Laser weapon development making ‘real progress’

Laura DeSimone, an official for the Missile Defense Agency, declared that the latest tests have shown impressive results. The length of time it took for this technological progress to move forward hinged on the latest laser technologies involved. The technology has evolved to the point to where officials could see laser use by the U.S. military moving closer to reality.

From Breaking Defense:

“I think part of [why] the Missile Defense Agency in the past few years kind of backed away was that technology needed still needed to mature. It needed to mature in power levels that could be delivered on target, and needed to mature and reduction of the size, weight and power requirements to produce the directed-energy effects,” explained Laura DeSimone, MDA executive director, in an online interview with Defense News today.

The Defense Department has run hot and cold on lasers and high-powered microwaves for missile defense since the dawn of Ronald Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative 40 years ago. In recent years, there was a burst of interest driven by Congress in 2015 that subsequently died down, only to be re-ignited during the Trump administration by then-Pentagon director of research and engineering Mike Griffin. The problem has simply been that the technology hasn’t been ready for prime time.

However in recent months, the agency has seen “that technology maturation is happening,” DeSimone said, including at the US national laboratories, the Department of Energy and within industry.

“I mean, there have been some really impressive results,” DeSimone said. “We’ve been doing studies all along, and looking at lethality effects and doing experimentation. But we think that, finally, we’re starting to see some real progress and, and so that’s why the increased emphasis.”

The Biden administration’s Missile Defense Review issued last October noted the need for “non-kinetic” options in light of changing threats, and the Defense Department over the past several years has ramped up funding for numerous research and development efforts on high-energy lasers and microwave weapons. The systems involve defense against both missiles and drones, with the Army in the forefront of testing laser weapons.

Of course, laser systems aren’t only of interest in the US. Israel’s Iron Beam effort, a laser-based variant of the Iron Dome system, is inching towards active deployment, while the United Kingdom’s DragonFire effort has successfully taken out small drones in tests. But by sheer dollars, the Pentagon is always going to be a driving force in making the widespread use of directed energy a reality.

Breaking Defense provides the balance of the story here.

Category: Military issues