US Navy hits drone with HELIOS laser in profitable check

The U.S. Navy efficiently examined its Excessive-Power Laser with Built-in Optical Dazzler and Surveillance, or HELIOS, system on one among its warships in fiscal 2024, in accordance with a lately launched report.

The Arleigh Burke-class destroyer Preble fired its HELIOS system to zap an aerial drone throughout a weapons testing train in 2024, in accordance with an Workplace of the Director, Operational Check and Analysis report printed in January.

The report, which didn’t present a date or time of the laser’s deployment, included a black-and-white picture exhibiting a streak of white mild beaming out from the vessel into the sky.

The Heart for Countermeasures — a program developed in 1972 to gauge the Protection Division’s skill to fight rising technological threats — carried out 32 exams in fiscal 12 months 2024, which included the “improvement and analysis of directed vitality weapons,” in accordance with the report.

This check carried out on the Preble was run “to confirm and validate the performance, efficiency, and functionality” of the HELIOS system, the report stated.

It’s unclear the place the check happened. The Preble departed Naval Base San Diego, California, in September 2024 and arrived in Yokosuka, Japan, on Oct. 12, 2024.

Lockheed Martin delivered the 60-plus-kilowatt laser to the Navy in August 2022, when it grew to become the primary tactical laser system to be put in in current ships.

Unmanned warfare, particularly within the Crimson Sea and Gulf of Aden, the place Navy ships have intercepted drones and missiles launched by Iran-backed Houthi rebels since fall 2023, has underscored the necessity to speed up the know-how’s deployment for the Navy, Navy Instances beforehand reported.

In 2024, Vice Adm. Brendan McLane, acknowledging the Navy didn’t have a laser it might area, famous a directed-energy weapon would help U.S. warships in opposition to Houthi combatants.

The combination of lasers on Navy vessels would additionally enable crews to preserve munitions, Navy Instances beforehand reported.

The Protection Division has spent $1 billion yearly to develop high-energy lasers and high-power microwaves, however with out the tangible outcomes that Navy management craves, in accordance with the identical report.

The service has confronted challenges in creating and implementing directed-energy weapons for myriad causes, together with problem figuring out laser use within the area and considerations the system gained’t meet operational wants. Total tech improvement, discovering an influence supply aboard ships and potential obstacles introduced by the atmosphere, like fog and wind, have additionally proved difficult.

At present, the Navy has eight Optical Dazzling Interdictor, or ODIN, laser dazzlers, which disrupt enemy sensors, built-in into Arleigh Burke-class destroyers, in accordance with the Congressional Analysis Service’s December 2024 report on Navy lasers. There may be additionally a 150-kilowatt Laser Weapon System Demonstrator, or LWSD, put in on a San Antonio-class amphibious transport ship.