Investment and innovation are on the horizon for the defense community in Colorado Springs over the coming year. 

In December, the Missile Defense Agency selected 2,100 companies to compete for work on Golden Dome through a contract known as SHIELD or Scalable Homeland Innovative Enterprise Layered Defense. The contract has set aside $151 billion for the work. 

Some companies with a presence in Colorado made the cut, including Lockheed Martin, Raytheon — now known as RTX, and Palantir. Many other lesser-known companies made the list as well. 

Fort Carson will also be busy in the coming year as the testing ground for the Army’s Next Generation Command and Control System, a full rebuild of its communications infrastructure, including a single modern IT foundation. 

The new foundation will allow the Army to plug in upgrades to its communication system, including new software and hardware as needed.

Fort Carson is expected to test the full system this summer. 

The Army is also working on a vision to allow training with larger weapons on Piñon Canyon, northeast of Trinidad. Currently, service members are only allowed to train with .50-caliber machine guns on the training area. The Army would like to train with mortars, rockets and other large munitions. 

However, residents who live near the expansive training area are concerned about the impact of those large weapons on the land that is home to 6,000 archaeological sites.