Contracts Awarded to Develop Laser Pods that Shoot Down Missiles For DARPA - Polidicks

[img]http://img.gawkerassets.com/img/194uzxof59uw1jpg/original.jpg[/img] [quote] The U.S. handed out two contracts Monday to Northrop Grumman and Lockheed Martin to develop laser pods that can be mounted on aircraft and shoot down missiles. Under Project Endurance, Northrop Grumman received a $14.6 million contract and Lockheed Martin received $11.4 million to develop laser weapons to protect manned and unmanned aircraft. Project Endurance was included in the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s (DARPA) fiscal year 2014 budget. Endurance was born out of DARPA’s Excalibur program in which engineers have worked to “develop coherent optical phased array technologies to enable scalable laser weapons that are 10 times lighter and more compact than existing high-power chemical laser systems,” according to a DARPA release. Research on lasers has advanced to such a point the military feels ready to install them aboard aircraft and utilize them as a key defense system. Of course, this is certainly not the first time the military has tried to build laser weapons onto aircraft. There was the ill fated Airborne Laser program that was engineered to shoot down ballistic missiles. However, former Defense Secretary Robert Gates ended up doing most of the shooting when he killed the program along with other that he deemed unrealistic and too expensive. [/quote] Read more: [url]http://defensetech.org/2013/10/30/contracts-awarded-to-develop-laser-pods-that-shoot-down-missiles/#ixzz2jIBajtaL[/url] Defense.org Wouldn't this be like the one they mounted on a 747

$14.6, and $11.4 million for R&D doesn't sound like much, considering how useful this tech could be.

Its more useful on gunships, since they are massive slow moving targets. I wonder how many gunships have been shot down compared to fighter craft

Didn't they have some "star wars" program that was similar to this in the '80s? [url]http://www.coldwar.org/articles/80s/SDI-StarWars.asp[/url]

if you're going to post the link with it then you obviously know there was the program. Yeah, Reagan literally saw star wars and thought he could apply it to the current cold war. Russia got annoyed at this obviously, then some other shit, i can't remember my history well :v: [editline]edit[/editline] What I do know is Bush and Blair talked about this some years back, and Russia flew bombers just outside of UK airspace as a warning. Pretty unnerving.

[QUOTE=codemaster85;42709762]Its more useful on gunships, since they are massive slow moving targets. I wonder how many gunships have been shot down compared to fighter craft[/QUOTE] Twenty three. Out of a rough 150 in existance (AC-47, AC-119 and AC-130).

Is anyone else having trouble believing that this will properly work in combat and what about fog?

[QUOTE=RoboChimp;42710232]Is anyone else having trouble believing that this will properly work in combat and what about fog?[/QUOTE] In bad weather conditions the aircraft probably wouldn't be in the air anyways

Trust DARPA to come up with everything.

[QUOTE=thelurker1234;42710354]In bad weather conditions the aircraft probably wouldn't be in the air anyways[/QUOTE]What about missiles?

I'm glad they added the little scale thing, it looks like something massive but it's actually really small.

[QUOTE=RoboChimp;42710232]Is anyone else having trouble believing that this will properly work in combat and what about fog?[/QUOTE] Depends upon the wavelength of the laser, some can penetrate fog will others cant.

[QUOTE=LoneWolf_Recon;42710637]Depends upon the wavelength of the laser, some can penetrate fog will others cant.[/QUOTE] Some lasers have been proposed to shoot down possible ballistic missiles launched from rogue nations, and these would actually account for air and weather conditions so the laser coming out would be "corrected" by the atmosphere around it and hit the target at full power. Not sure how similar the concepts are, but yeah.

wow how far lasers have come, that used to fill an entire 747, now granted that was for some considerably bigger missiles but still that thing is puny compared to its power

I wonder if that railgun project they were working on at DARPA is getting into an improvement stage?

Couldn't you just cover your missile/warship in mirrors? Lasers seem awesome but this is a serious downside. Can someone explain if this would work?

[QUOTE=Bradyns;42709593]$14.6, and $11.4 million for R&D doesn't sound like much, considering how useful this tech could be.[/QUOTE] Don't worry, in about fifteen minutes they'll of burned through that and returned asking for ten billion dollars and another ten years of development time so they can deliver a design that's 1/8th scale and purely a prototype.

[QUOTE=pentium;42711681]Don't worry, in about fifteen minutes they'll of burned through that and returned asking for ten billion dollars and another ten years of development time so they can deliver a design that's 1/8th scale and purely a prototype.[/QUOTE] And DARPA will tell them to go fuck themselves because they do not actually have a huge sum of money at their command. DARPA wants proof, for this sum of money, that they can produce something useful. They are to produce something physical that proves their tech. Then congress can step in and decide the big bucks.

[video=youtube;aofW0jQhgcg]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aofW0jQhgcg[/video]

[QUOTE=Lick;42711645]Couldn't you just cover your missile/warship in mirrors? Lasers seem awesome but this is a serious downside. Can someone explain if this would work?[/QUOTE] No mirror is 100% efficient. A laser will still burn through it. [editline]31st October 2013[/editline] [QUOTE=Sableye;42711491]wow how far lasers have come, that used to fill an entire 747, now granted that was for some considerably bigger missiles but still that thing is puny compared to its power[/QUOTE] Yes they have. [media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PVVQmQQXZXo[/media]

is it accurate enough to shoot down RPG rounds? That would be really useful for planes.

[QUOTE=RoboChimp;42720138]is it accurate enough to shoot down RPG rounds? That would be really useful for planes.[/QUOTE] good luck shooting down a plane with an RPG

[QUOTE=Araknid;42720142]good luck shooting down a plane with an RPG[/QUOTE]Don't terrorists already do it for fun?

[QUOTE=Riller;42710205]Twenty three. Out of a rough 150 in existance (AC-47, AC-119 and AC-130).[/QUOTE]codemaster85 prooobably didn't mean those kind of gunships. I think when "gunship" was used, it was in reference to helicopter gunships which are way more vulnerable than AC-130's. Though I don't think this laser countermeasure is fast enough (as in, burns the target fast enough) to swat down a missile from such a low altitude.

[QUOTE=JumpinJackFlash;42720325]codemaster85 prooobably didn't mean those kind of gunships. I think when "gunship" was used, it was in reference to helicopter gunships which are way more vulnerable than AC-130's. Though I don't think this laser countermeasure is fast enough (as in, burns the target fast enough) to swat down a missile from such a low altitude.[/QUOTE] Well, he did call them massive and slow-moving. Attack helicopters rarely loiter the field for long, and the countermeasures they do have are enough for most all smaller AA missiles (IE, shoulder-launched stuff, which is a danger to helicopters but doesn't really phase planes much).

[QUOTE=Riller;42720508]Well, he did call them massive and slow-moving. Attack helicopters rarely loiter the field for long, and the countermeasures they do have are enough for most all smaller AA missiles (IE, shoulder-launched stuff, which is a danger to helicopters but doesn't really phase planes much).[/QUOTE]The thing is, though, they don't loiter because they're vulnerable to MANPADS and anti-tank rockets like the RPG-7. (Battle of Mogadishu being a prime example of this) They could do more if they were able to fly slower and loiter longer, taking their time to carefully cover ground forces. Currently they mostly strafe, not really utilizing a helicopter's ability to hover as much as they could. I'm sure having a way to defeat systems like the FIM-92 Stinger and SA-7 Grail (9K32 Strela-2) using a laser system like this would be great for helicopter gunships.

Wow this is what my dad had been working on for over 10 years at the Naval Research Laboratory before that asshole Robert Gates cut the program as mentioned in the article. "Unrealistic" my ass I've seen test footage of these things working all the way back from 2004. Oh well glad they're getting made, they're going to save our pilots lives. The only downside of this program is that the way they work is by frying the components the missile uses for navigation rendering the missile to become essentially a dumbfire rocket. This does not make the missile inert however so the missile will either fly until it runs out of fuel and crashes or the missile will spaz out and lose control until hits something, meaning there is a high potential for collateral damage. In the end though this not very different from chaff. [QUOTE=OvB;42712116][video=youtube;PVVQmQQXZXo]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PVVQmQQXZXo[/video][/QUOTE] This is actually what my dad was working on. Hah I remember seeing some of this footage when it was still classified. It's really a shame it never made it to aircraft. I remember he was also working on version that would be mounted on towers and placed on military bases in combat zones to protect them from missile strikes, wonder if that ever went through.