HUNTSVILLE, Ala. – Lockheed Martin, the developer of the Next Generation Interceptor designed to protect the homeland from intercontinental ballistic missile threats, is looking for ways to accelerate the program amid a delay, according to Sarah Reeves, company vice president of NGI.
NGI is currently facing a year-and-a-half schedule slip, but a likely funding boost from President Trump’s homeland missile defense shield called Golden Dome could help reverse the slip.
By cutting a competition short to build NGI a year early and selecting Lockheed and its partner, L3Harris’ Aerojet Rocketdyne, to proceed, the Missile Defense Agency accepted some risk in the program intended to provide a more capable interceptor for the Ground-based Homeland Defense System that is poised to counter possible ICBM threats from North Korea and Iran aimed at the U.S
The decision was made to downselect to a single vendor in April 2024 due to funding decisions and priorities, according to MDA director Lt. Gen. Heath Collins at the time.
“One of the things we are committed to and really doubling down on is more rigorous testing, making sure we have the technical rigor and quality and that seamless integration into the larger weapon system that is going to allow us to bring more capability to the warfighter,” Reeves said during a media briefing at a Lockheed facility in Huntsville, Alabama.
“We are definitely looking at that as sort of a dual path situation, where we want to make sure that we have that schedule certainty and also that rigor that helps deliver the interceptor that America deserves,” she said.
Collins identified NGI’s number one program risk going forward — which would have been the case no matter which vendor MDA had picked — is the time it will take to develop a solid rocket motor for the interceptor.
“This is a new booster, a new development and we have experienced delays and issues with that development and are expecting 18 months or more delay in the delivery of that initial capability,” Collins said earlier this year.
MDA has “taken actions to shore up that development as well as bring in an additional source to help buy down the schedule risk of the development as we move forward,” Collins added.
The agency said the previous schedule supported an initial operational capability for NGI no later than the fourth quarter of fiscal 2028.
The Golden Dome architecture has yet to be made public and government officials here at the Space and Missile Defense Symposium underway in Huntsville have been ordered not to discuss President Trump’s ambitious project for the time being in public forums.
But Trump has previously stated that he expects to spend around $175 billion on the Golden Dome during his presidency and has projected that it will be completed before the end of his term in 2028.
The current GMD system has 40 silos with interceptors at Fort Greely, Alaska, and another four at Vandenberg Space Force Base, California. Earlier this year, Boeing finished building 20 more silos at Fort Greely, an expansion that began during the previous Trump administration.
It has been suggested that the Golden Dome include plans for additional silos at Fort Greely on top of the 60 existing there and another plan to install interceptors on the East Coast of the U.S.
The East Coast interceptor site concept has been pushed by lawmakers in the region for over a decade but gained little traction over that period due to other funding priorities.
MDA leadership contended that the GMD system as arranged offered sufficient protection from the threats it was designed to counter.
Reeves noted that while the program is focused on working through its critical design review, it is also busy building a missile assembly building in Cortland, Alabama. “That construction is underway and will finish in early 2026,” she said.
“We’re really proud of the partnerships we’ve formed on this program since 2021. We’ve been working with small businesses, medium-sized businesses and other primes to ensure that we’re bringing the capability that we need to this mission,” she said. “This is foundational. It’s a Golden Dome for America.”
Jen Judson is an award-winning journalist covering land warfare for Defense News. She has also worked for Politico and Inside Defense. She holds a Master of Science degree in journalism from Boston University and a Bachelor of Arts degree from Kenyon College.