The age of beam guns is almost upon us after the US Navy bought a high-energy tactical laser gun from Lockheed Martin. High Energy Laser with Integrated Optical Dazzle and Surveillance (HELIOS)Can be installed on existing warships.

When Theodore Mayman invented the first laser in 1960 at Hughes Research Laboratory in Malibu, California, it was immediately seen as a potential superweapon—science fiction’s death ray came to life.

While the ability to produce coherent beams of light provides scientists and engineers with a unique tool that will revolutionize many fields over the next six decades, creating a practical laser weapon has proven to be more difficult than first thought. Today, the development of solid-state lasers based on coils of fiber optic cable doped with exotic elements such as yttrium has finally taken laser weapons from the lab to the battlefield.

Multi-purpose laser gun HELIOS 60 kW or more of power will not be deployed as an experiment on a US Navy ship as in previous tests, but as an operational tactical system that can be fully integrated into ship operations and scaled to mission requirements. Like other laser weapons, the HELIOS can fire a beam of lightning at multiple targets for around one dollar per shot, excluding equipment cost, and has an unlimited supply of ammunition as long as power is available.

HELIOS is unique in that it can be used not only to destroy targets but also to blind optical sensors, and the reflected beam can collect data over long distances for intelligence and surveillance (ISR) programs. According to Lockheed, this makes HELIOS an essential element of a multi-layered defense architecture to protect the fleet.

“Lockheed Martin and the US Navy share a shared vision and enthusiasm for the development and creation of groundbreaking laser weapon systemssaid Rick Cordaro, vice president of Advanced Product Solutions at Lockheed Martin. “HELIOS increases the overall effectiveness of the ship’s combat system to deter future threats and provide additional protection for Marines, and we understand that we need to provide scalable solutions tailored to the Navy’s priorities. HELIOS is a reliable foundation for the cascade delivery of a reliable and powerful laser weapon system.“.