September 19, 2020
The Lockheed Martin Corporation has committed to equipping US warplanes with defensive lasers by 2025 to shoot down air-to-air or surface-to-air missiles.
The US Air Force implements this technology within the framework of the Self-Protection High Energy Laser Demonstrator (ShiELD) program as it considers laser systems as weapons with “unlimited” ammunition with a cost per shot very low.
According to Flightglobal, the promising system will be called TALWS (Tactical Airborne Laser Weapons System) and includes three types of systems: target designators, defense lasers and lasers for the destruction of other aircraft.
In the first stage of the project, a laser will be implemented for the self-defense of combat aircraft, this laser should work effectively in flights at subsonic, transonic and supersonic speeds.
