In May 2025, the world got a first-hand look at what a modern missile defense system looks like during a major international conflict, when Israel attacked Iran and triggered a rapid retaliation. What most people saw was a piece of Israeli Missile Defense system referred to as the Iron Dome. But that name hides a more complicated reality.
The Iron Dome is only the lowest and cheapest layer of Israel’s missile defense network. It consists of roughly ten batteries, each costing about $100 million, with individual interceptor missiles priced around $40,000. That is remarkably inexpensive by military standards, especially when compared to the United States’ Patriot system, where a single interceptor can cost close to $4 million.
Recently, the United States has begun discussing a similar concept, even borrowing the branding, calling its proposed system the Golden Dome. But this comparison immediately breaks down once you look at the threats each system is meant to stop.
This is a Qassam rocket, the most common rocket fired out of Gaza. It is small and often built using sugar and potassium nitrate fertilizer. It costs roughly $800 to make and can travel about 16 kilometers unguided.
Now compare that to a hypersonic glide vehicle.
One is built under extreme scarcity by people living under siege, designed to fly blindly for a short distance before crashing down. The other can be launched from nearly anywhere on Earth, reach the edge of space, guide itself back into the atmosphere, maneuver at hypersonic speeds, evade defenses, and strike a target with extraordinary accuracy halfway across the planet.
Designing a system capable of stopping the first does very little to prepare you to stop the second.
The cost difference reflects this gap. The Iron Dome’s expense would be trivial compared to a system meant to defend against intercontinental ballistic missiles, hypersonic weapons, and advanced cruise missiles. Which raises a deeper question: why does the United States need such a system at all?
The U.S. has never had to defend its homeland from large-scale missile attacks. Yet the Golden Dome proposal aims to do exactly that, at an enormous price for that matter. The system is expected to counter ballistic missiles, hypersonic glide vehicles, and cruise missiles, with cost estimates ranging from $161 billion to $542 billion over 20 years. For context, that’s the equivalent of six to twenty-seven years of NASA’s entire operating budget.
So how do systems like this actually work?
The Iron Dome was designed to intercept short-range rockets and artillery. At its core is a mobile radar that detects and tracks incoming threats. Once a rocket is detected, data is sent to a battle management unit that calculates its trajectory. If the system determines the rocket will hit a populated area or critical infrastructure, it launches a Tamir interceptor, which guides itself using ground radar and onboard optical sensors.
But calling the entire system the Iron Dome is misleading. It is only one layer of a broader defense network.
Above it sits David’s Sling, which handles medium-range threats, and above that the Arrow system, designed to intercept long-range, high-altitude ballistic missiles. It is this Arrow system that was under intense strain as Iran retaliated, with some missiles getting through as interceptor stocks ran low.
Reports suggest Israel was spending as much as $285 million per day to keep the system running, with Arrow interceptors costing roughly $3 million each.
One of Iran’s newer missiles, the Fatah, is described as a hypersonic ballistic missile, but that label is overstated. While the missile does reach hypersonic speeds during re-entry, so do most ballistic missiles. True hypersonic weapons are defined by their ability to maneuver unpredictably at low altitude. The Fatah follows a high ballistic arc and can maneuver only slightly.
The real threat isn’t cutting-edge maneuverability. It’s numbers.
Iran’s strategy relies on saturation: launching hundreds of missiles at once, alongside waves of cheap drones that clutter radar systems and drain interceptor supplies. Even the most advanced defenses struggle when overwhelmed.
Meanwhile Israel benefits from geography. It is defending a small country where cities are clustered close together. The United States faces a far more complex problem. Any attack would likely involve intercontinental ballistic missiles, submarine-launched weapons, cruise missiles, and increasingly sophisticated hypersonic systems.
The Golden Dome executive order outlines an ambitious response. Rather than a single defensive wall, it proposes multiple overlapping layers to protect the continental United States. Some elements involve upgrading existing systems and integrating them into a unified command structure. Others introduce controversial ideas that could reshape U.S. missile defense for decades.
To understand the challenge, it helps to break a missile’s flight into three phases.
First is the boost phase, lasting only a few minutes while the missile’s engines are firing.
Then comes the midcourse phase, where the missile travels through space. This is the longest and most complex stage, as missiles may deploy decoys, release multiple warheads, or maneuver unpredictably. Defense systems must determine which objects are real threats.
Finally comes the terminal phase, when warheads plunge back into the atmosphere at extreme speeds. At this point, defenders have only seconds to react.
Everything begins with detection. Missile launches produce intense heat during the boost phase. These are visible to infrared sensors in space. This task falls to the U.S. Space Force’s space-based infrared satellite network, which provides persistent global coverage.
Once detected, the missile must be tracked in real time. Tracking relies on a mix of space-based sensors and ground-based radar systems that monitor speed, altitude, and direction. One of the most important of these is the Long-Range Discrimination Radar in Alaska, positioned to monitor potential attack paths.
This phased-array radar uses thousands of small antennas to steer its beam electronically, allowing it to track multiple objects at once or focus into a single high-resolution beam. Built using gallium nitride, it can operate at higher power levels while efficiently dissipating heat. This allows it to switch between lower frequencies for long-range tracking and higher frequencies for detailed discrimination. This is especially critical when missiles deploy decoys as simple as nuts and bolts.
This radar is just one part of a global sensor network, which also includes sea-based platforms and airborne systems.
Once a missile is tracked, the final step is interception. Most modern interceptors rely on kinetic energy, not explosives. Explosions risk detonating the warhead itself and are less effective at high altitude. Instead, interceptors aim to physically shatter the warhead at hypersonic speeds.
To do this, interceptors must also see their targets. Older systems used spinning optical disks to center on infrared signatures. Modern systems use advanced infrared detector arrays made from materials like indium antimonide, producing thermal images that allow precise guidance.
All of this can be integrated into systems like Aegis, deployed on U.S. Navy ships, and its land-based counterpart THAAD. These systems share data across a global digital battlefield map, incorporating information from satellites, aircraft, and radar. Even F-35 pilots can see this data through augmented-reality helmets.
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The United States already has a robust missile defense network. What the Golden Dome seeks to do is dramatically expand its coverage, especially against counter-value threats. These refer to attacks aimed at cities and civilian infrastructure rather than military targets.
This marks a shift in priorities. Instead of protecting military assets, the focus moves toward defending specific population centers. That raises difficult questions.
Which cities get covered?
By what criteria? Population size? Economic value?
At some point, missile defense systems may quietly appear around select cities, leaving others exposed.
Where the Golden Dome becomes truly controversial is its emphasis on stopping missiles before or during the boost phase. To do that globally would require weapons in space.
The only realistic way to intercept missiles during boost phase anywhere on Earth is a constellation of space-based interceptors in low Earth orbit. This idea isn’t new. Reagan proposed similar concepts during the Cold War, including Brilliant Pebbles and Rods from God also known as kinetic bombardment but it wasn’t initiated fully due to funding. The system would need over 2000 satellites in space. What’s changed now is launch cost. Thousands of satellites are now feasible—Starlink has already proven that by putting over 7000 satellites in space.
But interceptor satellites would be far more complex, expensive, and politically explosive. Weapons in space would likely provoke international backlash and invite retaliation, especially from nations with anti-satellite capabilities.
An alternative may be space-based lasers. Lasers can engage targets at the speed of light, heating and disabling missiles during boost phase. The U.S. has already demonstrated this capability with an airborne laser mounted on a Boeing 747.
The challenge is power. Space-based lasers would require enormous energy. Basically hundreds of kilowatts to megawatts. That would demand massive orbital power infrastructure, potentially involving power-beaming satellites in higher orbits. Technically possible, but politically and economically fraught.
Experts remain skeptical. Cost estimates continue to rise, with projections exceeding $542 billion over two decades. Funding remains uncertain, geopolitical risks are high, and adversaries have already warned the system could trigger an arms race in space.
In trying to defend against a future that may never come, the Golden Dome risks creating the very instability it claims to prevent.
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