This text is republished with permission from Laser Wars, a e-newsletter about army laser weapons and different futuristic protection know-how.
The cruise missile-killing high-energy laser weapon the U.S. Protection Division envisions as a part of its ‘Golden Dome for America’ home missile protection defend is starting to take form.
The brand new Joint Laser Weapon System (JLWS)—a collaboration between the U.S. Military and U.S. Navy whose existence was first reported in June 2025—will initially encompass a containerized 150 kilowatt system with potential to scale to not less than 300 kw to defeat incoming cruise missile threats, according to the Navy’s fiscal yr 2027 price range request. The system will even embrace Joint Beam Management System (JBCS) “able to supporting” a 300-500 kw laser weapon, the paperwork say.
The JLWS effort will leverage analysis and growth classes from the Navy’s 60 kw High Energy Laser with Integrated Optical-Dazzler and Surveillance (HELIOS) system, which is currently installed on the Arleigh Burke-class guided missile destroyer USS Preble, and the Military’s 300 kw Indirect Fire Protection Capability-High Energy Laser (IFPC-HEL) system, the primary prototype of which the service plans on taking delivery of of later this yr. The Navy will even “conduct upgrades” to its High Energy Laser Counter Anti-Ship Cruise Missile Project (HELCAP) testbed “as acceptable” in assist of future JLWS testing.
Whereas final yr’s Military price range request detailed $51 million in necessary funding for JLWS by means of the “One Massive Stunning Invoice Act” reconciliation invoice underneath its ‘Expanded Mission Space Missile’ program ingredient, this yr’s request doesn’t comprise any R&D funding for fiscal yr 2027 however particulars plans for $337.8 million in spending beginning in fiscal yr 2028 and operating by means of fiscal yr 2031. Primarily based on the price range paperwork, it appears as if the service plans on closing out its IFPC-HEL actions first earlier than kicking off its a part of the JLWS effort.
The Navy, nonetheless, isn’t ready round. The service requested $94.825 million underneath its ‘Directed Vitality and Electrical Weapon Programs’ program ingredient in fiscal yr 2027 (up from simply $14.5 million in fiscal yr 2026, as previously reported) that features $79.84 million underneath its Floor Navy Laser Weapon System (SNLWS) effort to jumpstart JLWS R&D, maintain the service’s lone HELIOS system for future testing actions, and improve the HELCAP testbed (which can be receiving a separate $14.978 injection), according to the service’s price range request. The service plans on investing an extra $243.3 million into JLWS R&D underneath that program ingredient by means of fiscal yr 2031.
Collectively, the Military and Navy requests whole a imaginative and prescient of $675.93 million in R&D spending for the JLWS by means of fiscal yr 2031. The Navy plans on awarding $31.7 million in contracts for JBCS growth as quickly because the fourth quarter of 2026 and the $30 million in contracts for the procurement and testing of containerized JLWS by March 2027, according to price range paperwork. It appears seemingly that Lockheed Martin will obtain these contract: not solely is the protection prime the technical lead on each the HELIOS and IFPC-HEL efforts that can inform the JLWS, nevertheless it’s additionally already developing a containerized version of the previous, an organization govt revealed in August 2025.
It’s price noting that whereas the Pentagon’s fiscal yr 2027 price range request additionally contains $452 million in R&D spending for the “growth, integration, and evaluation” of directed power weapons in assist of Golden Dome, the precise relationship with the Military and Navy’s JLWS efforts is unclear. The Navy price range paperwork state that the $79.84 million allotted underneath SNLWS additionally contains funds to “start growth of a consolidated implementation plan” for all Golden Dome-related directed power initiatives, “leveraging synergy and customary weapon architectures between these efforts the place attainable” in coordination with the U.S. Missile Protection Company.
The dream of a laser weapon able to taking pictures down cruise missiles is almost as previous because the laser itself. The Pentagon first demonstrated the idea within the Nineteen Seventies with the Navy ARPA Chemical Laser (NACL), a deuterium fluoride system developed by the Protection Superior Analysis Tasks Company (DARPA) that efficiently engaged small missile targets however proved far too giant and sophisticated for sensible deployments. Those self same challenges would befall its successor, the megawatt-class Mid-Infrared Superior Chemical Laser (MIRACL), regardless of the system successfully neutralizing a supersonic MQM-8 Vandal missile throughout testing in 1989. The Gulf Conflict briefly revived this dream within the U.S. Air Pressure’s ill-fated Airborne Laser (ABL) program, which consumed greater than $5 billion over practically twenty years earlier than its cancellation in 2012. Extra lately, the Navy’s Layered Laser Protection (LLD) system, developed by Lockheed Martin along with the Workplace of Naval Analysis, successfully downed a goal drone simulating a subsonic cruise missile in a 2022 demonstration at White Sands Missile Vary in New Mexico within the army’s newest try and validate the idea underneath lifelike situations.
The Pentagon clearly hopes that the JLWS will lastly push its laser-based cruise missile protection efforts over the end line. However as previously reported when the JLWS first turned public in June 2025, such threats pose a much more advanced problem for directed power weapons than the low-cost weaponized drones which are reshaping warfare on battlefields from Ukraine to the Center East. Cruise missiles fly low and quick, hug terrain, and execute evasive maneuvers that compress response time, whereas their hardened casings require way more sustained power to defeat than the soft-bodied drones that present tactical lasers are optimized for. Compounding the problem, atmospheric interference can scatter or take up beam power earlier than it reaches the goal; even at 300 kw energy ranges, laser weapons demand a level of beam management and aim-point precision that no identified system has but demonstrated towards a sensible cruise missile risk.
After years attempting to scale laser weapons to energy ranges appropriate for cruise missile protection, the Pentagon’s push for a containerized resolution additionally represents a departure from previous vehicle-mounted or warship-integrated techniques. For the Navy specifically, Chief of Naval Operations (and noted laser weapon champion) Adm. Daryl Caudle has explicitly emphasized the pursuit of modular capabilities that the service can quickly swap throughout its floor fleet for specific missions with out prolonged and costly stays in shipyards. Look no additional than the service’s October 2025 live-fire test of the Military’s 20 kw Palletized High Energy Laser (P-HEL) system, primarily based on the LOCUST Laser Weapon System from protection contractor AV, from the flight deck of the Nimitz-class plane service USS George HW Bush.
Certainly, the JLWS isn’t the one modular laser weapon the Navy is exploring. The aforementioned Directed Vitality and Electrical Weapon Programs program ingredient additionally contains $4.82 million in funding to assist the “growth, integration and marinization” of the Military’s Enduring High Energy Laser (E-HEL) techniques—the modular, 30 kw laser weapon primarily based on classes from P-HEL and the aborted Stryker-mounted 50 kw Directed Energy Maneuver-Short Range Air Defense (DE M-SHORAD) system that the service envisions as its first directed power program of document. The Military deliberate on procuring two E-HEL models in fiscal yr 2026 and one other pair the next yr, according to the service’s price range request, with plans to “produce and quickly area” as much as 24 techniques whole within the coming years. With its LOCUST system confirmed as a counter-drone functionality each abroad and at home, AV seems the main contender to clinch that contract within the coming years.
With institutional assist for growing and fielding directed power weapons at scale at a historic high, JLWS could show a major alternative for the Pentagon to lastly make its dream of missile-killing laser weapons a actuality. However the historical past of counter-cruise missile laser growth is affected by packages that cleared each bureaucratic hurdle solely to discover the physics and operational realities. A containerized 150 kw system could also be a extra modest and achievable aim than the behemoths that got here earlier than it, however whether or not JLWS can survive contact with each the price range course of and real-world complexities of blasting cruise missiles out of the sky stays the open query.
This text is republished with permission from Laser Wars, a e-newsletter about army laser weapons and different futuristic protection know-how.
