The Missile Defense Agency (MDA) is increasingly optimistic about the potential to use directed energy laser weapons for missile defense purposes after a period of limiting work on it, a top official said last week.
“Directed energy shows great promise for the future. I mean, there’s so many advantages of having a potential directed energy engagement system, you give the warfighter additional engagement opportunities, save interceptors, lower costs per engagement. So lots of great potential for directed energy,” Laura DeSimone, Executive Director, Missile Defense Agency, said on Aug. 17 during the Defense News
virtual SMD Debrief event.
DeSimone acknowledged MDA “backed away” from directed energy technology in recent years because it needed more time to mature with enough power able to be delivered on a target as well as size, weight and power requirements.
In 2020 the Defense Department moved funds for directed energy out of MDA and consolidated them under the office of the Undersecretary of Defense for Research and Engineering (Defense Daily, Feb. 24).
At the time, then-MDA Director Vice Adm. Jon Hill said this was a shift in priorities in how DoD does things rather than dumping the program.
Hill said he was “absolutely confident” that when directed energy technology gets where it needs for MDA purposes the agency will have access to the technology and can use it.
DeSimone elaborated that the technology needed to mature in power levels could now be delivered on a target, to produce the desired effects and reduction of the size, weight and power requirements.
However, she said since then MDA has seen “that roadmap and that technology maturation is happening. I mean, there have been some really impressive results both at the national labs, [Department of Energy] and industry, etc.”
While MDA has been conducting studies, looking at lethality effect and experimentation, “we think that finally we’re starting to see some real progress. And so that’s why the increased emphasis.”
Last year, MDA awarded Lockheed Martin [LMT] a $2 million contract to examine possibly integrating laser weapon technology into MDA’s missile defense system, called the Directed Energy Lethality for Fast Threats (DELFT) (Defense Daily, Sept. 21, 2022).
The company is due to conclude the work by September.
The original solicitation said MDA was looking for contractors to conduct a study of using diode-pumped alkali laser (DPAL) technology and how it can be applied to the missile defense system.
LMT delivered a 300-kilowatt class laser to the Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering’s (OUSD R&E) High Energy Laser Scaling Initiative (HELSI) program in September 2022. The laser was meant for the Army’s Indirect Fire Protection Capability-High Energy Laser (IFPC-HEL) program (Defense Daily, Sept. 15, 2022).