WASHINGTON – Officials in the US Navy and Air Force recently made clearthat they hope to use the lasers they’re developing in the name ofanti-ballistic missile defense to shoot down cruise missiles as well.
“There’s great interest in … airborne capabilities for the counter-cruisemissile [mission],” Kelly Hammett, director of directed energy work at theUS Air Force Research Laboratory, said at the Association of Old Crowselectronic warfare conference earlier this week. Navy officials alsoindicated that mounting lasers on their ships that are powerful enough totake out cruise missiles is one of the service’s main goals.
Sputnik previously reported how eager the Navy is to place lasers on ships:beginning with low-powered ones that can aid in targeting, but eventuallyramping up their power output to the point they can cause critical harm toflying objects.
Rear Adm. Ron Boxall, who heads the surface warfare directorate for theChief of Naval Operations, told Defense News this past May that “the key”for the Navy is the High Energy Laser and Integrated Optical-dazzler withSurveillance (HELIOS), a directed energy weapon with a 5-mile range thatBoxall wants on a destroyer by 2021. With a present output of 60 kilowatts,the laser will hopefully be quickly boosted to at least 500 kilowatts.
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Indeed, HELIOS is just one of several Pentagon programs aiming to developsolid-state lasers. Others include the Ruggedized High Energy Laser (RHEL);the Optical Dazzling Interdictor, Navy (ODIN); the Solid State LaserTechnology Maturation (SSL-TM) effort; and the High Energy LaserCounter-ASCM Program (HELCAP), a computer model for shooting down anti-shipcruise missiles.
