Lockheed Martin, a leading aerospace and defense company, has achieved a significant milestone with the successful demonstration of “first light” from its Directed Energy Interceptor for Maneuver Short-Range Air Defense System (DEIMOS) system.
Graphic: Lockheed Martin
The DEIMOS system is a ruggedized, tactical laser weapon system that is designed to be integrated into the Stryker combat vehicle, and has a 50 kW class laser weapon system to deliver robust directed energy capability to the U.S. Army’s challenging maneuver-short range air defense (M-SHORAD) mission.
This first light demonstration verifies that the laser’s optical performance parameters align with the system design parameters.
The DEIMOS system uses a Spectral Beam Combination (SBC) architecture, which allows for scalable power while retaining excellent beam quality. This technology is a key benefit of the system and ensures that it can deliver the desired performance. This means that the system can deliver high-quality laser beams at different power levels, depending on the specific needs of the mission. The ability to scale power while maintaining beam quality is a significant advantage of the SBC architecture and is what makes it a key benefit for the DEIMOS system.
In 2022, Lockheed Martin demonstrated Layered Laser Defense (LLD) capability by defeating two surrogate cruise missiles at tactically relevant ranges. This LLD capability shares many common elements with the DEIMOS system architecture, such as allowing for a single operator to engage and destroy SHORAD targets, being seamlessly integrated into various platforms, and fitting on tactical platforms such as a Stryker vehicle due to its design with constraints in terms of size, weight, and power.
To further develop and test the system, Lockheed Martin plans to expand the DEIMOS test program in 2023 and conduct field integration tests in 2024.
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