MDA adds 1,086 firms to its SHIELD pool for Golden Dome-related tech

WASHINGTON — The Missile Defense Agency (MDA) has qualified 1,086 more companies to compete for future awards under its Scalable Homeland Innovative Enterprise Layered Defense (SHIELD) program to develop advanced technology to support a future “layered” missile defense architecture.

Announced Thursday, the new awards more than doubles the original pool of 1,014 firms granted an indefinite delivery/indefinite quantity (ID/IQ) SHEILD contract on Dec. 2. The ID/IQ has a ceiling of $151 billion and if all the options are exercised, the work to develop new tech and capabilities, primarily designed to support the Trump administration’s Golden Dome initiative, will continue through December 2035.

While MDA has released little information publicly about the types of technology being sought under shield, a slide presentation provided to industry in August and reviewed by Breaking Defense explained that there are “19+” areas of interest, covering broad categories such as prototyping, weapon design, cybersecurity, systems engineering and data mining.

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No funds, however, have actually been awarded at this time: the qualifying vendors will compete to win contracts for specific task orders laying out requirements.

Today’s announcement reiterated that MDA has received a total of 2,463 responses to its SHEILD solicitation. Doing the math, a total of 2,100 firms now have received awards.

“In accordance with the solicitation, the Government continues with staggered awards and will work with remaining offerors accordingly,” the announcement added.