Nine years after the Pentagon tried and failed to build laser communications satellites, can the private sector get it done?

How will the US kill enemy hypersonic weapons in future war? The Pentagon’s research chief has some high-tech ideas.

WASHINGTON: The Navy needs to increase both the number and complexity of its wargames, the service’s top admiral said Wednesday, citing rapid advances being made by competitors in cyber and information warfare tactics that will muddy and confuse future battlefields. While Adm. John Richardson didn’t provide any details to flesh out his thinking during an… Keep reading →

“AFWIC was told to inform and try to shape the ’20 POM,” Fantini told reporters, but that 2020-2024 budget plan is due out in February and was already largely locked down. “But the ’21 POM,” he said, it’s “game on.”

Israel largely abandoned lasers 12 years ago, but “there is a growing number of experts that understand the mistake that was made,” a senior Israeli source told Breaking Defense. “(We’re) ready to restart development with the more advanced building blocks available today.”

AUSA: The Army is investing more and more money in lasers to defeat incoming rockets and enemy drones. Across the Air & Missile Defense (AMD) portfolio, “we put over 50 percent of our S&T (Science and Technology) money going towards directed energy projects,” up from about a third previously, said the AMD modernization director, Brig. Gen.… Keep reading →

By 2022, the service plans to field new advanced reactive armor tiles to neutralize incoming warheads, a laser early warning system to warn crews they’re being targeted, and a signature management effort to avoid detection in the first place.

The State Department and Pentagon are expressing concern over new Russian and Chinese activities in space, while the White House is pushing for the creation of a Space Force.

Lockheed is as close to an incumbent as you get in the rapidly evolving world of high-energy fiber lasers. Raytheon, by contrast, only recently made a big play for laser weapons, but they can draw on their experience with lower-powered but exquisitely tuned laser sensors.

It was hard enough keeping the data flowing to the far mountains of Afghanistan, but at least the Taliban didn’t have the technology to attack the network. Russia and China, however, are investing heavily in capabilities to eavesdrop on or jam the radio transmissions and to blind or outright shoot down the satellites.