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.
UNCLASSIFIED//F8A 8FFHil.l1k WE&i a••k>/ State of the Art and Evolution of High-Energy Laser Weapons Summary The laser was invented in 1960, only 49 years ago, and (along with the light- emitting diode) has evolved into an essential part of our modern every-day life in ways that could not have been foreseen. On the military side, there have also been incredible advances in laser and beam control technologies but no deployment of any high-energy weapons. Many concepts have been developed and pursued, only to be discarded or deferred owing to technical immaturity, expected production cost, lack of apparent utility, or logistics concerns. The most significant technical impediment to deployment may have been the large quantities of expensive and hazardous chemicals that were required by the only available high-average-power lasers. This is now changing with recent advances in electrically powered lasers (both solid-state and free- electron lasers). As these devices mature over the next few decades, they will enable practical military weapons at power levels ranging from kilowatts to megawatts. This evolution may be somewhat slowed or limited in the United States if there are policy concerns about the use of new types of weapons or about weaponization of space. As an example, the Department of Defense developed a microwave device for crowd control, called Active Denial, which has been shown to produce temporary pain without any injury. However, DoD was precluded from deploying it owing to policy (not legal) concerns. Other countries may not exhibit similar restraint, as evidenced by the open marketing of laser-blinding weapons despite a 1980 Geneva Convention prohibiting their development or use. Space offers the ideal environment for laser beam propagation; there is no atmosphere to either attenuate or spread the beam. As a result, large distances could be bridged quickly, with range limited by the size of the transmitting telescope and the potential damage mechanisms limited primarily by the laser's output power. Initial spacecraft laser weapons are conceivable within the next 20 years, with the potential for follow-on growth in laser power and transmitting telescope size. Transmitting telescope size would be limited by the spacecraft size and competing demands for weight and volume. Laser power could grow to the megawatt range as solid-state and free- electron laser technology matures, but the major limitation to a spacecraft's weapon capability may prove to be its ability to generate and store the energy required by the laser and to store and dissipate the resultant waste heat. V UNCLASSIFIED/,·, OK 01 r1e1ftt ~:!I! 8HLV
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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.