MCLEAN, Va. - Trace Systems has been awarded a position on the Missile Defense Agency's Scalable Homeland Innovative Enterprise Layered Defense (SHIELD) multiple-award, indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract, representing a large-business award within the $151 billion Golden Dome for America initiative.
In addition, Trace's joint venture with C3EL, LLC—operating as XF Solutions, LLC—was selected as a small-business awardee, enabling Trace to also compete in partnership with C3EL for small-business task orders which may be set-aside under the program.
The award represents the first phase effort to accelerate next-generation homeland-defense capabilities and marks a major milestone in Trace's strategy to become a key contributor to Golden Dome and related modernization initiatives across all major acquisition initiatives.
SHIELD will form the foundation of a space-enabled, multi-domain defense architecture integrating capabilities across space, air, land, sea and cyber. Its task-order scope includes systems engineering and integration, modeling and simulation, test and evaluation, C2 modernization, digital engineering/MBSE, resilient networking, cyber readiness and lifecycle sustainment—all aligned to Golden Dome's "earth-to-orbit" construct.
Trace recently demonstrated at AFRL's Future Flag 25-2 exercise its transport-agnostic, multi-domain security hosting environment capable of re-leveraging COTS and GOTS mission applications — core attributes aligned with SHIELD's objective to integrate legacy platforms with emerging sensor, processing and decision-support capabilities.
The company continues to expand these hosted environments to operate across multi-domain terrestrial, airborne, and unmanned platforms, providing distributed mission compute and secure data transport in both ground installations and smaller, edge and flight-qualified form factors.
"While this award represents only the first step in the MDA acquisition framework, it reinforces Trace's ability to deliver modern, interoperable, mission-ready technologies that advance sensing, processing and decision advantage across security domains," Trace Systems Vice President Steve Bagley said. "With both of these prime contract awards, Trace is positioned to support SHIELD tasking through multiple contracting pathways, strengthening our ability to deliver rapid, scalable solutions that align with Golden Dome's mission."
These two SHIELD contract awards position Trace squarely within the broader Golden Dome acquisition landscape, as the Department of Defense increasingly turns to innovative, agile engineering firms capable of fielding next-generation, modular solutions with the speed and precision today's missions demand.
As DoD modernizes its layered defense—from space-based sensors and communications to ground, airborne, and secure edge integrations—Trace is leveraging strengths in edge compute, satellite connectivity, digital integration and C2 modernization to deliver the data-driven, interoperable architectures that accelerate capability delivery and enhance coalition readiness.
"Trace already provides mission-essential support to many critical defense systems across the globe and is well positioned to integrate legacy platforms and systems with the latest commercial and defense-grade sensor and processing technologies for SHIELD," CEO Otto Hoernig said. "Our prime work with USNORTHCOM deployable communications, the U.S. Space Force Enhanced Mobile Satellite Solutions program, our Proliferated Low Earth Orbit Satellite-Based Services (pLEO) contract and our extensive industry partnerships give us unique insight and positioning to help accelerate the Department's modernization priorities."
Hoernig added that the additional XF Solutions award creates a complementary avenue for Trace to pursue SHIELD opportunities reserved for small businesses— expanding the company's reach and flexibility across the Golden Dome enterprise in collaboration with its trusted JV partner C3EL.
