Pentagon wants more money for directed-energy weapons for drone-swarm and missile defense

WASHINGTON – The U.S. military will request more money to develop lasers, microwave beams, and other directed-energy weapons to fight off missiles and drone swarms, the Pentagon’s top weapons engineer says. Defense One reports. Continue reading original article

The Military & Aerospace Electronics take:

21 Nov. 2018 -- “You’re going to see, in upcoming budgets for missile defense, a renewed emphasis on laser scaling [meaning scaling up the power of laser weapons] across several technologies,” says Michael Griffin, defense undersecretary for research and engineering.

“In my opinion, we are no more than a few years away from having laser weapons of military utility,” Griffin says. “In units of ones or twos, we can roll out tens of kilowatts. That is within a factor of two or three of being useful on a battlefield, airplane or ship” to take out enemy drone swarms, Griffin says. A space-based weapon that could destroy boost-phase missiles would require power in the megawatt class.

One big question remains: whether missile-defense satellites will make it into the Missile Defense Review, the Trump administration’s plan for next-generation missiles and missile defense. “It will be shared when the administration is ready to share it,” Griffin says.

Related: China, Russia developing kinetic, cyber, and directed-energy weapons against U.S. satellites

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Related: Tactical airborne laser weapons: where are we now, and how far do we have to go to get there?

John Keller, chief editor
Military & Aerospace Electronics

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