The U.S. Missile Defense Agency (MDA) has completed another round of awards under its Scalable Homeland Innovative Enterprise Layered Defense (SHIELD) multiple-award indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity (IDIQ) contract, a flexible acquisition vehicle with a total ceiling of $151 billion designed to support layered homeland defense capabilities. This latest expansion brings the total number of qualified vendors to more than 2,400 entities.
The SHIELD contract is a 10-year indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity (IDIQ) agreement designed to serve as the primary acquisition framework for the “Golden Dome” missile defense initiative SHIELD, which allows the Department of Defense and other federal entities to compete orders across a broad range of mission areas. The program has been awarded in staggered tranches: an initial 1,014 companies were selected on Dec. 2, 2025, followed by 1,086 vendors on Dec. 18, 2025.
The $151 billion ceiling is shared among all awardees. The vehicle allows the MDA and other Department of Defense components to rapidly compete task orders across broad technical areas, including artificial intelligence, digital engineering, and directed energy.
To date, the agency has added thousands of companies to the contract vehicle, enabling them to compete for task and delivery orders through the contract’s ordering period, which could extend through December 2035 if all options are exercised.
Contractor Awardees (Representative List)
The SHIELD program includes over 2,400 vendors. The following list identifies some of the major industry participants confirmed across the first three tranches of awards:
Aerospace & Defense Primes
Space & Emerging Tech
Intelligence & IT Services
Lockheed Martin
Anduril
Booz Allen Hamilton
Northrop Grumman
Maxar Intelligence
Leidos
Raytheon (RTX)
Sierra Nevada Corp.
CACI International
Boeing
Sidus Space
Oracle America
HII Mission Technologies
Virtualitics
SAIC
General Dynamics IT
Firefly Aerospace
LMI
BAE Systems
Axiom Space
Guidehouse
The expansion of the SHIELD IDIQ contract reflects the Department of Defense’s strategy to cultivate a broad and competitive industrial base for advanced homeland defense technologies. By qualifying thousands of vendors, the MDA is attempting to hedge against supply chain vulnerabilities and the rapid obsolescence of defense hardware. The $151 billion ceiling reflects the massive scale of the Golden Dome initiative, which aims to integrate sensors and interceptors across all domains—land, sea, air, space, and cyber—to counter emerging hypersonic and cruise missile threats. This “broad-front” acquisition strategy is designed to accelerate technical iteration through frequent, smaller competitions rather than a single decade-long development cycle.
A military history enthusiast, Richard began his career at Forecast International as editor of the World Weapons Weekly newsletter. As the Internet became central to defense research, he helped design the company’s Forecast Intelligence Center and now coordinates the FI Market Recap newsletters for clients. He also manages two blogs: Defense & Security Monitor, which covers defense systems and international security issues, and Flight Plan, focused on commercial aviation and space systems.
For more than 30 years, Richard has authored Defense & Aerospace Companies, Volume I (North America) and Volume II (International), providing detailed data on major aerospace and defense contractors. He also edits the International Contractors service, a database tracking all companies involved in programs covered by the FI library. Richard currently serves as Manager of the Information Services Group (ISG), which develops outbound content for both Forecast International and Military Periscope.
