U.S. Navy Awards $150M Contract to Develop Lasers

The U.S. Navy could soon take a cue from Hollywood's action-packed scripts and add a new weapon to its arsenal: lasers.

The Navy on Thursday awarded Lockheed Martin Corp. a $150 million contract to develop a high-powered laser system. The company will design such a system with hopes of being able to integrate it with a destroyer by 2020.

The Helios system, which is short for High Energy Laser and Integrated Optical-dazzler with Surveillance system, is designed to "counter unmanned aerial systems and small boats," according to the company. In short: The technology will have the power to protect U.S. forces by tracking and destroying small drones, missiles or boats that threaten American ships.

Bloomberg reports that Rob Afzal, a Lockheed Martin senior fellow, told reporters the deployment of a laser weapon system represents “a watershed moment for directed energy.”

“Laser weapons systems have been desired for decades," Afzal said, according to Bloomberg. "One of the missing pieces to actually deploying laser weapons was that we didn’t actually have a laser that was powerful enough and small enough and efficient enough.”

Lockheed Martin will deliver two systems to the Navy for testing – one that will be integrated into the Arleigh Burke-class destroyer’s systems and another that will be used for land testing at White Sands Missile Range, the company said.

While Lockheed Martin calls the Helios system "the first of its kind," it's not the company's first foray into outfitting America's Armed Forces with lasers. The company previously received a $25 million contract to design, build and test a 60-kilowatt electric laser for use on Army trucks. And in November, the company won a $26 million Air Force contract to develop a high-energy laser to test on a fighter jet by 2021.