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Navy Successfully Deploys Lasers

by joe golfer
5 replies
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The Navy is on a program of rapid testing and deployment of innovative new systems for ship, air and ground combat. This video released this week is a "live fire" demonstration of the Laser Weapons System (LaWS) striking dummy boats and an aircraft.

  • Profile picture of the author ForumGuru
    Banned
    The "funding announcement" back in 2012...

    • Security & Facility Brief
    • Introductions
    • Approach
    – Components/Subsystems
    – Systems
    • System Requirements
    • Proposal Requirements
    • Evaluation Criteria
    • Contractual Information
    • Summary, Questions & Discussions
    http://www.onr.navy.mil/~/media/File...ment-0008.ashx

    Cheers

    -don
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    • Profile picture of the author BigFrank
      Banned
      The Pentagon says the the cost per shot is $1. Cheaper than an arcade game. Of course they're not factoring in at least hundreds of millions in research, if not billions.

      Cheers. - Frank
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  • Profile picture of the author joe golfer
    Am I the only one who thought a beam was going to shoot out like a Star Trek phaser?

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    Marketing is not a battle of products. It is a battle of perceptions.
    - Jack Trout
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  • Profile picture of the author bizgrower
    I wonder how much the space based ones cost?
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    "If you think you're the smartest person in the room, then you're probably in the wrong room."

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    • Profile picture of the author ForumGuru
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      Originally Posted by bizgrower View Post

      I wonder how much the space based ones cost?
      Well, the price per shot they are calculating is the production cost of the energy it takes to fire the laser which is quite cheap on an already existing ship --> 59 cents per shot according to the U.S. Navy.

      The cost of deploying a functioning laser, power station, and it's associated command and control functionality in space will be much, much higher than on a ship based installation.

      They have been spending money on SBLs for a very long time, but supposedly the operation has suffered from serious defunding and/or cancellation. Some have suspected it is now part of the multibillion dollar black budget.

      The project passed a Systems Requirements Review in March 2001, with a System Definition Review planned for fall 2001. Accelerating the schedule of the SBL prototype would require funding increases over the initially estimated $2-3 billion cost of the test. Some estimates suggest that a full 20-satellite constellation could cost $40 billion, plus launch costs.
      Space Based Laser [SBL]

      Air Force awarded $168 million U.S. (out of a projected total cost of $80 billion) to these companies:
      SBL - Space Based Laser

      he continuation of the program in a much larger scale in the classified budget is feasible: DOD has plenty of black R&D money – $11.8 billion or 19 percent of total RDT&E funding according to the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments. Given the spending profile developed by CBO, MDA could keep this thing in their classified budget for another several years before the spending started to hit the billion dollars per year mark.
      Jeffrey Lewis - Space Based Laser in the Black Budget?

      Much of the R&D done on the ship based laser configs (and the others) are/were done by the private sector. Systems also under development are airplane based laser systems and of course ground based installations.

      Cheers

      -don
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