Proposed Golden Dome Will Likely Rely on Variety of Spectrum Bands
President Donald Trump's high-profile promise of a Golden Dome that will protect the U.S. from missile attacks will require spectrum to operate, the Center for Strategic and International Studies said Tuesday. But the dome won’t necessarily use spectrum being examined for 5G or needed by DOD, it said.
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Since its launch in 2011, “Israel’s Iron Dome missile defense system has repeatedly captured the world’s attention for its ability to intercept rockets -- over 5,000 and counting -- and its impressive success rate -- over 90 percent,” wrote Matt Pearl, director of the center’s Strategic Technologies Program, and Clete Johnson, senior fellow. They added: “In recent months, President Trump has made it clear that he is among the many who are impressed by this system, which relies on investments and ingenuity from both the United States and Israel.”
The “Golden Dome will undoubtedly require access to spectrum for purposes of tracking incoming missiles,” they said. “However, claims that the Golden Dome will require precisely the same spectrum, in precisely the same bands, that [DOD] uses for its radars today -- without any accompanying evidence and without accounting for new methods for spectral efficiency and optimization -- simply do not pass muster.”
According to U.S. Chief of Space Operations Gen. Chance Saltzman, “satellites -- which use different spectrum bands for ground-based radars -- will have a ‘central role’ in the Golden Dome” and won’t require spectrum “at all (beyond the standard use of existing satellite frequencies),” Pearl and Johnson said. Spectrum at 2.7-3.1 and 8.55-10 GHz “potentially could be used." Ground-based radars for the dome “should be designed to avoid precluding commercial advances, and to that end, they should aim to improve spectral efficiencies,” they said. “Ground-based radars can be located on coasts and borders, facing out of the United States, with coordination in place to ensure that new inland commercial use is possible.”
The dome will “need to use AI to incorporate a variety of sources of information, including infrared and thermal imaging, radio spectrum, and various types of intelligence, and act on that information faster than any human would be capable of,” they added.