Navy Leaders Announce Plans for Deploying Cost-Saving Laser Technology*

ARLINGTON, Va. (NNS) -- Citing a series of technological breakthroughs, Navy leaders announced plans Apr. 8 at the Sea-Air-Space exposition to deploy for the first time a solid-state laser aboard a ship in fiscal year 2014.

"Our directed energy initiatives, and specifically the solid-state laser, are among our highest priority science and technology programs. The solid-state laser program is central to our commitment to quickly deliver advanced capabilities to forward-deployed forces," Chief of Naval Research Rear Adm. Matthew Klunder said. "This capability provides a tremendously affordable answer to the costly problem of defending against asymmetric threats, and that kind of innovative approach is crucial in a fiscally constrained environment."

The announcement to deploy the laser onboars USS Ponce (AFSB[I] 15) comes as Navy researchers continue to make significant progress on directed energy weapons, allowing the service to deploy a laser weapon on a Navy ship two years ahead of schedule. The at-sea demonstration in FY 14 is part of a wider portfolio of near-term Navy directed energy programs that promise rapid fielding, demonstration and prototyping efforts for shipboard, airborne and ground systems.

"Our conservative data tells us a shot of directed energy costs under $1," Klunder said. "Compare that to the hundreds of thousands of dollars it costs to fire a missile, and you can begin to see the merits of this capability."

The Office of Naval Research (ONR) and Naval Sea Systems Command recently performed demonstrations of high-energy lasers aboard a moving surface combatant ship, as well as against remotely piloted aircraft. Through careful planning of such demonstrations and by leveraging investments made through other Department of Defense (DoD) agencies, researchers have been able to increase the ruggedness, power and beam quality of lasers, more than doubling the range of the weapons.

"The future is here," said Peter A. Morrision, program officer for ONR's Sold-State Laser Technology Maturation Program. "The solid-state laser is a big step forward to revolutionizing modern warfare with directed energy, just as gunpowder did in the era of knives and swords."

Officials consider the solid-state laser a revolutionary technology that gives the Navy an extremely affordable, multi-mission weapon with a deep magazine and unmatched precision, targeting and control functions. Because lasers run on electricity, they can be fired as long as there is power and provide a measure of safety as they don't require carrying propellants and explosives aboard ships.

Lasers complement kinetic weapons to create a layered ship defense capability, providing improved protection against swarming small boats and unmanned aircraft at a fraction of the cost of traditional weapons.

The advancing technology gives sailors a variety of options they never had before, including the ability to control a laser weapon's output and perform actions ranging from non-lethal disabling and deterrence all the way up to destruction. 

"We expect that in the future, a missile will not be able to simply outmaneuver a highly accurate, high-energy laser beam traveling at the speed of light," Klunder said.

Following the USS Ponce demonstration, the Navy and DoD will continue to research ways to integrate affordable laser weapons into the fleet.

Video of the demonstration of the high-energy laser aboard a moving surface combatant ship and against remotely piloted aircraft can be seen here: http://youtu.be/OmoldX1wKYQ

* Notícia publicada al web de la US Navy. Comença el despleganent de lasers a bord de naus de de la US Navy. Un pas ferm per entrar al segle XXI.

Navy May Need to Design Ships With Laser Guns in Mind*

After more than 20 years of research and development, the Navy’s dreams of laser weapons are about to come true. But like the dog who chases the car and doesn’t know what to do when he catches it, the Navy’s thoroughly unprepared for its coming arsenal of focused-light weapons. A new congressional study warns that the Navy runs the risk of outfitting its surface ships with laser guns that their on-board power systems can’t handle. 

As Chris Partlow says to Marlo Stanfield in The Wire, this is one of those good problems.

Laser weaponry has progressed to the point where it’s only a matter of time before they’re disabling ships and burning missiles out of the sky. “Over the next few years,” estimates a new Congressional Research Service report acquired by Danger Room, lasers “capable of countering certain surface and air targets at ranges of about a mile could be made ready for installation on Navy surface ships.” Laser weapons with a 10-mile range aren’t much farther away. If only the ships can handle them. 

If the Navy hasn’t come to grips with the imminence of its laser cannons, Congress needs to step in, the report suggests. One major issue: “the potential implications of shipboard lasers for the design and acquisition of Navy ships, including the Flight III DDG-51 destroyer that the Navy wants to begin procuring in [fiscal year] 2016.” In plain English: Unless the Navy starts designing ships to carry laser weapons right from the shipyard, it may never get the futuristic weapons it wants. 

The principle at work is pretty simple, from an engineering perspective, although it’s largely been an obscure concern limited to Navy geeks. Unlike weapons that fire traditional ammunition, the Navy’s coming inventory of laser weapons just need electrical power to fire. To get it, they’ve got to tap the on-board power generation systems of ships they’d be mounted on. 

But the ships weren’t designed with the expectation that they’d pack laser weapons. Their generators aren’t built to create the kind of juice necessary to power laser guns without siphoning it away from their propulsion systems. It’s a problem that gets worse when considering a laser gun’s “magazine” is as full or as empty as the fuel source it draws from. All that creates exactly the kind of choice the Navy never wants to confront: a choice between effective weapons and maneuverability. A wheezing, slow ship is a tempting target. 

Current Navy shipbuilding plans hold shipbuilding basically steady at 285 ships for the next five years, after which the Navy plans to ramp up production in advance of about 70 ships aging out of service during the 2020s. The congressional study effectively asks if it’s time to start baking the laser guns into the Navy’s shipbuilding cake. 

A laser is considered militarily practical if it can generate a 100 kilowatt beam — which, as yet, no Navy laser under development can generate. The most powerful laser, the experimental Free Electron Laser, can potentially generate a megawatt’s worth of pew-pew-pew. But the ships can barely handle that, at best.

“Some Navy ships might be able to support, under battle conditions, an SSL [solid-state laser] with a power somewhat above 100 kW,” the study finds. “No existing Navy surface combatant designs have enough electrical power or cooling capacity to support an SSL with a power level well above 100 kW.” Worse yet for the Free Electron Laser, it’s still so massive that it could only fit on an aircraft carrier or maybe a big-deck amphibious assault ship.

Accordingly, the study urges Congress to consider making the accommodation of laser guns standard for the next round of surface ships under construction — much like how any decent car comes to the dealership already tricked out with power steering and other creature comforts. One option: “design the new Flight III version of the DDG-51 destroyer, which the Navy wants to start procuring in [fiscal] 2016, with enough space, electrical power, and cooling capacity to support an SSL with a power level of 200 kW or 300 kW or more — something that could require lengthening the DDG-51 hull, so as to provide room for laser equipment and additional electrical generating and cooling equipment.” 

The report recommends the same power boosts for a potential new destroyer class if souping up the DDG-51 is unappealing. And it wants Congress to consider building the next big-deck amphibs and Ford-class aircraft carriers to generate 300 kilowatts or more. 

Expensive? No doubt. Cheaper than building a ship and then retrofitting its power-generation systems to accommodate a laser gun? Almost definitely. 

And the shipbuilding problems aren’t the only obstacles Navy lasers still need to overcome. As the study points out, the Navy’s lasers need to get much better at scaling up the power of their beams; managing all the heat they generate; improving “target detection and tracking”; and integration into the rest of a ship’s systems. These are “not trivial” challenges, the study notes. 

But they’re also direct consequences of something the Navy may not have suspected it would ever have with laser technology — success. Laser cannons are no longer science fiction. But the report points out an important distinction. Just because a weapon is increasingly realistic doesn’t mean it’s increasingly practical.

* Anàlisi publicat al Danger Room de Wired. Compartim amb els lectors d'aquest bloc una interessantíssima reflexió sobre la implementació dels làsers a la US Navy, així com les necessitats de les futures naus de la flota.

Ready for a ray gun? ONR plans laser tests*

* Entrevista realitzada a Navy Times. Recomanem el seu visionat a tothom qui estigui interessat en les armes d'energia dirigida ( làsers, etc...)

ONR to develop solid-state laser weapons for US Navy*

The US Office of Naval Research (ONR) has plans to develop a solid-state laser weapon, which will help sailors defeat small threats without the use of bullets.

Solid-state laser technology maturation (SSL-TM) programme officer Peter Morrison said: "We believe it's time to move forward with solid-state lasers and shift the focus from limited demonstrations to weapon prototype development and related technology advancement."

Based on ONR's earlier directed-energy developments and knowledge gained from other laser research initiatives, the SSL-TM programme will aim to develop a weapon prototype that will demonstrate multi-mission capabilities aboard a Navy ship.

If the project is successful, it may help the US Navy to become the first of the armed forces to deploy high-energy laser weapons.

ONR has recently tested its new development, the MK 38 tactical laser demonstration, at Eglin Air Force Base, Florida, US.

An industry day would be hosted by ONR next week to reveal information about the programme to the research and development community, while a broad agency announcement is expected to be issued soon to invite proposals and bids.

Other advancing directed-energy technology programmes by ONR include the Northrop Grumman developed maritime laser demonstrator (MLD), which was successful in disabling a small target boat during testing while the laser weapon system shot down four small unmanned test aircraft.

Boeing and Raytheon Integrated Defense Systems were awarded two contracts in 2009 to design a free-electron laser (FEL) ship self-defence weapon system, which the research agency expects to test in a maritime environment as early as 2018.

* Notícia publicada a Naval Technology. Tot i no ser cap secret, els avenços en matèria d'armes laser per part els Estats Units, així com l'anunci de la seva implementació a mig termini, és quelcom d'autèntic interés per la revolució en les operacions militars que pot comportar.