Laser

The U.S. Military Wants to Kill Nuclear-Armed ICBMs with Lasers

The Missile Defense Agency is engineering air-launched, high-powered, long-range laser weapons to destroy attacking nuclear-armed Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles during launch and even as they travel through space -- bringing new levels of offensive and defensive layered firepower to existing missile defense technologies.

The Pentagon is, as an initial phase, looking at “laser scaling” to integrate enough laser energy and power to “burn a hole through the metal” of an ICBM, US military officials say.

This involves ground tests, laboratory work and ongoing computer simulations to assess the technical feasibility of firing lasers, traveling at the speed of light, from an air platform to derail, intercept, jam or destroy long-range enemy nuclear weapons -- such as an ICBM.