in the halls of the Capitol in Washington Tuesday. “So Sentinel is moving.”
The Air Force had not responded to a request for comment by press time on Tuesday. The direct reporting portfolio manager (DRPM) for Golden Dome is Space Force Gen. Michael Guetlein, while the White House last month nominated Lt. Gen. Dale White for his fourth star as the DRPM for Sentinel and the Northrop Grumman B-21 Raider stealth bomber, as well as the Boeing F-47 fighter and Air Force One.
The Golden Dome was originally dubbed “Iron Dome for America,” after Israel’s Iron Dome defense system. It is part of an executive order by President Donald Trump in January. The order stated the Dome is intended to defend against hypersonic, cruise and nuclear-armed ballistic missile threats and a “countervalue attack by nuclear adversaries.” While similar in name to Israel’s system, the Golden Dome bears more similarities to former President Ronald Reagan’s “Star Wars” initiative, which was never realized but envisioned a space-based missile defense system as well.
The Sentinel is the Air Force’s future silo-based, ground-based strategic deterrent component of the nation’s nuclear triad, and a nuclear-armed intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM).
Hoeven, when asked by the Monitor where and why Sentinel was moved under the Golden Dome project, said “if you think about it, Sentinel is Golden Dome right now.”
“What protects us from any type of incoming missile or nuclear attack is Sentinel,” Hoeven said. “In other words, people know that they don’t dare mess with this because nobody can take us and our nuclear arsenal. So that is what’s protecting us today. And so the concept behind Golden Dome is to build on that and actually have counter drone, anti-ballistic missile and all those kinds of things as well.”
Hoeven added, “the fundamental Golden Dome today is Sentinel, so it’s just a logical extension of that.”
When asked if that extension applied to today’s Minuteman III, the current Boeing-made ICBMs Sentinel would replace, Hoeven said, “We’ll see, but remember Sentinel is the continuity of that. It’s really all the same. So timing? We’ll see.”
Hoeven also said there would be aspects of this shift in the 2026 National Defense Authorization Act and fiscal 2026 defense appropriations.
Sentinel will eventually replace Minuteman III sometime in the 2030s while the Minuteman III is still commissioned. The last Minuteman III was originally expected to be decommissioned in the mid-2030s, but Maj. Gen. Stacy Jo Huser, commander of the 20th Air Force in the Air Force Global Strike Command, told the Monitor in January Minuteman III would now be decommissioned by at least 2050.
Trump wants the Golden Dome completed by the end of his term.