The Navy brought a retired laser weapon back for a new drone fight
The U.S. Navy spent at least six months resurrecting a high-energy laser weapon that previously graced the bow of a warship for a new military exercise last year, the service recently revealed. The Navy’s Directed Energy Systems Integration Laboratory (DESIL)—the dedicated facility for evaluating laser weapons in a maritime environment located at Naval Base Ventura County in Point Mugu, California—“ramped up efforts to restore critical functions” to the service’s “one-of-a-kind” 150 kilowatt Solid State Laser Technology Maturation (SSL-TM) demonstrator starting in early March 2025, according to recently published ‘year in review’ bulletin from Naval Sea Systems Command (NAVSEA). Initiated in 2012 and officially known as the Laser Weapon System Demonstrator Mk 2 Mod 0, the SSL-TM demonstrat
The U.S. Navy spent at least six months resurrecting a high-energy laser weapon that previously graced the bow of a warship for a new military exercise last year, the service recently revealed.
The Navy’s Directed Energy Systems Integration Laboratory (DESIL)—the dedicated facility for evaluating laser weapons in a maritime environment located at Naval Base Ventura County in Point Mugu, California—“ramped up efforts to restore critical functions” to the service’s “one-of-a-kind” 150 kilowatt Solid State Laser Technology Maturation (SSL-TM) demonstrator starting in early March 2025, according to recently published ‘year in review’ bulletin from Naval Sea Systems Command (NAVSEA).
Initiated in 2012 and officially known as the Laser Weapon System Demonstrator Mk 2 Mod 0, the SSL-TM demonstrator was originally installed aboard the San Antonio-class amphibious transport dock USS Portland in 2019. The system, described as the successor to the 30 kw AN/SEQ-3 Laser Weapon System (also known as the XN-1 LaWS) that was mounted on the Austin-class amphibious transport dock USS Ponce in 2014, was designed to “provide a new capability to the Fleet to address known capability gaps against asymmetric threats” like now-ubiquitous aerial drones and small boats laden with explosives, as well as “inform future acquisition strategies, system designs integration architectures, and fielding plans for laser weapon systems,” according to Navy budget documents.
The SSL-TM demonstrator appears to have performed as advertised. The system successfully destroyed a drone target during at-sea testing in the Gulf of Aden in May 2020—an engagement that yielded one of the most vivid representations of a real-world laser weapon in action to date—as well as neutralized a small surface target during additional testing in December 2021.
But while prime contractor Northrop Grumman had specifically designed the SSL-TM demonstrator for installation “with minimal modification or additional costs” aboard the Navy’s Arleigh Burke-class guided missile destroyers, the service initiated the system’s deinstallation from the Portland in fiscal year 2023 after spending nearly $50 million on the effort, the budget documents say. The U.S. Defense Department’s final report on the initiative has not yet been made public.
Following the deinstallation, the SSL-TM demonstrator was presumably mothballed until the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering (OUSD(R&E)) requested the laser weapon “play a role” in the Pentagon’s new Crimson Dragon military exercise the following September, the NAVSEA bulletin says.
Described as a weeklong, multi-unit DESIL test event, Crimson Dragon convened 20 defense contractors “in a simulated combat environment” to test the effectiveness of their drones, counter-drone systems, and sensors “in scenarios that simulated military base defense, long-range fires and integrated [ballistic missile defense],” according to the bulletin.
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