LMI’s Mark Eddings Talks Golden Dome Logistics & Evolving Threat Landscape
Mark Eddings, LMI senior vice president for space, has worked on some of the most technically challenging programs in national security space. Prior to joining LMI, Eddings served as the technical director for the Space Security and Defense Program, a joint Department of Defense and Office of the Director of National Intelligence organization. There he was directly involved in shaping national security space policy, requirements and budget recommendations regarding military and commercial space security.
Eddings has also led a team in the development of Space Force space control force designs. Now at LMI, Eddings bolsters the company’s rapid innovation in support of federal customer requirements.
Potomac Officers Club sat down with Eddings for an exclusive interview to share his thoughts on the importance of AI and logistics to ensure the Golden Dome homeland missile defense system is effective and adaptable. We also discussed efficiently tracking and eliminating incoming projectiles to ensure Golden Dome systems remain operational, armed and able to evolve.
Learn more about missile defense logistics during a Golden Dome panel discussion at the Potomac Officers Club’s 2025 GovCon International Summit on October 16! Dig into supply chain and sourcing restrictions. Hear directly from top ranking government officials and industry leaders about the cutting-edge technologies transforming defense. Secure your seat today for this elite GovCon event! Use promo code GCI25AI for a 10 percent discount.
Potomac Officers Club: Everyone’s talking about Golden Dome and, as of this writing, we’re expecting official announcements any day now, but what’s LMI’s take?
Mark Eddings: I think there’s an exciting element of synchronization from our perspective, because the Golden Dome program really reflects LMI’s evolution as an organization. Our initial mission was to supply logistics support to DOD, and we’ve expanded to also become a technology solutions provider.
For example, using our RAPTR rapid modeling, simulation, analysis and prototyping platform, we’re simulation partners with the Air Force, Space Force and Navy. That means we’re modeling threats, costs, performance and resiliency, and we’re doing a lot of the force design work for all of the different Space Force missions.
So, LMI is already modeling a lot of the pieces of Golden Dome, and that breadth of experience and capabilities enables LMI to think about the Golden Dome ecosystem in its entirety. For us, that would include supporting the logistics of the operational availability of missiles, meaning they’re not only built, but ready and able to be launched.
But then we’re also thinking about maintaining those logistics as part of a system and optimizing that entire system’s performance, before understanding how to ensure that Golden Dome is resilient. Then, finally, getting back to our current work, ensuring Golden Dome—as a system, in its entirety—is able to stay ahead of what’s going to be an evolving threat landscape so, as we are now, we’re modelling threats and then designing solutions ahead of need.
POC: I know that’s a pretty long list of challenges if you dig into it; at a high level, what does that entail?
Eddings: For example, while I think we’re right to focus on, say, missiles as interceptors, I worry the current conversation assumes the sensor capabilities that guide those missiles are just fine and don’t need attention. The success of your defense weapons will be determined by how effectively you can track incoming projectiles, not just in boost but through midcourse and end game. We invest a lot of money today in our ability to detect launches. Ideally, you’d shoot incoming missiles as early as possible after launch, because your ability to hit them decreases as they approach.
We’ve seen, particularly in Israel, the importance of having an early-warning system that works, but we’re also seeing technologies that are enabling missiles to behave in ways that are increasingly more unpredictable. These include maneuverable reentry and hypersonic glide vehicles that can steer around radars and missile defense sensors. So, I think we need to be looking at what our warning systems are capable of now versus what they will need to be capable of, because I think there will be gaps that will grow.
Another issue raised by the Middle East, and Ukraine, is what happens if you’re in a protracted exchange? You need more missiles. Well, how do you produce and re-arm? That’s already a logistics challenge, as we’ve seen, on the ground. But Golden Dome has an orbital component, and orbital warfare is an increasing likelihood—so we need a process for arming and replenishing ourselves both on land and in space.
While everyone is thinking about missile capabilities, LMI is thinking about the infrastructure and ecosystem that enables those ballistic capabilities to be effective across all domains.
Discover new business opportunities with Golden Dome at the Potomac Officers Club’s 2025 GovCon International Summit on October 16! Hear directly from an all-star panel of leading industry executives about how to take advantage of Golden Dome’s new “SHIELD” contracting vehicle that could provide as much as $151 billion in contracts. Find out how to best tailor your offerings for Golden Dome contracting success. Sign up today and prepare your GovCon business for boosted revenues in FY 2026! Use promo code GCI25AI for a 10 percent discount.
POC: I think you’ve probably touched on this a bit, but you mentioned an “evolving threat landscape”—what does that look like to LMI?
Eddings: I mentioned space, and sensors, and more advanced missile behavior from antagonists, so let me dive a little more deeply into those, because they’re all connected. We’re using satellites to track threats, and we’re expecting to launch missiles from space, so we need a robust supply chain to maintain our armaments and ensure those orbital sensors are functioning, and that we can upgrade them as technology allows. This is because as other operators move into orbit, we’re going to have to consider the possibility of orbital warfare, where our satellites become targets that we have to defend and repair.
We need a robust pipeline to get materiel both across the globe and into orbit if we’re going to maintain Golden Dome and our current supremacy in space. But we also need to optimize the performance of our systems. So, we’ve talked about missiles and supplying them. But, even if we can manufacture and deploy the missiles, that’s costly. It takes several missiles to knock out one and, as I mentioned, we’re seeing the one is going to get harder to hit, so we need to find new and better ways to track and disable incoming missiles.
We’re starting to address that now with our RAPTR platform, which DOD uses to simulate operations. That can be anticipating, for example, that maybe we need to use the Navy as a mobile intercept, and maybe we’re identifying more likely trajectories and targets. We’ll need to use AI to adapt and respond to situations that are transpiring at speeds that are truly faster than humans can process. I think you could make the case that AI will be key to handling increasingly complex problems, and the response times will get better and better, as will target identification and discrimination.
In space, we need to start looking at jamming our adversaries or developing non-kinetic weapons like lasers. This will address some of the logistics and cost challenges I mentioned, but we also need to consider more esoteric questions–like what it means to have debris in space, in terms of the commerce we’re developing, the defense capabilities we’ll be maintaining and any environmental impacts.
POC: So, essentially, you’re saying Golden Dome is a whole system of components that need to interact successfully.
Eddings: Exactly. It’s a solution that needs a whole system—including logistics to maintain and technology to better execute—to operate it. This is a $155 billion dollar program we’re talking about; we want to make sure it can launch—literally and figuratively—that we can maintain it, and that it can evolve, so that this investment is smart, optimized and can grow.
LMI’s view is we know how to enable that to happen. We’ve been a partner on this mission for decades, so we understand it. We have the logistics experience across environments to literally link terrestrial and space operations and we have developed and deployed the tools that, right now, our military—including the Space Force—are using to keep our country safe. Our take is, we understand how to further extend all of this to our next frontier so that the country can maximize the benefits of Golden Dome.
Category: Articles
