Documents / Report
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//F'iA. 'iFFllil,t.l, lal!i! 1!1111!¥ .,;-1 '.e .:·~ i ~- . . . . .• ·. . •. •. . . .• ... -:el~ ;;-. • /t'!i Figure 15. Mid-Infared Advanced Chemical Laser In 1983, President Reagan gave his "Star Wars" speech which resulted in the initiation of the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) and the start of a very ambitious set of HEL technology programs which peaked at a billion dollars per year. These efforts produced significant advances but did not result in the fielding of any weapons or major demonstration systems. By the mid-1990s, SDI (then the Missile Defense Agency) had terminated almost all of their HEL programs to better focus on missile development. The sole surviving MDA HEL program is the Airborne Laser (ABL) which has accounted for $200M to $S00M/yr over the last decade. Its purpose is to place a MW-class chemical oxygen-iodine laser (COIL) system in a Boeing 747-400F (Figure 16) to demonstrate boost phase intercept of ICBMs and IRBMs. 18 UNCLASSIFIED/ ,'f811. 8FFlliliR.k I.Iii 'i•lk¥
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Report, from the dia collection. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is above. 31 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.