Washington: The United States on Tuesday launched a digital portal to bring defence companies, technology start-ups, investors and researchers into the development of its planned $185 billion Golden Dome missile defence system.
Gen. Mike Guetlein, Director of Golden Dome for America, announced the Golden Dome for America Ecosystem Hub at the annual Space and Missile Defense Symposium.
The platform will serve as a single point of contact between programme officials and traditional defence contractors, commercial technology companies, venture capitalists, universities, research laboratories and nontraditional entrepreneurs.
It will allow potential industry partners to register, upload concepts and submit designs directly to programme decision-makers. The Department of War said the system could eliminate months of administrative delays.
The portal will also provide real-time, unclassified information about gaps in the programme’s capabilities. Companies and investors could use those details to direct research and development towards the system’s immediate requirements.
“To defeat a new generation of sophisticated, maneuvering aerial threats, we must build a defensive shield that adapts faster than the adversary,” Guetlein said.
“We are doing this by cutting bureaucratic red-tape, harnessing innovation through partnerships, and leveraging the true power of the Arsenal of Freedom,” he said.
“We are dismantling the historical walls separating commercial innovation from national defense and short-circuiting the ‘Valley of Death’ that so often stalls the deployment of critical technologies.”
The department described the portal as a major change in how the United States plans to build its next-generation, multi-layered shield against missile and other aerial threats.
Guetlein said the government would use commercially available technologies and competition among suppliers to control the project’s cost.
“While we are committed to making the necessary investments to defend and protect the nation, we are equally committed to being responsible with every dollar of the $185 billion we need to deliver Golden Dome,” he said.
“To do that, we are leveraging commercial-off-the-shelf technologies and fostering a competitive environment to drive down costs.”
The portal is also intended to strengthen supply chains and expand the US defence industrial base. Qualified suppliers will be able to connect with new sources of capital.
The department said participation by multiple vendors could reduce vulnerabilities among lower-tier suppliers, prevent dependence on individual companies and support a rapid expansion of production.
“Our mission is to establish an unassailable, highly resilient industrial base built on transparency and collaborative problem-solving,” Guetlein said.
Golden Dome is envisaged as a layered system capable of detecting, tracking and intercepting different types of incoming aerial and missile threats. Such networks generally rely on linked sensors, command-and-control systems and interceptors operating across several stages of an attack.
The programme is part of a wider US push to draw commercially developed technology into national security projects more quickly.
(IANS)
