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Defense contractor Raytheon has been tasked with designing, building, and testing a pair of directed energy weapons for the U.S. Navy and U.S. Air Force. Unlike cutting-edge laser systems that use the power of light to down airborne threats, the new weapons will use ultra-powerful microwave emitters to fry the electronics of attacking drones, missiles, and other electronically guided ordinance. According to RTX Corporation, which owns Raytheon, the two prototypes are expected to be delivered in 2024 and 2026, respectively. DIRECTED ENERGY WEAPONS INCREASINGLY VALUABLE IN ASYMMETRICAL WARFARE Traditional munitions like bullets use kinetic force to damage or destroy attacking...

Israel has begun using laser beams, otherwise known as “directed energy” weapons, to shoot down rockets fired from Gaza. The news comes after reports that Lockheed Martin and Israel’s Rafael have been developing Iron Beam, a laser defense system that can be mounted on ships and planes. This week, Israel began using the directed energy weapons, Iron Sting, which is part of the larger Iron Beam laser defense system. Israel’s Iron Dome missile defense system is well known, with a 90% rate effectiveness rate. However, each Iron Dome battery can cost $100 million, and each interceptor costs between $40,000 and...

A skyscraper of more than 70 storeys has been evacuated after it started to shake, sending shoppers scrambling for safety in the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen.Local authorities do not yet know what caused the 300m (980ft) SEG Plaza building to wobble on Tuesday afternoon.No earthquakes were recorded at the time. An investigation is under way.The 20-year-old building houses an electronics market and offices.It stands in the heart of Shenzhen, a sprawling city of more than 12 million people known for its shopping and booming tech industry.Footage shared on social media showed hundreds of people running away from the skyscraper...

Washington (CNN)Federal agencies are investigating at least two possible incidents on US soil, including one near the White House in November of last year, that appear similar to mysterious, invisible attacks that have led to debilitating symptoms for dozens of US personnel abroad. Multiple sources familiar with the matter tell CNN that while the Pentagon and other agencies probing the matter have reached no clear conclusions on what happened, the fact that such an attack might have taken place so close to the White House is particularly alarming. Defense officials briefed lawmakers on the Senate and House Armed Services Committees...

What would science fiction be without laser beams? From handheld ray guns to spaceship-mounted turbolasers, the futuristic weapon of choice definitely involves bright, colorful blasts of energy. In the early 21st century, projectiles still remain the standard means of inflicting damage from a distance. Yet continued research into "directed-energy" weapons by the United States military, among others, could someday bring lasers to a battlefield near you. Lasers are already used in guidance, targeting and communication applications, but significant technological obstacles stand in front of turning them into weapons by themselves. For certain niche scenarios, lasers might prove themselves ideal. It...

The lightning rod for rapid fielding of directed energy (DE) weapons and advanced sensors will be the military’s next-generation jammer programs that exploit technologies like active electronically scanned arrays (AESAs) antennas and high-power microwave (HPM) capabilities, say senior U.S. government and industry officials at the 13th Directed Energy Conference. Radars on the Lockheed Martin F-22 and F-35, and Boeing F/A-18F and EA-18G, already have the potential to fire focused beams of energy as soon as funding is available to develop the necessary advanced algorithms. The U.S. Navy’s Next Generation Jammer program is expected to move AESA from radar applications to...

India is developing a series of directed energy weapons (DEW) to improve the anti-ballistic missile capability, local media reported on Tuesday. A laser weapon of the DEW family is being developed, which could fire a beam with a potency of 25 kilowatt. This type of laser weapon would intercept a ballistic missile in its terminal phase within the range of seven kilometers, Indian newspaper the Times of India quoted Anil Kumar Maini, the Defense Research and Development Organization (DRDO)'s Laser Science and Technology Center director, as saying. The ballistic missile would explode as its shell temperature is heated to 200-300...

Northrop Grumman has surpassed Phase I goals for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency's (DARPA) Revolution in Fiber Lasers (RIFL) program that seeks to mature fiber laser technology. As a result, the company has received a contract for Phase II. "This is an important step in the maturation of fiber laser technology," said Dan Wildt, vice president of Directed Energy Systems for Northrop Grumman's Aerospace Systems sector. "By surpassing Phase I goals, we are in an excellent position for success in Phase II. Success in Phase II will create a powerful springboard for scaling fiber lasers to weapons-class performance levels."...

Naval Sea Systems Command (NAVSEA), with support from Naval Surface Warfare Center (NSWC) Dahlgren, for the second time successfully tracked, engaged, and destroyed a threat representative Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) while in flight, May 24, at San Nicholas Island, Calif. This marks the first Detect-Thru-Engage laser shoot-down of a threat representative target in an over-the-water, combat representative scenario. A total of two UAV targets were engaged and destroyed in a maritime environment during the testing, the second series of successes for the U.S. Navy's Laser Weapon System (LaWS) Program. Members of NAVSEA's Directed Energy and Electric Weapon Systems (DE&EWS) Program...

Ray Guns Near Crossroads to the Battlefield [Slide Show] The Pentagon ramps up efforts to field directed-energy beam weapons for land, air and sea By Steven Ashley        ARMY CONCEPT FIELD LASER: The U.S. Army hopes to better protect our troops by fielding in the next few years a mobile, ground-based laser weapon that can zap out of the sky multiple incoming rockets, missiles, or mortars. Live-fire tests of the compact, 100-kilowatt-class, solid-state laser technology’s capabilities for precision targeting and area defense missions are to begin by the end of this year.  After more than a century of popular sci-fi...

After more than a century of popular sci-fi fantasies that feature deadly energy weapons, including War of the Worlds, Flash Gordon, Buck Rogers, Star Trek and Star Wars, it looks like the ray gun has finally arrived in the real world. And even if the first ray guns out of the lab can barely fit on the bed of a 30-ton off-road truck rather than in a soldier’s palm, the novel, "speed-of-light" capabilities that lasers could bring to the battlefield has drawn the keen interest of the Pentagon brass, which spends about $400 million a year on directed-energy beam weapons....

The House Armed Services Committee today added $362 million to the Obama administration’s 2011 defense authorization bill for missile defense, including $50 million for further tests of Boeing’s Airborne Laser, a program the Obama administration had sought to wind down. “I am particularly pleased that the Mark increases funding for directed energy research. It was clear that the budget request was not sufficient to support further flight testing using the Airborne Laser Test Bed as well as mature innovative directed energy technologies,” Rep. Michael R. Turner R-Ohio, top Republican on the Armed Services Subcommittee on Strategic Forces, said in a...

Some defense thinkers believe directed energy weapons, lasers, hold out real battlefield promise, particularly against future enemies armed with large numbers of relatively cheap precision guided weapons. For example, the folks at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments in Washington say lasers provide a potential solution to the so called G-RAMM (guided rockets, artillery, mortars and missiles) problem. Using missiles to shoot down incoming rounds can get very costly and a counter G-RAMM arsenal can be rapidly depleted; lasers solve the finite counter-munition arsenal problem. Granted, directed energy weapons are not ready for prime time, although they are getting...

Defanging Hezbollah: A Directed Energy Defense Could Help by James Jay Carafano, Ph.D., and David D. Gentilli WebMemo #1169 July 20, 2006 | Hezbollah’s Katyusha rocket attacks have killed and wounded dozens of Israelis, destroyed property, and sent thousands to bomb shelters. They threaten to plunge the entire region into conflict. There is a way to shoot these missiles out of the sky, limiting the danger to innocents and mitigating the serious threat of one of the region’s most dangerous terrorist groups. The U.S. Army and Israeli Defense Ministry have a joint program that has developed a high-energy laser that...

ARLINGTON, Va. (AP) -- For years, the U.S. military has explored a new kind of firepower that is instantaneous, precise and virtually inexhaustible: beams of electromagnetic energy. "Directed-energy'' pulses can be throttled up or down depending on the situation, much like the phasers on "Star Trek'' could be set to kill or merely stun. Such weapons are now nearing fruition. But logistical issues have delayed their battlefield debut -- even as soldiers in Iraq encounter tense urban situations in which the nonlethal capabilities of directed energy could be put to the test. "It's a great technology with enormous potential, but...

DoE Seeks Star Trek Phasers For A-Plants by Martin Sieff Washington (UPI) Jul 08, 2005 The Department of Energy is turning to old Star Trek phasers to protect its 103 civilian nuclear plants. Energy weapons capable of harmlessly stunning intruders are being developed and should be in general use by 2008. But many experts warn they will be inadequate and unnecessary for the real security dangers nuclear plant guards would face. U. S scientists have unveiled details of a project that aims to develop Star Trek-style ray guns that could keep "security adversaries" out of DoE nuclear sites, the vnu.com...

Microwaving Saddam: New weapons likely to see combat Prototypes could paralyze Iraqi militarySpace-age warfare may be used in attack against Baghdad regimeEd Blanche Special to The Daily StarSaddam Hussein may be in for a shock - literally - after telling US President George W. Bush to do his worst in the looming war against Iraq. It seems possible that his command network will become the first target of high-power microwave (HPM) weapons, probably carried by cruise missiles or unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). These squirt pulses of high-frequency energy that can knock out electronic and communications systems in milliseconds, scrambling computer...

08/08/02 - KIRTLAND AIR FORCE BASE, N.M. (AFPN) -- F-16 Fighting Falcon pilots here are honing their laser firing skills against airborne targets while flying their aircraft -- without ever leaving the ground. Pilots are using the high energy laser fighter simulator, an F-16 simulator modified to integrate a high energy laser weapon model into an F-16's program. The simulator evaluates design parameters for an actual high-energy laser weapon system and helps an operator get familiar with a directed energy weapon system, according to Rudy Martinez, Air Force Research Laboratory directed energy directorate strategic planner. The system can also be...