Gen. Michael Guetlein, the Pentagon Golden Dome czar, said on Tuesday that the "real technical challenge" for the effort will be building space-based interceptors to knock down enemy missiles in their boost phase.
The inclusion of space-based interceptors is a particularly hard nut for Moscow to swallow, given long-standing Russian belief that such weapons are aimed at undercutting the country’s nuclear retaliatory capability following a US first strike.
The initial command and control gateway to earn a continuous Authority to Operate is changing multi-domain operations.