Lockheed Martin’s Directed Energy Interceptor for Maneuver Short-Range Air Defense System (DEIMOS) has achieved its first light in a recent laboratory demonstration.
The milestone verified the tactical laser weapon’s expected optical performance according to the company’s Spectral Beam Combination architecture.
DEIMOS Directed Energy System
DEIMOS is a ruggedized laser platform that can be equipped on US Army Stryker armored fighting vehicles to enhance the service’s directed energy capability for short-range air defense (M-SHORAD) missions.
Capabilities used in M-SHORAD operations focus on negating aerial threats such as rotorcraft, drones, artillery, rockets, and mortars.
Meanwhile, the Spectral Beam Combination controls the power of directed energy while maintaining the beam quality of the system’s individual fiber lasers.
Supporting US Army Air Defense Modernization
Lockheed will expand the DEIMOS test program in 2023 and complete related integration tests by 2024.
“The 50 kW-class laser weapon system brings another critical piece to help ensure the US Army has a layered air defense capability,” Lockheed Martin Advanced Product Solutions Vice President Rick Cordaro stated.
“DEIMOS has been tailored from our prior laser weapon successes to affordably meet the Army’s larger modernization strategy for air and missile defense and to improve mission success with 21st Century Security solutions.”