Posted on 03/14/2008 7:03:09 AM PDT by Blood of Tyrants
Northrop Grumman has demonstrated exemplary performance capability of a laser chain, the first major building block of a solid state demonstrator laser designed to reach a power level of 100kW. The Joint High-Powered Solid State Laser (JHPSSL) Phase 3 program exceeded all target requirements of its second major demonstration milestone, including excellent beam quality.
The JHPSSL system is designed to accelerate solid-state laser technology for military uses, including force protection and precision strike missions for air-, sea-, and ground-based platforms.
"Northrop Grumman's JHPSSL will demonstrate the laser technology for the next generation of protection for the nation's warfighters on the ground, in the air, and at sea," said Dan Wildt, vice president of Directed Energy Systems at Northrop Grumman's Space Technology sector. "With the successful demonstration of a complete laser chain -- the building block of the fully integrated solid state laser -- the hardest part is over."
The first laser chain (LC1) is a key component to the JHPSSL scaleable architecture, which is designed to combine eight laser chains of four gain modules each. Each laser chain is a compact 15kW solid state laser and the entire system configuration has the potential to achieve greater than 100kW, the ultimate goal of the Phase 3 JHPSSL program. The company's scaleable approach achieves higher power as more chains are added.
The laser chain milestone was demonstrated on Dec. 20, 2007, two days ahead of schedule. Power reached 15.3kW, exceeding the target requirement of 12.7kW; vertical beam quality was measured at 1.58x diffraction limit, surpassing the 2.0 target; turn-on time was 0.8 seconds, below the 1.0 second target; LC1's run time was more than 300 seconds, far beyond the target of 200 seconds; and the Electo-Optical Efficiency was 19.5 percent.
Yeah, I exaggerated somewhat. :)
The reason the military would prefer to use solid state lasers is that they will be run off of the electricity generated by the engine of the vehicle it is mounted on. Fighters, bombers, helicopters, humvees, naval ships, APCs, tanks and so on all could be fitted with solid state laser weapons systems for defense or offense. In theory, as long as the battery is charged and the engine is running, the laser’s “magazine” is always full; it can’t run out of ammo. That’s one major advantage.
The laser would be powered by the JSF’s turbine engine. As long as it’s in flight, the weapon is charged and ready. There is a cooling system (built into the design of the weapon) and some parts need to be replaced from time to time but such a replacement, from what I’ve read, would be a very simple matter of just swapping the parts out.
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