I think it's quite plausible that this could involve BrainChip in some way IMO.
Lockheed is targeting a space-based interceptor demo by 2028 as part of Golden Dome, the US defense concept that envisions space assets and heavy use of autonomy and AI.
Remeber that Quantum Ventura's CyberNeuro-RT (CNRT) was developed with Lockheed Martin and Penn State. Akida powers CNRT’s low-power neuromorphic inference.
Golden Dome will have sprawling ground and space segment networks and a CNRT-style capability could harden comms and control networks used by primes and government operators.
IMO. DYOR.
Lockheed To Test Golden Dome Space-Based Missile Interceptor In Orbit By 2028
Space-based interceptors are a key part of the Golden Dome missile defense vision, but are also one of its most challenging.
Joseph Trevithick
Published Oct 21, 2025 5:20 PM EDT
https://www.twz.com/space/lockheed-...missile-interceptor-in-orbit-by-2028#comments
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Lockheed Martin is aiming to conduct an on-orbit demonstration of at least one space-based anti-missile interceptor design no later than 2028. Interceptors deployed in space have been billed as a key element of the Trump administration’s Golden Dome missile defense initiative, but present considerable technical hurdles.
Lockheed Martin CEO Jim Taiclet talked about his company’s space-based interceptor plans and other work relating to Golden Dome during a quarterly earnings call today. In July, Northrop Grumman had separately disclosed
the existence of an active competition for Golden Dome’s space-based interceptor component.
“We also submitted proposals for space-based interceptors and other emerging technologies,” Taiclet said. “We’re actually planning for a real on-orbit, space-based interceptor demonstration by 2028.”
He also explained that work on space-based interceptors reflects a broader shift in recent years in how Lockheed Martin conducts research and development efforts.
“So, on SBI [space-based interceptors], we are changing the way we allocate our independent R&D at this company …, and we’ve been evolving towards this for the last five years, I think now we’re basically at the mountaintop here,” according to Taiclet. “The previous way that the company tended to aggregate and fund IR&D [internal research and development] was, each of the business units would get sort of a slice of the pie, so to speak, and figure out what were the most important projects for their current or prospective pursuits.”
“What we’ve done over the years is we’ve migrated that approach to one where, it does care for the current needs, if you will, in the business areas, but an increasing proportion of the corpus, and the corpus hasn’t grown that much larger, but it has increased over these years, but much of that corpus now goes to real highlight, corporate-level R&D programs,” he continued. “So I’ll give you a couple of them. SBI, the space-based interceptor, is one of those. We are building prototypes, full-up operational prototypes, not things in labs, not stuff on test stands, things that will go into space, or in the air, or fly across a missile range. These are real devices that will work, and that can be produced at scale. So the space-based interceptor is one we’ve been pursuing already, and that’s all I can say about that.”
Taiclet touched on other work Lockheed Martin is doing with an eye toward Golden Dome, as well.
“Lockheed Martin has built a prototyping environment at our Center for Innovation in Virginia to support the collaborative development of a Golden Dome for America command and control capability. Through a series of demonstrations, Lockheed Martin’s open systems architecture is already fusing existing and new C2 capabilities, from seabed to space, and importantly, these capabilities are not limited to our own,” he said. “We have a broad team of industry partners that are participating in the prototype system development, ensuring that the U.S. government has access to the best available solution for each element of the eventual Golden Dome command and control system.”
The Pentagon
has become extremely tight-lipped about how the larger plans for Golden Dome are continuing to evolve, but it is widely expected to be a broad concept that encompasses a wide array of existing and future capabilities in space and within Earth’s atmosphere. You can read more about what is known about the Golden Dome initiative in
TWZ‘s past reporting
here.
A graphic the US Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) put out earlier this year illustrating the threats to the United States homeland that Golden Dome is expected to help shield against.
DIA
An overarching “mission technology roadmap over time for homeland air defense” is “not available yet,” according to Taiclet. “And what I mean by that is what sites with what radius and what point of time do you want to defend, and from what actual threats.”
However, in what they have disclosed publicly to date,
the Pentagon and
the White House have stressed the centrality of space-based interceptors to the overall Golden Dome vision. This is being driven in part by a desire to prosecute anti-missile intercepts as far away from U.S. territory as possible. When it comes to ballistic missiles, as well as hypersonic weapons that use ballistic missile-like rocket boosters, they are most vulnerable
in their initial boost phase right after launch.
“It’s not just that we want space-based interceptors, we want them in [the] boost phase,” U.S. Space Force Gen. Chance Saltzman, chief of Space Operations,
said during a live online interview with
Defense One back in March. “We want them to achieve their effects as far from the homeland. So they’ve got to be fast, they’ve got to be accurate.”
The Golden Dome program, as it is currently understood, does also envision space-based interceptors being employed outside a boost-phase engagement scenario. Intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM), as well as many other larger ballistic missiles, notably travel outside of the Earth’s atmosphere during
the mid-course portion of their flights.
A graphic showing, in a very rudimentary way, the typical trajectories, from launch to impact, for traditional ballistic missiles, hypersonic boost-glide vehicles, quasi or aeroballistic missiles, and air-breathing hypersonic cruise missiles.
GAO
The actual deployment of any space-based intercept capability would require surmounting various technical challenges.
“Advances in technology, manufacturing, and cost curves since the Brilliant Pebbles program make space-based interceptors feasible – but not simple,” a briefing slide shown at a Golden Dome industry day event earlier this year noted, according to
a story from Defense One in August. “The U.S. has never built a re-entry vehicle that can close an intercept.”
Brilliant Pebbles refers to a proposed constellation of small satellites, each one containing a single hit-to-kill interceptor, which was part of the abortive Reagan-era
Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI). Infamously dubbed “Star Wars” by its critics, the multi-faceted SDI effort never came close to achieving its ambitious goals.
Artwork depicting a Brilliant Pebble satellite launching the anti-ballistic missile interceptor inside.
USAF/Public Domain
To be truly viable, space-based interceptors would also require a robust array of sensors and fire control systems linked together via a resilient communications architecture, as you can read more about here. This presents additional challenges, especially if the system is intended to defend against large volumes of incoming threats at once.
“The reason you need AI [artificial intelligence] help is because, instead of a handful of missiles, or a dozen or so from North Korea or Iran, now we’re talking about what could be dozens and dozens or hundreds from Russia or China. There’s a quantity challenge and then there’s a time challenge,” an unnamed attendee at the aforementioned industry day event said, per
Defense One‘s report. “You want to be able to hit these as quickly as you can, and AI can sort through that much, much faster than a human can.”
Fielding large numbers of space-based assets presents its own unique hurdles, including just in terms of the resources required to put them in orbit to begin with, let alone maintain them for extended periods of time. All of this feeds into larger questions about Golden Dome’s cost, which is already expected to run into
the hundreds of billions of dollars if the U.S. government pursues the full scope of currently proposed capabilities.
President Donald Trump discussing Golden Dome at an event at the White House earlier this year.
White House
All of this underscores the importance of real-world demonstrations of proposed space-based intercept capabilities. At the same time, that testing doesn’t necessarily need to occur in orbit.
“If you want to test a space-based interceptor, you don’t have to necessarily launch it into orbit and then test it there,” another unnamed individual who attended the Golden Dome industry day gathering said, according to
Defense One. “You could do suborbital testing of your kill vehicle with much cheaper launch costs and a much faster schedule.”
Golden Dome’s plans for interceptors in orbit have also prompted discussions about the weaponization of space, and how the U.S. government’s newest missile defense vision might exacerbate trends in that regard. In speaking to
Defense One earlier this year, Chief of Space Operations Saltzman highlighted work other countries, especially
China and
Russia, have been doing to put weapons and
other worrisome dual-use capabilities in orbit.
Chinese and
Russian authorities are also chief among the powers globally that have been investing in
anti-satellite capabilities based within the Earth’s atmosphere. He also highlighted his top priority to protect the American people.
“What I think we’re really recognizing is now space is a contested war-fighting domain, and that’s what’s new, not that the military is considering offensive and defensive operations,” Saltzman said at the time. “Militaries always conduct offensive and defensive operations to contest the domains to meet military objectives. We just recently had to up our game, if you will, because space has become a warfighting domain.”
Regardless, Lockheed Martin says it is now angling to conduct a full, on-orbit demonstration of a space-based interceptor sometime in the next two years or so.
Space-based interceptors are a key part of the Golden Dome missile defense vision, but are also one of its most challenging.
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