Golden Dome is a familiar concept to Mike Dickey.

He worked on what he called “Golden Dome 1.0,” the Strategic Defense Initiative.

Championed by then-President Ronald Reagan, SDI became – somewhat derisively – known as star wars and directed the nation to develop a shield against ballistic missiles.

At the time, visions for SDI included space-based programs like Brilliant Pebbles, lasers and missile systems. Reagan’s vision for the program leveraged technology that was not feasible at the time, but the pace of technological development was supercharged because of it, Dickey said.

He sees the new missile defense system, Golden Dome, as calling for the same advancement of technology, but taking into account lessons learned by SDI. Instead of relying on the development of new technology, Golden Dome will lean on existing technology to get itself off the ground. And in Colorado Springs, the area’s strong ties to the space economy and military have primed it to take advantage of the new program.

“Schriever will be an important node in all of this … it stitches together various sensors (allowing) warfighters to take a shot,” he said at an aerospace business summit at Catalyst Campus. “Taking modern software techniques and figuring out how to make all this work together is going to be make or break for Golden Dome.”

Dickey is a founding partner of the Littleton-based Elara Nova, a space consulting firm. It is focused on “helping businesses and government agencies maximize the strategic advantages of space,” according to the company’s website. He was one of four panelists invited to speak at the Colorado Springs Chamber and Economic Development Corp’s Aerospace and Defense Summit, the first major event run by the newly formed Aerospace and Defense Economic Council (CAD-EC).

Colorado Springs’ defense industry has little to do with manufacturing military hardware and is, for the most part, a hub for software development. That could present a perfect opportunity for companies that want to capitalize on the $175 billion Golden Dome effort. Radars throughout the nation will need to be upgraded, and different systems the U.S. military uses worldwide will need to communicate with one another seamlessly, he added.

Golden Dome will consist of four layers of defense, according to Reuters reporting. The first, a space-based sensing and targeting layer, will provide missile warning and tracking as well as missile defense. This is complemented by three ground-based layers consisting of missiles, radars and possibly lasers, Reuters reported.

The focus of the shield is to defend against modern hypersonic missiles.

Although a ballistic missile that SDI sought to shoot down in the past could travel at hypersonic speeds, they were far simpler to intercept. Modern hypersonic missiles can change course in the middle of their flight, making interception even more difficult. But there is a point where they are vulnerable, Dickey said, highlighting an area where Golden Dome will require industry to push technology forward.

“Boost phase interceptors are going to have to be in space because you need to be close to wherever the thing launched, and you only have about three minutes or that thing is in blue space,” he said. “That’s an entirely new part of the architecture.”

The boost phase is when a rocket is launching and is on a very predictable path: Up. Once in space, modern weapons will plummet to the earth before leveling off on a glide path where they can begin maneuvering, complicating interception.

The U.S. missile defense relies in part on 44 ground-based missile interceptors in Alaska and California. Reuters learned in September Golden Dome will add a third missile field in the Midwestern United States. Terminal interceptors, which target missiles in the final phase of their path, also exist.

The total program, estimated to cost $175 billion, got about $25 billion as part of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act that was signed into law in early July. It will be a huge system and, regardless of its final form will require significant work to fully build out.

The timeline to complete it is aggressive: Trump wants it done in three years, which may benefit smaller more flexible military contractors which are not “encumbered by paradigms,” according to Retired Rear Adm. Will Pennington.

Colorado Springs and the Pikes Peak region have been an “epicenter of military space” since the beginning, he said.

“That’s only going to increase… This is a time of great opportunity for those thinking differently and thinking innovatively,” he said. “I encourage you to dig in, it’s a field that is ready to be plowed. Springs will only become more important as a critical node in the Golden Dome endeavor.”

Gazette Military Reporter Mary Shinn contributed to this report