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The Defense Intelligence Agency produced this reference document, dated 31 March 2010, under its Advanced Aerospace Weapon System Applications (AAWSA) Program. It reviews the state of the art and likely evolution of high-energy laser weapons, including chemical, solid-state, fiber and free-electron lasers, as well as beam control and the history of DoD laser research. It concludes that electrically powered lasers could make megawatt-class weapons practical and that spacecraft laser weapons are conceivable within 20 years. It also recommends ways to protect spacecraft from laser damage.
“The Advance”10 pages
UNCLASSIFIED/ /f81il 8ffllil.«1k WE&i Si'llk>C Helium Refrigerator Optical System Beam Transport IR Wiggler Controls I ◄ 10 m-----..j Figure 9. Elements of the 2 kW FEL at Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility Like chemical lasers, FELs have the potential to produce megawatt class average power. Unlike chemical lasers, FELs do not rely on potentially hazardous chemical reactions to generate a beam but they do require an electrically powered RF linear accelerator which is cooled to superconducting temperatures by a large refrigerator. Precise control of many megawatts of circulating relativistic electron beam is also needed. Many large RF linear accelerators have been built around the world for research purposes but all are laboratory devices. A small particle accelerator has been ruggedized and flown in space but never used operationally in a military environment. It remains to be seen if the significant technical issues associated with average power scale-up can be resolved in the laboratory and then engineered to function in a military environment such as on-board a ship. Beam Control and Atmospheric Propagation of Laser Devices Referring back to Figure 2, the beam control system includes that portion of the weapon system which generates the HEL beam inside the laser gain generator, relays and aligns it through the optical train, expands it using the pointing telescope, and then focuses it at the range of the target. It also contains the sensors and trackers which acquire the target and hold it stably in the field of view. Since the HEL beam's spot on the target is generally much smaller than the target, the beam control system must identify the desired aim point on the target and place the HEL beam there for a sufficient duration to inflict damage. If wavefront sensors and deformable mirrors are used to improve the laser's beam quality (referred to as "local loop" adaptive optics) or to compensate for atmosphere distortion (referred to as "target loop" adaptive optics), then they are also part of the beam control system. If the propagation path is 12 UNCLASSIFIED//F811. 8FFll!IAI! l!l!il! 811LV
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