{"id":30817,"date":"2026-04-24T16:00:27","date_gmt":"2026-04-24T16:00:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/staging.sightlinemg.com\/c4isrnet\/uncategorized\/2026\/04\/24\/the-us-military-wants-a-fleet-of-missile-killing-laser-drones\/"},"modified":"2026-08-08T17:36:31","modified_gmt":"2026-08-08T17:36:31","slug":"the-us-military-wants-a-fleet-of-missile-killing-laser-drones","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/staging.sightlinemg.com\/c4isrnet\/battlefield-tech\/2026\/04\/24\/the-us-military-wants-a-fleet-of-missile-killing-laser-drones\/","title":{"rendered":"The US military wants a fleet of missile-killing laser drones"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Editor\u2019s note: This story originally appeared on Laser Wars, a newsletter about military laser weapons and other futuristic defense technology. <\/i>Subscribe here<\/i><\/a>.<\/i><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The U.S. military is once again pursuing flying directed energy weapons<\/a> to counter threats to American airspace, according to the Defense Department\u2019s missile defense<\/a> boss.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Speaking to members of Congress during a House Armed Services Subcommittee on Strategic Forces hearing<\/a> on April 15 on the Pentagon\u2019s planned missile defense activities for fiscal year 2027, U.S. Missile Defense Agency director Air Force Lt. Gen. Heath Collins stated<\/a> that his organization was \u201call in\u201d on \u201cbringing directed energy to the fight,\u201d including integrating such weapons into unmanned platforms for domestic air defense<\/a> against hostile missiles and drones.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe are certainly putting more attention into bringing potentially game-changing directed energy capabilities to bear in an unmanned platform,\u201d Collins stated in response to a question from Rep. Gabe Vasquez (D-New Mexico) regarding the MDA\u2019s adoption of directed energy weapons. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201c[An] air platform is what we\u2019re focused on, so we can bring that capability to the edge of the fight and thin the herd on [unmanned aerial vehicles], potentially air threats and the like.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

While Collins did not identify specific directed energy capabilities of interest to the MDA, his written statement <\/a>to the subcommittee notes that the agency is \u201caccelerating the operational use of high-energy lasers on various platforms\u201d to add a \u201ccritical, non-kinetic layer\u201d to the existing U.S. missile defense architecture.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s unclear how much the MDA plans on spending on these efforts. While the \u201cskinny\u201d version at the Pentagon\u2019s historic $1.5 trillion fiscal year 2027 budget request published<\/a> in early April includes a significant boost<\/a> to directed energy research and development for homeland missile defense under the Trump administration\u2019s \u201cGolden Dome for America\u201d initiative, the documents do not contain any R&D or procurement efforts explicitly tied to the agency.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As Laser Wars readers likely already know<\/a>, the Pentagon has been examining airborne laser weapons for missile defense since the 1970s, when the U.S. Air Force established its Airborne Laser Laboratory (ALL) program<\/a> to explore the development of a laser-armed \u201caerial battleship\u201d to protect strategic bombers from incoming interceptors. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2010, the service\u2019s Boeing 747-based YAL-1 Airborne Laser Test Bed successfully destroyed several ballistic missiles in flight during testing but was subsequently canceled the following year due to \u201csignificant affordability and technology problems,\u201d as then-Defense Secretary Robert Gates put it<\/a> at the time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As military laser weapons have evolved from bulky chemical-based systems to more compact and efficient solid-state designs in recent decades, U.S. military planners have increasingly explored integrating them into unmanned airborne platforms. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The High Energy Liquid Laser Area Defense System (HELLADS) effort, initiated in 2003 by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, sought to develop<\/a> a 150-kW system to integrate into both manned and unmanned aircraft before grinding<\/a> to a halt in 2015. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The MDA itself pursued<\/a> outfitting drones with laser weapons for ballistic missile defense for more than a decade<\/a> through its Low Power Laser Demonstrator (LPLD) initiative before then-Undersecretary of Defense for Research and Engineering Michael Griffin threw cold water<\/a> on the effort in 2020, citing the unique technical and environmental challenges inherent to mounting lasers on aircraft.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI think it can be done as an experiment, but as a weapon system to equip an airplane with the kinds of lasers we think necessary \u2014 in terms of their power level, and all their support requirements, getting the airplane to altitudes where atmospheric turbulence can be mitigated appropriately \u2014 that combination of things doesn\u2019t go on one platform,\u201d Griffin told reporters in May 2020, per<\/a> Breaking Defense. \u201cSo, I\u2019m just extremely skeptical of that.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Griffin isn\u2019t wrong. Despite advances in laser technology, engineering a directed energy weapon that\u2019s both powerful enough to destroy an incoming target and compact enough to integrate onto a relatively small airframe like a multirole combat aircraft or drone is a significant challenge. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even if an integration were technically simple, operational feasibility is an major question: atmospheric conditions are limiting factors for laser weapons in any domain, but turbulence is a particularly thorny one for fast-moving airborne platforms tasked with maintaining a coherent beam long enough to successfully neutralize targets moving at equally high speeds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite this skepticism, the dream of laser-armed drones appears alive and well. As recently as 2024, the MDA was gearing up<\/a> for another run at airborne lasers, albeit with an initial focus on low-powered systems for tracking before ramping up to high-energy weapons. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In January 2025, the U.S. Navy released a slick vision of future naval operations that included<\/a> notional drone wingmen outfitted with directed energy weapons running interference for manned aircraft. And in the last year, defense contractor General Atomics has released multiple renderings of its MQ-9B SkyGuardian<\/a> and MQ-20 Avenger<\/a> drones outfitted with laser weapons, although a company spokesman cautioned<\/a> reporters that the systems were not designed for \u201cany specific government program or contract.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Directed energy weapons offer an alluring alternative to traditional missile-based air defenses, with low cost-per-shot, deep magazines and the ability to engage targets at the speed of light. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But the Pentagon has been here before: airborne laser concepts have repeatedly surged on waves of optimism, only to collapse under the weight of technical complexities and ballooning costs. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Indeed, the Air Force\u2019s Airborne High Energy Laser <\/a>(AHEL) and Self-Protect High-Energy Laser Demonstrator<\/a> (SHiELD) efforts, which respectively sought to mount laser weapons on an AC-130J Ghostrider gunship and F-15 Eagle fighter jet, proved too challenging to even advance to airborne tests. (Undeterred, the service is poised to restart airborne laser efforts<\/a> in fiscal year 2027 amid a surge in broad institutional support<\/a> for directed energy. Time is a flat circle.<\/a>)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Whether the MDA is barreling towards a genuine directed energy inflection point or just another familiar R&D cycle remains an open question. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

For now, the message from Collins is clear: when it comes to determining whether airborne laser weapons are a viable missile defense capability, the U.S. military is once again willing to find out the hard way.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The U.S. military is once again pursuing flying directed energy weapons to counter threats to American 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