FORT WAYNE — U.S. Sen. Jim Banks and a Space Force general visited with L3Harris’ new CEO as the local facility works on a major missile defense system that has nearly doubled the workforce.
L3Harris Technologies’ Payload Integration Facility in Fort Wayne, 1919 W. Cook Road, is supporting America’s Golden Dome missile defense shield. Announced in January 2025 by President Donald Trump, the project will cost an estimated $175 billion.
Last year L3Harris celebrated the completion of a $125 million expansion for its work on the Golden Dome system to stop inbound missies as well as its weather satellite production and its Missile Defense Agency’s Hypersonic and Ballistic Tracking Space Sensor (HBTSS) program.
On Aug. 27, Banks, along with Gen. Michael Guetlein, direct reporting program manager for the Office of Golden Dome for America, toured the facility and talked with L3Harris’ local employees with new L3Harris President & CEO Sam Mehta.
“Probably the first four-star general ever to visit this facility developing the Golden Dome to keep America safe,” Banks said, “and they’re ready to get it done and as the senator for the state it makes me very proud.”
Mehta said, “We just left an audience of 600 highly motivated, fired-up workers to work on today’s most important problems and making sure that we provide what we all need, right, is national security short and in the long term.”
“This has been an instrumental partnership between government, between the legislative process and between industry working together to make sure we provide this long-term critical capability for our nation,” Mehta said.
Asked why now it’s so important to be creating the Golden Dome, Guetlein said, “We have been relying on our oceans to keep us safe. And what we are seeing every single day on TV, happening in the Middle East and Ukraine, is that our adversaries have become very capable of holding the homeland at risk. Worse yet, we have been seeing their intent to do so as well. And what we now have to do is start building the capabilities to defend against the threats that we’re starting to see overseas. And that’s what Golden Dome is about.”
Golden Dome will have initial operational capability by summer 2028, Guetlein said. That architecture of the system will be operational in the 2030s.