How it began :

Late 2004 — a Boeing anti-missile airborne laser achieved first light;

Oct’ 2006 — a laser-equipped 747-400F was deemed ready for testing;

Jan’ 2007 — an MD-10 with Northrop Grumman’s Guardian anti-missile system took off;

Mar’ 2009 — read on >>

Northrop Grumman, a leading global security services cum defense research company has announced the developing of a first-of-its-kind and State-of-art Solid-state Laser that can do more harm than blinding the enemy. The Project dubbed JHPSSL for ‘ Joint High Power Solid State Laser’ achieved a remarkable milestone in laser weaponry segment breaking the 100 Kilo watt barrier.

“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.

He also said, “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.”
With the advent of laser it was predicted that the next big thing in wars would be lasers. That day is fast approaching with these ground shattering innovations. Who knows - the distant imaginative apocalypses proclaimed by the ‘Terminator’ and the ‘Matrix’ may soon become a reachable reality ! Gosh, We can only bemoan that to happen !

Bookmark this article