According to a report at Military Aerospace DARPA has awarded aerospace giants Lockheed Martin and Northrup Grumman a total of $26M to develop aircraft mounted lasers that can destroy predatory missiles.
Named Project Endurance the DARPA project is looking to “develop technology for pod-mounted lasers to protect a variety of airborne platforms from emerging and legacy electro-optical IR guided surface-to-air missiles”.
While most fighter jets and bombers have some form of counter measure, drones, which are becoming ever more prevalent, aren’t equipped with the same defensive capabilities. Although DARPA is looking to equip all manner of aircraft with laser defenses drones will likely see the greatest benefit due to the fact that they’re significantly slower than their manned counterparts.
As part of its development timeline DARPA expects the laser systems to be designed by the end of the 2013 fiscal year. In 2014 building and testing of the systems will occur and by 2016 a DARPA expects the system to be fully operational.
Images Courtesy of DARPA