Doctor Evil and Luke Skywalker’s fantasy worlds are one step closer to becoming reality because the US military is going to start installing lasers on combats airplanes.
The first system, called Hellads, is a defensive system that protects fighters and bombers from threats like surface to air missiles.
A prototype was completed in 2012 while heavy testing against rockets, mortars, and surface-to-air missiles is expected to get under way in early 2013, according to FastCompany.com.
The straight from science fiction defense program is the result of a partnership between DARPA, the Pentagon’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, and General Atomics. They recently completed the first phase of testing on Hellads where they built a singular laser that “successfully demonstrated the ability to achieve high power and beam quality,” according to DARPA’s official website.
The military has been interested in using laser as weapons for years, most famously in Ronald Reagan’s “Star Wars” defense system, but until recently laser powerful enough to be militarily useful have been so large and so heavy that only 747s could lug them around.
Recently, however, researchers have created lasers small enough, light enough, and powerful enough to be used on tactical aircraft like fighters and the B-1 bomber pictured in the official concept image from DARPA.
Besides Hellads, DARPA and Lockheed Martin are working on an automatic laser turret capable of shooting down threats coming at fighter planes from any direction.