The U.S. Navy’s latest laser is ready to be used in combat, Pentagon officials announced Wednesday, after overseeing a three-month test of the futuristic technology.
The Laser Weapon System, or LaWS, may look like a harmless telescope. Its 30-kilowatt beams of infrared light are invisible to the naked eye. But as its deployment aboard the USS Ponce this fall apparently showed, the LaWS can do an incredible amount of damage.
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The laser can vary its intensity to dazzle, disable or destroy targets. In a test video, the laser is shown overheating explosives mounted on nearby boats, and burning drones right out of the air.
After three months of testing, researchers found that heat, high winds or humidity didn’t pose a problem to LaWS' operation. And though it cost $40 million, that's actually not very expensive compared to the alternatives. It doesn't fire or launch a thing -- meaning that one laser shot costs the military about 59 cents, while the cost of one missile can go upwards of millions of dollars.
The Navy has put the LaWS through its paces in various anti-boat and anti-aircraft scenarios over the past few years. Researchers expect the technology will soon be used by the U.S. Army and Air Force, as well.
Rear Adm. Matthew L. Klunder, chief of naval research, says more powerful versions of the laser could be ready for testing by 2016.