U.S. awards $86 million for 500-kilowatt laser weapon prototypes

The U.S. Department of Defense has awarded contracts worth $86 million to Lockheed Martin Aculight and nLIGHT Defense to develop Joint Laser Weapon Systems capable of up to 500 kilowatts of directed energy, the Pentagon announced. The program, managed by the Scaled Directed Energy Critical Technology Area under the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering, carries a total potential ceiling of $847 million if all options are exercised. The goal is to field practical laser weapons that can engage not only small drones but also high-velocity anti-ship missiles and next-generation cruise missiles, threats that require sustained beam dwell times beyond what lower-power systems can achieve. Two engineering challenges have historically stalled battlefield lasers: generating sufficient power at the aperture, and hardening the optics, cooling, and beam-control hardware for vibration, shock, and thermal cycling in operational environments. The SCADE program aims to bypass traditional acquisition timelines through rapid prototyping and iterative field testing. Lockheed Martin Aculight and nLIGHT Defense will each pursue independent design approaches to the 500 kW threshold, with the government retaining options to transition successful prototypes to program of record status.