One day, the Navy swears, it’ll have a massive laser aboard its ships to fry missiles out of the sky. That day is still years off. But a very excited Office of Naval Research reports that it’s nine months ahead of schedule, thanks to what it calls a “remarkable breakthrough.”
The Navy’s Free Electron Laserprogram uses massively charged electron streams generated by an injector to focus light across multiple wavelengths, making it more powerful than most lasers. Turning it into a death ray requires at least 100 kilowatts worth of power. So far, the prototype Free Electron Laser that the Navy has can only generate 14.
But now the Navy thinks it’s broken a power threshold. Tests in December of a new injector yielded the electrons necessary to get the Free Electron Laser up to “megawatt class” beams, the Office of Naval Research said in a statement issued today, nine months ahead of schedule. One of the project’s lead researchers, Dinh Nguyen, said in the statement that he hoped to “set a world record for the average current of electrons.”
Getting it on board a ship is still a long ways away. Boeing has a contract to get the Navy a new prototype laser by early 2012. Even with the new injector showing promise, researchers don’t anticipate a shipboard test until 2018.
But the arrival of a superlaser for maritime defense is a potential gamechanger. It would represent a speed-of-light weapon that never has to be reloaded, feeding on a ship’s generator, to burn through incoming missiles or aircraft. And that’s not all: program manager Quentin Saulter told Danger Room in November that the Free Electron Laser can be used as a sensor, a tracker or a guidance system for a ship’s conventional weapons.
The Navy isn’t just looking at lasers for its future shipboard defense. Last month, it set a world record forsending 33 megajoules of energy through a railgun, propelling a bullet out from its barrel at mach-8 speeds. Between the rail gun and the Free Electron Laser, the Navy’s looking both to neutralize a new generation of anti-ship missiles — hint hint: China — and increase the firing range of its ships in case they have to operate against an enemy further out to sea.
The injector will undergo a design review scheduled to wrap up tomorrow. Expect much high-fiving amongst the research team. And as the laser gets its upgrades, maybe it’ll put humanity a step closer todiscovering and harnessing cosmic energy.
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