Gentlemen, we have a Deathray.

[The Mad Monk]

Northrop Grumman Scales New Heights in Electric Laser Power, Achieves 100 Kilowatts from a Solid-State Laser


(Source: Northrop Grumman Corp.; issued March 18, 2009)



REDONDO BEACH, Calif. --- Reaching new heights with its scalable building block approach for compact, electric laser weapons, Northrop Grumman Corporation has produced the most powerful light ray yet created by an electric laser, measured at more than 105 kilowatts (kW).

The company claimed ownership of this record by completing the final demonstration milestone of the U.S. military's Joint High Power Solid State Laser (JHPSSL) program, Phase 3. The achievements included turn-on time of less than one second and continuous operating time of five minutes, with very good efficiency and beam quality. Last year, Northrop Grumman reported reaching a JHPSSL Phase 3 power level of 15.3kW in March and a power level of 30kW in September.

Our modular JHPSSL design makes it straightforward to scale laser weapon systems to mission-required power levels for a variety of uses, to include force protection and precision strike missions for air-, sea- and land-based platforms,'' said Dan Wildt, vice president of Directed Energy Systems for Northrop Grumman's Aerospace Systems sector.

“This achievement is particularly important because the 100kW threshold has been viewed traditionally as a proof of principle for 'weapons grade' power levels for high-energy lasers. In fact, many militarily useful effects can be achieved by laser weapons of 25kW or 50 kW, provided this energy is transmitted with good beam quality, as our system does. With this milestone, we have far exceeded those needs.''

Wildt continued, “Power scaling will be one of the game-changing features of high-energy lasers because it allows graduated responses by U.S. military services appropriate for whatever level of threat they may face. Threats vary, and so should the response.''

Jay Marmo, Northrop Grumman's JHPSSL program manager, pointed out how the company's scalable, building block approach also readily enables more challenging missions that require well above 100 kW of good beam quality laser power.

“Getting to 100 kW with replicated building blocks proves we can scale to these higher power levels if required for a given mission. This watershed development, coupled with our Firestrike laser ruggedization work, unequivocally demonstrates that Northrop Grumman is ready to bring high-power, solid state lasers to the defense of our deployed forces.''

For building blocks, the company utilizes “laser amplifier chains,'' each producing approximately15kW of power in a high-quality beam. Seven laser chains were combined to produce a single beam of 105.5 kW. The seven-chain JHPSSL laser demonstrator ran for more than five minutes, achieved electro-optical efficiency of 19.3 percent, reaching full power in less than 0.6 seconds, all with beam quality of better than 3.0.

The laser already has been operated at above 100kW for a total duration of more than 85 minutes. A government team reviewed results of the demonstration during a System Test Data Review held Feb. 10 at Northrop Grumman's Directed Energy Production Facility in Redondo Beach, Calif.

“It is notable that we were able to meet the power demonstration goal with only seven laser chains, rather than the full eight chains we can accommodate. This shows the robustness of our industry-unique approach and the ability of our lasers to deliver predicted performance,'' Marmo emphasized. “Adding the eighth chain will increase laser power to 120kW.''

The JHPSSL program is funded by the Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Army for Acquisition, Logistics, and Technology; Office of the Secretary of Defense - High Energy Laser Joint Technology Office, Albuquerque, N.M.; Air Force Research Laboratory, Kirtland Air Force Base, N.M.; and the Office of Naval Research, Arlington, Va. Responsibility for program execution is assigned to the U.S. Army Space and Missile Defense Command / Army Forces Strategic Command in Huntsville, Ala.


Northrop Grumman Corporation is a leading global security company whose 120,000 employees provide innovative systems, products, and solutions in aerospace, electronics, information systems, shipbuilding and technical services to government and commercial customers worldwide.

-ends-

http://www.defense-aerospace.com/article-view/release/103755/northrop-achieves-100-kilowatts-from-a-solid_state-laser.html

Sounds like they are saying there is no real barrier to building even bigger lasers.

[Blaupanzer]

Help a bit with the concept, please. Forget death rays. How does a beam of light, at any wattage and beam coherence, become useful against flying objects? If I hit an operating missile with an electro-magnetic beam, even briefly, I screw up its electronics and guidance systems and effectively block communications. If I light the thing up with this style of laser, do I have to stick with it long enough to begin to burn it or what?

[UnOrthOdOx]

I'm more interested in the anti-mosquito laser.

[UnOrthOdOx]

Help a bit with the concept, please. Forget death rays. How does a beam of light, at any wattage and beam coherence, become useful against flying objects? If I hit an operating missile with an electro-magnetic beam, even briefly, I screw up its electronics and guidance systems and effectively block communications. If I light the thing up with this style of laser, do I have to stick with it long enough to begin to burn it or what?

IIUC, the 100KW laser is essentially hitting the target with something akin to the surface of the sun. Enough to more or less make that "long enough to burn" insant. Certainly, in the case of the missile you bring up, it would be enough to detonate the ordnance on said missile instantly.

[Theben]

I'm more interested in the anti-mosquito laser.

[The Mad Monk]

RULE 37: There is no "overkill"

There is only "open fire" and "time to reload".

[Provost Harrison]

When they're up to a terawatt, I'm buying one

[DaShi]

For home defense, of course.

[OzzyKP]

IIUC, the 100KW laser is essentially hitting the target with something akin to the surface of the sun. Enough to more or less make that "long enough to burn" insant. Certainly, in the case of the missile you bring up, it would be enough to detonate the ordnance on said missile instantly.

Excellent.

The article said it has a beam quality of 3.0. Does that refer to the distance before the strength of the beam drops off? What would that be? How far away could you shoot something?

Also, how large is this thing? Could it be mounted on a tank? Would you need something larger? Smaller?

[Zkribbler]

For home defense, of course.

No. Duck hunting.

[snoopy369]

Beam quality seems to be a measure of the ratio of the beam's diameter to the optimal diameter, with some transformations to calculate that. 3.0 seems to be very good for a large beam, from what google tells me.

[The Mad Monk]

Fricasseed duck hunting.

[Arrian]

The button that fires this thing should be labeled SMITE.

-Arrian

[UnOrthOdOx]

Excellent.

The article said it has a beam quality of 3.0. Does that refer to the distance before the strength of the beam drops off? What would that be? How far away could you shoot something?

Also, how large is this thing? Could it be mounted on a tank? Would you need something larger? Smaller?

No idea what the beam quality measurement is.

Right now, it's not "portable" by any stretch. But it "won't be hard."

http://blog.wired.com/defense/2009/03/next-steps-to-l.html

Weaponizing the Military-Grade Laser: Four Years, $100 Million
By Noah Shachtman March 18, 2009 | 6:19:00 PMCategories: Cash Rules Everything Around Me, Lasers and Ray Guns, Money Money Money
So the military now has an electric laser that's weapons-grade. But it still may take four years, and another $100 million, before the Army gets its first working laser weapon.

The military and Northrop Grumman announced today that its solid state laser at hit 100 kilowatts -- generally considered battlefield-strength -- in lab testing. So now the push begins to weaponize the ray.

First, the Army is planning to move the 100 kilowatt blaster to the High Energy Laser Systems Test Facility at White Sands Missile Range. There, the device will be hooked up to the tracking, pointing, and optics systems from Northrop's old, chemical-powered ray gun, the Tactical High Energy Laser. Tests against "static" targets on the ground should happen this time, next year. By 2011, the laser combo should be blasting mortars and rockets out of the sky.

In the meantime, researchers working on a separate Army program, the High Energy Laser Technology Demonstrator, will be crunching all that pointing and tracking and optics machinery into a single heavy truck. By 2012, the Army will hook the Northrop solid state laser up to the truck, for test-firing. The following year, if all goes well, the truck should get a ray gun of its own.

Total cost: $100 million, says Dr. Brian Strickland, an Army program manager.

Technically, he tells Danger Room, none of this should be that hard -- not even reducing the size and weight of all of this intricate machinery. The tough part is going to be mass-producing the mobile laser cannons. "The only real showstopper is we've got the get the costs down," Strickland says. Manufacturing the laser and associated gear right now would cost about $40 million per ray gun truck -- way too much, for a defense against munitions that can be made for next-to-nothing. "We want to have a laser that costs $15 to $20 million."

While the Army works on its laser truck, the Navy is looking to zap targets at sea. The Navy recently launched its Maritime Laser Demonstration program. The idea is to demonstrate laser "subsystem technologies" that can help "defeat small boat threats" against a larger ship. The 100 kilowatt laser could very well be one of those systems.

[snoopy369]

Too bad my dad got out of physics and into law ... this is what he'd undoubtedly be working on now [he worked for a company that contracted out at WSMR, focusing on lasers and optics]...