U.S. Air Force's Air Force Research Lab (AFRL) has awarded Lockheed Martin a contract to develop a compact laser weapon for tactical...
U.S. Air Force's Air Force Research Lab (AFRL) has awarded Lockheed Martin a contract to develop a compact laser weapon for tactical fighter jets.
The $26.3 million contract for the design, development and production of a high power fiber laser will be tested on a tactical fighter jet by 2021.
The contract is part of AFRL's Self-protect High Energy Laser Demonstrator (SHiELD) program, and is a major step forward in the maturation of protective airborne laser systems.
The SHiELD program includes three subsystems:
- SHiELD Turret Research in Aero Effects (STRAFE), the beam control system, which will direct the laser onto the target
- Laser Pod Research & Development (LPRD), the pod mounted on the tactical fighter jet, which will power and cool the laser
- Laser Advancements for Next-generation Compact Environments (LANCE), the high energy laser itself, which can be trained on adversary targets to disable them
LANCE is designed to operate in a compact environment, and as such, the Lockheed Martin team focused on developing a compact, high efficiency laser within challenging size, weight and power constraints.
Earlier this year, Lockheed has delivered a 60 kW-class laser to be installed on a U.S. Army ground vehicle. A laser weapon developed by Raytheon have been tested from a Apache attack helicopter in June 2017.
