Washington –

U.S. President Donald Trump's Golden Dome missile defense initiative is facing significant delays, hampered by the 43-day government shutdown and lack of a clear plan to spend the first $25 billion appropriated for the program this summer, according to eight sources familiar with the situation.

The shutdown delayed hiring and pulled crucial personnel away from their normal duties of approving and signing contracts, according to three industry sources and a U.S. official, who along with other sources spoke on condition of anonymity fearing reprisals for talking to the press about a program where many aspects are classified as secret.

More critically, the nearly $25 billion earmarked for Golden Dome as part of the budget reconciliation package approved this summer has not been turned into a spending plan that details exactly how the money will be allocated, two sources from the administration along with a source on Capitol Hill and two of the industry executives said.

The setbacks threaten Trump's promise that the $175 billion program, unveiled on the seventh day of his new administration, will be in place to protect the continental United States by 2028.

"I don't think they have made a lot of progress, but I don't think it's going horribly,” one of the U.S. officials said on condition of anonymity.

Reporters spoke to over a dozen sources from within the administration, the Pentagon, Capitol Hill and in the defense industry to piece together a picture of the headwinds facing Golden Dome, Trump's signature national defense priority.

A spending plan outlined in the bill funding Golden Dome was due to Congress in late August. That plan is now expected to be delivered by Deputy Secretary of Defense Steve Feinberg in December, two sources on Capitol Hill said.

Delays in defense contracting are routine, but because of Trump's short timeline they have taken on added significance for Golden Dome. Those delays have led some in the defense industry to express fear that key Golden Dome contracts will not be issued by the Department of Defense's internal deadline of Dec. 31. Such a delay could potentially drive up costs, according to four defense industry executives who are planning to bid on aspects of the program.

"The Golden Dome is a visionary project led by a visionary president," a White House spokesperson said. "It shouldn’t surprise anyone that it takes hard work to create such a system, and everyone is working well together to put pen to paper and deliver this next-generational technology."

A Pentagon spokesperson said the military is closely guarding the progress it is making on Golden Dome. "Recognizing adversaries' intent to exploit Golden Dome's breakthroughs, we are rigorously protecting America's strategic advantages inherent in this program."

Feinberg and Golden Dome program manager General Michael Guetlein declined to comment.

Guetlein met a mid-November deadline to present an implementation plan for the system and that plan is under review, the Pentagon said. From that blueprint, the Department of Defense plans to begin awarding contracts for companies to test and build satellites, interceptors, ground stations and networking infrastructure. But sources inside the administration said the architecture for the plan proposed in September remains in flux, and won't be finalized for several more weeks. A Pentagon spokesperson said "the baseline architecture has been established” but did not give further details.

Without the final architecture, implementation plan or an approved spending plan, Guetlein has been unable to put programs up for contract, effectively freezing the initiative's ability to move from planning to rapid execution, one U.S. official and three industry executives said.

The delays have fueled industry concerns that Golden Dome will need a much larger budget and longer timeline. Todd Harrison, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank, estimated in September the cost of a "robust, all-threat" missile defense system at $3.6 trillion over 20 years.

Guetlein is scrambling to staff up the Golden Dome office and still has not met the internal headcount goal of 30 staffers. The program has also lost a key technical director from the U.S. Space Command working on the project's architecture, said one administration official and three industry executives familiar with the program.

A new staff member to fill the position has been identified, two of the people said.

Guetlein has managed to mobilize a workforce of contractors, establish internal systems and hire a small team within the Pentagon in addition to borrowing missile defense experts from various facilities like the rocket development center at Redstone Arsenal outside Huntsville, Alabama, an administration official and three industry executives said.

Tom Karako, a weapons security expert at the Washington-based think tank Center for Strategic and International Studies, said the point of having a four-star general like Guetlein in charge is that "he can break glass and get things done."

"As long as there is indecision about every little thing at still higher levels, none of this is ever going to get started," he said.

But Golden Dome's challenges don't end with the bureaucratic delays. Potential contractors have balked at the upfront costs they will have to shoulder to develop the Space-Based Interceptors, a network of satellites that would carry missiles to intercept a threat from launch to just before impact, multiple defense industry sources said.

One of the executives at a top defense contractor said they are unlikely to compete to build the interceptors because of the costs of the years-long competition and the possibility that the next administration will abandon the program.

The development costs for the interceptors are expected to be borne by the companies competing for the award, according to documents seen by reporters. Typically this type of risky research funding is partly shouldered by the federal government.

Contractors are being asked to develop four different versions of the interceptors, according to the documents: two versions that can intercept missiles at different altitudes of the boost phase, one version during mid-flight, and another to counter faster-moving hypersonic missiles.

The government envisions groups of as many as five companies competing for different interceptor types. Within each competition group there are "prize pools.” The largest pool for $340 million would be split among companies that complete an "on orbit" test with first place receiving $125 million and fifth place, $40 million, according to a Pentagon presentation to the industry viewed by reporters.

Ultimately companies could win lucrative production contracts worth $1.8 billion to $3.4 billion annually, the Pentagon said in its presentation. But industry executives estimate it might cost $200 million to $2 billion to build and test a space-based interceptor. Major defense contractors including Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, RTX and Boeing are expected to compete for various components of Golden Dome once blanket contracts can actually be awarded.

Some things are going right. The Department of Defense is making progress centralizing early-warning systems maintained by disparate government spy agencies intended to defend against ballistic, hypersonic and advanced cruise missiles, according to two industry sources and two U.S. officials.

Those systems involve hacking into enemy systems, gathering information from satellites and intelligence on the ground and feeding that simultaneously to Golden Dome, greatly aiding preparations to shoot missiles down.