Coming in 2021: A laser weapon for US fighter jets

[F-22Raptor]

WASHINGTON — Lockheed Martin will create a high-powered laser for the U.S. Air Force that will be demonstrated on a fighter jet in 2021.

The company was recently awarded a $26.3 million contract to design and build a fiber laser as part of an Air Force Research Laboratory program called Self-protect High Energy Laser Demonstrator, or SHiELD. That laser will be integrated with two other main subsystems: a pod that will power and cool the laser and a beam-control system, which will direct the laser onto the target.

If successful, the technology could be a game-changer. The Air Force has long desired an airborne laser so that it can take out surface-to-air and air-to-air missile threats more cheaply than current intercept methods.

Industry has struggled for about a decade to make a laser small enough to be installed on a vehicle or aircraft that was also powerful enough to be relevant on a battlefield, Rob Afzal, Lockheed’s senior fellow of laser weapon systems, said during a Tuesday phone call with reporters. However, improvements in fiber laser technology are enabling the company to miniaturize more powerful systems.

“We’re able now to put a scalable system together that’s very efficient at converting electric power into a high-power laser beam while maintaining the beam quality. And by maintaining that beam quality, that means you get the most effectiveness from your system,” he said.

“Because the system is efficient, it demands fewer resources from the platform. It demands the lowest amount of electric power and generates the lowest amount of waste heat.”

So how powerful will Lockheed’s laser be? Afzal wouldn’t say, except that it would be in the “tens of kilowatts.” He also shied away from questions about which fighter jet will carry the laser, the range of the weapon and how the Air Force will test SHiELD during the demonstration, directing those queries to the service.

After Lockheed finishes developing and testing its laser in a series of ground tests, it will deliver it to the Air Force lab, where it will be integrated with the other SHiELD subsystems before another round of testing and integration aboard an unspecified jet, Afzal said.

Northrop Grumman is manufacturing the beam-control system, which goes by the acronym STRAFE, which stands for SHiELD Turret Research in Aero Effects. Boeing is responsible for integrating the SHiELD systems into a single pod, called Laser Pod Research and Development.

Afzal declined to comment on when Lockheed will deliver the laser or when its preliminary design review would be complete.

Lockheed has experience developing high-powered tactical lasers. Earlier this year, the company delivered a 60-kilowatt laser to the U.S. Army to be integrated on the Heavy Expanded Mobility Tactical Truck, the service’s largest ground vehicle. It has also built a 30-kilowatt laser system that has been in the field for four years, Afzal said.

https://www.defensenews.com/air/2017/11/07/coming-in-2021-a-laser-weapon-for-fighter-jets/

 

[j20blackdragon]

US Military Will Install Laser Turrets on Bombers and Fighter Jets

Jesus Diaz

1/24/13

It was science fiction before, but now it's really happening, Young Skywalker: The US Navy and Air Force are going to install liquid-cooled, solid-state lasers in combat airplanes. Laser turrets designed to defend the planes by shooting incoming threats like surface-to-air missiles and rockets. Seriously. The above is an official concept image by DARPA, but integration is happening this year, with real firing tests coming in 2014.

The USAF has been playing with lasers in planes for a while. They worked to create the the highly successful—but ultimately shelved—Boeing YAL-1 Airborne Laser Testbed. Remember Reagan's Star Wars? This was one of the few technologies that we got to work outside those 3D animations that scared the Soviets so much.

But that was a huge megawatt-class chemical oxygen iodine laser designed to take down intercontinental ballistic missiles and other surface-to-surface weapons. That's why it required a 747 to ferry it around.

These are solid-state lasers that will be light enough to be installed in bombers and fighter jets, and will be fired to defend themselves against anti-air defenses like surface-to-air missiles and rockets.

The first one is called Hellads, a laser planned to be installed in tactical aircraft (the one pictured above is a B-1 bomber). Using a series of unit cells, the laser will be capable of delivering 150kW—meeting the their 5 kilogram to one kilowatt design goal. General Atomics Aeronautical Systems has already showed that they can meet the spec with a single and two-unit system that was capable of producing 34kW. This kind of energy is enough to take down the threats faced by these planes.

General Atomics and DARPA say that fabrication was completed in 2012. In 2013 they will integrate it with the different systems required and, by 2014, perform real-world tests against real threats fired at the planes.

And the Hellads is not the only self-defense laser the military is playing with. Lockheed Martin and DARPA are now entering a test phase for another self-defense laser, the Aero-Adaptive/Aero-Optic Beam Control. This will be like the an automatic laser turret capable of taking down missile threats from any direction. According to DARPA, they weren't previously able to make this system work because of the turbulence caused by the engine:

High-energy laser systems are currently limited to a forward field of regard due to turbulent density fluctuations in the aft sector of the turret that severely degrade the laser beam fluence on target.

The new laser will be able to take on rear threats by using flow control and adaptive optics, which will eliminate the distortion. Like the concept image indicates, they plan to install this laser in high speed fighter jets.

According to Lockheed and DARPA, they have already conducted full-scale wind-tunnel tests and now they are looking to install a sub-scale laser turret in an actual plane.

Seriously people, I keep imagining Han Solo shouting "Great kid! Don't get cocky!"


https://gizmodo.com/5978740/us-military-to-install-laser-turrets-in-combat-airplanes