{"id":20278,"date":"2015-12-28T12:46:59","date_gmt":"2015-12-28T20:46:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2015\/12\/150-kilowatt-lasers-will-be-tested-on-predator-drones-and-ac130-gunships-in-2016"},"modified":"2017-06-04T11:13:19","modified_gmt":"2017-06-04T18:13:19","slug":"150-kilowatt-lasers-will-be-tested-on-predator-drones-and-ac130-gunships-in-2016","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2015\/12\/150-kilowatt-lasers-will-be-tested-on-predator-drones-and-ac130-gunships-in-2016","title":{"rendered":"150 Kilowatt lasers will be tested on predator drones and AC130 gunships in 2016"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<p><iframe style=\"display: block; margin: 0 auto; width: 100%; aspect-ratio: 4\/3; object-fit: contain;\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/uIljAqxL8G8?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope;\n   picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/nypost.com\/2015\/12\/27\/air-force-will-test-first-aircraft-mounted-laser-weapon-in-january\/\" target=\"blank\">A laser set to begin live-fire tests at White Sands Missile Range, New Mexico, in January uses rare earth minerals.<\/a> It was developed by General Atomics Aeronautical Systems Inc. of Poway, Calif., the company that produced the revolutionary MQ-1 Predator drone. Its precise power levels are classified, but Michael Perry, the company\u2019s vice president for laser programs, said the experimental weapon\u2019s beam is in the 150-kilowatt class. That\u2019s more than 100 times the power needed to heat an electric oven to 350 degrees.<\/p>\n<p>The General Atomics laser is five times more powerful than the only laser the military has fielded, the 30-kilowatt-class Laser Weapon System, a fiber laser the Navy developed that has knocked down small drones and crippled small boat swarms in tests at short range. That laser was installed on the USS Ponce, an Afloat Forward Staging Base deployed to the Middle East, in 2014. This past October, the Navy awarded Northrop Grumman a $53 million contract to develop a more powerful shipboard laser.<\/p>\n<p>Bulk lasers use slabs or strips of rare earth minerals \u2014 ytterbium, for example \u2014 as their gain medium. Fiber lasers \u201cgang\u201d fiber-optic cables together as the gain medium.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/nextbigfuture.com\/2015\/12\/150-kilowatt-lasers-will-be-tested-on.html\" target=\"_blank\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A laser set to begin live-fire tests at White Sands Missile Range, New Mexico, in January uses rare earth minerals. It was developed by General Atomics Aeronautical Systems Inc. of Poway, Calif., the company that produced the revolutionary MQ-1 Predator drone. Its precise power levels are classified, but Michael Perry, the company\u2019s vice president for [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":354,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1488,1497,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20278","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-drones","category-energy","category-military"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20278","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/354"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20278"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20278\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":63397,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20278\/revisions\/63397"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20278"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20278"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20278"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}