The good (or not so good) folks at Northrop Grunman believe that they will be able to make good on their promise of delivering weapons grade lasers by the end of this year. This comes after developments in the Joint High-Powered Solid State Laser (JHPSSL) project have started to bear fruit, 100 kilowatts of the stuff.

Defense contractor Northrop Grumman is promising the Pentagon that it’ll have weapons-grade electric lasers by the end of 2008. Which means honest-to-goodness energy weapons might actually become a military reality, after decades of fruitless searching.

According to Northrop Grunman spokesperson Bob Bishop for Defense Daily:

“We are completely confident we will meet the 100 kW of power level and associated beam quality and runtime requirements of the JHPSSL Phase 3 program by the end of December, 2008.

At the moment, they can maintain a 30kW beam for more than five minutes continuously and more than 40 minutes in total. While 30kW is a far cry from 100kW, one needs to remember that this is but one part of an eight link chain. The lasers will be combined to produce a more powerful system, so 30kW is a massive step in the right direction. [Wired]

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