Finance
President Trump’s Golden Dome Missile Shield Just Got $3.2 Billion Bigger
“The threat of attack by ballistic, hypersonic, and cruise missiles, and other advanced aerial attacks, remains the most catastrophic threat facing the United States.”
— President Donald Trump, Executive Order 14186
EO 14186, published Jan. 27, 2025, inaugurated the concept of building an “Iron Dome for America” — soon rebranded as the Golden Dome. It called for the construction of a next-generation missile defense shield to “deter … any foreign aerial attack on the Homeland,” and in particular for accelerating work on the U.S. Space Force’s Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture missile defense program comprising one set of satellites to track missile launches, and a second set of satellites to relay data from missile launches to defense systems on the ground.
Space Force is enlisting a dozen space companies to fortify the “Golden Dome.”
“The threat of attack by ballistic, hypersonic, and cruise missiles, and other advanced aerial attacks, remains the most catastrophic threat facing the United States.”
— President Donald Trump, Executive Order 14186
EO 14186, published Jan. 27, 2025, inaugurated the concept of building an “Iron Dome for America” — soon rebranded as the Golden Dome. It called for the construction of a next-generation missile defense shield to “deter … any foreign aerial attack on the Homeland,” and in particular for accelerating work on the U.S. Space Force’s Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture missile defense program comprising one set of satellites to track missile launches, and a second set of satellites to relay data from missile launches to defense systems on the ground.
But EO 14186 contained one other element that PWSA lacked: a set of satellites in orbit armed with missiles to shoot down attacking missiles.
That is to say, PWSA lacked this…until now.
Image source: U.S. Space Force.
Golden Dome gets a gun
To fill that gap in the system and supplement America’s ground-based missile defense interceptors, Space Force announced late last month that it’s awarding $3.2 billion in defense contracts to a team of space companies to build space-based interceptors (SBIs) for Golden Dome.
12 companies were named to receive contracts:
- Anduril Industries
- Booz Allen Hamilton (BAH 2.40%)
- General Dynamics (GD 0.94%)
- Gitai USA
- Lockheed Martin (LMT +1.38%)
- Northrop Grumman (NOC 0.04%)
- Quindar
- RTX Corporation (RTX +1.76%)
- SciTec Inc, a subsidiary of Firefly Aerospace (FLY 1.95%)
- SpaceX
- True Anomaly
- Turion Space Corp.
Now this list probably includes a few names you’ve never heard of before. (That’s to be expected. Space Force specifically stated that it aimed to attract “both traditional and non-traditional vendors” to this effort.)
Among the private companies, there’s Gitai, a start-up developer of space robotics; Quindar, a specialist in mission management software; True Anomaly, the self-proclaimed “only defense technology company focused exclusively on space defense”; and space infrastructure company Turion.
Quite a cast of characters. We don’t know precisely what technology attracts Space Force to them — and Space Force isn’t telling, citing “operational security requirements.”
More familiar, not-yet-public names include Anduril, an up-and-coming defense contractor well-versed in using artificial intelligence to guide missiles and drones, which might go public soon. And of course, there’s SpaceX, the 800-lb. gorilla of space, which definitely is going public. As the incumbent provider of Starshield defense satellites to the Pentagon, you have to assume that SpaceX will win a good portion of the $3.2 billion for itself.
Golden Dome stocks you can buy today
Granted, you probably can’t invest in SpaceX until the IPO, so consider the “usual suspects” instead. Fully half the names on the list are already publicly traded stocks that you can invest in today. At least two of them that I know of, Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman, have already won PWSA contracts to build “tracking layer” satellites under PWSA. And we recently learned that a third awardee of tracking layer contracts, Rocket Lab (RKLB +14.01%), is partnering with RTX Corporation on its SBI contract.
While none of the companies on this list are guaranteed to win big contracts under the $3.2 billion SBI umbrella program, it would make sense to assume this gives each of Lockheed, Northrop, and RTX a leg up once the contracts begin being awarded.
Which of the three would I choose? It’s really no contest. Among Lockheed, Northrop, and RTX, Lockheed Martin boasts the lowest price-to-earnings ratio (15.8 times earnings), the lowest price-to-sales ratio (1.6 times sales), and also the fastest projected earnings growth rate over the next five years (18.5%, according to data from S&P Global Market Intelligence).
Lockheed Martin
Today’s Change
(1.38%) $7.00
Current Price
$513.51
If I were making a bet on a defense stock to profit from President Trump’s upgraded Golden Dome missile defense shield, I’d put Lockheed Martin stock at the top of my shopping list.