A Golden Dome task force established under U.S. Northern Command earlier this year has a broad remit, which includes fielding the capability to defend the U.S. against missile and drone attacks, its leaders said this week. Some of the primary focuses right now are ensuring Golden Dome can defend itself against cyber threats and that it will work in the real world.
NORTHCOM established the group, dubbed Joint Task Force-Gold, in January. It is led by the head of the Army’s Space and Missile Defense Command, Lt. Gen. John Rafferty, with Army Col. Kevin Stonerook as his deputy.
Speaking with reporters Oct. 14 at the annual Association of the U.S. Army conference in Washington D.C., Stonerook said the task force has about 100 personnel based at Peterson Space Force Base, Colo. The team works closely with SMDC to integrate and coordinate Golden Dome capabilities across the air and missile defense enterprise.
Practically, that includes a range of responsibilities, including leading site surveys for future Golden Dome locations—the first confirmed hub is in Fort Story, Va.—and providing expert operators to inform the architecture. Stonerook said that lately one of the group’s major focuses has been on building a team to develop a defensive cyber capability for Golden Dome, or GDA.
“We are helping put together the team of teams, all the different stakeholders—be that vendors and other government agencies—to really provide a cyber warfare capability for GDA,” he said. “That’s one of the main things that we’re really focused on.”
The Pentagon envisions Golden Dome as a sweeping network of sensors, satellites, and interceptors designed to protect the United States from an array of air and missile threats—from drones to ballistic missiles to hypersonic weapons. The architecture will depend on a command-and-control network to connect and orchestrate its many parts. Golden Dome Director Gen. Michael Guetlein has described the C2 system as the program’s “glue layer.”
The Army’s Space and Missile Defense Command plays a key role in the Golden Dome plan. The command already has an important role in operating the limited anti-missile defense for the U.S. homeland that was first fielded more than 20 years ago. It is responsible for approximately 40 Ground-Based Midcourse Defense interceptors that protect America from ballistic missile attacks as well as the National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile System surrounding Washington.
“We have the most experienced air defense force we’ve ever had,” Rafferty said in an interview with Air & Space Forces Magazine. “It’s a mission that we do already with the ground-based interceptors in Alaska and under SMDC, and in the defense of the National Capital Region and other key locations in the homeland. We’re going to scale that. We have people who do that 24/7, 365, and have, for many years: an incredible base to build on.”
The Army is also responsible for missile defense across the globe. Iran’s attacks on U.S. forces in the Middle East have taxed and tested the Army’s THAAD and Patriot ballistic missile defense batteries. The U.S. has sent Army air defenders and air defense systems from Europe and Asia to the Middle East and has expended hundreds of Patriot and THAAD interceptors to combat Iranian ballistic missiles, which have become increasingly more advanced. The Army, in turn, has tried to learn from the flurry of attacks.
Golden Dome will use some existing technology, but its overall goal of creating a comprehensive missile defense shield will require cutting-edge and novel tech too. Joint Task Force-Gold is seeking to bring real-world experience into the picture.
“They’re in a sprint to deliver materiel,” Rafferty said. “We better be ready to train it, to man it, to have the right organization, the sustainment for it.”
Rafferty compared bringing those issues to ones he faced earlier in his career leading the Army’s Long Range Precision Fires Cross-Functional Team, the Army’s effort to modernize surface-to-surface weapons. He wanted to deliver equipment “as quickly as we could.” But personnel needed to learn how to use it. “The rest of everybody was sprinting to, ‘Hey, how are we going to fight with this thing?’”
Likewise, JTF-Gold is to attempt to ease the transition of Golden Dome from concept to reality. By working with the Pentagon’s Golden Dome office—officially titled the Direct Reporting Program Manager—to develop capability, Rafferty says JTF-Gold’s goal is to examine how the system will work on a practical basis.
In support of the Pentagon’s push to field an initial Golden Dome capability by 2028, JTF-Gold has also hosted a series of planning sprints, bringing together all of the companies and agencies working on the program “to really focus on operationalizing GDA,” Stonerook said. The task force held the first of these events in February in Colorado Springs, Colo., and drew more than 300 people. The next one is scheduled for late October.
The task force has also been involved in the large-scale test events run by the Golden Dome program office. Over the past year, the program has conducted at least two tests, which officials say were successful, though they haven’t discussed the objectives or outcome in detail.
Rafferty said the tests helped JTF-Gold better understand what it might take to one day operate the capability.
“Some of the testing events that the DPRM’s office has run have been really instructive about the types of soldiers that we need to man this,” Rafferty said. JTF-Gold is “bringing those issues to light and then creating opportunities for learning about the systems as they’re coming out, so the teams can lean forward on what the training package is or what kind of individuals we need.”
“We have the most experienced, combat-proven air defense force in the world ready to come and help man an expanded Gordon Dome from America,” Rafferty said.