DragonFire

History

2022: Announcement

In early November 2022, the UK Ministry of Defence announced a successful test of Britain's first powerful long-range directed energy laser weapon called DragonFire, held on October 17 at the Porton Down Science Park training ground in Wiltshire.

The demonstration tests in August in the summer of 2022, conducted by the Defense Science and Technology Laboratory of the Ministry of Defense (MoD) of Great Britain, were the second in a series designed to show that the technological obstacles necessary to create domestic high-energy laser weapons in the country have been overcome.

Britain has £100m high-energy laser weapon

The first tests in July 2022 demonstrated that the DragonFire system can track and hit targets in the air and at sea. A second test launched a laser at targets at different distances to show that the weapon could safely steer and direct a powerful beam at the target with precision from the launcher.

DragonFire laser weapons are being developed under a budget of £100 million ($114 million) by the DragonFire consortium, consisting of MBDA Missile Systems, which has overall responsibility for the project and has developed advanced control and control (C2) and image processing capabilities. Used to focus and point an atmospheric-compensated laser and QinetiQ, which is designed as a 50-kW phase-combination solid-state laser generator.

{{quote 'This test is the culmination of design, development and demonstration activities for several years! DragonFire has already successfully demonstrated the ability to track targets with a very high level of accuracy and maintain a laser beam at the selected aiming point. During this test, the characteristics of the laser itself were evaluated - the result shows that the UK has the leading global potential in the field of technologies related to laser weapons of directed energy, "said Ben Madison, technical partner of the Defense Science and Technology Laboratory. }} The British government is interested in developing lasers and similar directed energy weapons, since such systems can hit targets such as drones and missiles at light speed with almost unlimited ammunition, costing about $1 per shot, excluding the cost of equipment. They also greatly simplify logistical needs, and the technology easily scales to higher power levels.

The next step in the program will be to combine the two tests for subsequent tests against more realistic targets and find ways to transfer the demonstrator's findings to the practical use of weapons.^[1]

Notes