Laura DeSimone, executive director of the Missile Defense Agency, said MDA has placed “increased emphasis” on efforts to develop directed energy weapons systems against adversary missiles and has witnessed “that technology maturation is happening” within the industry, the Department of Energy and at national laboratories, Breaking Defense reported Thursday.
“I mean, there have been some really impressive results,” DeSimone said. “We’ve been doing studies all along, and looking at lethality effects and doing experimentation. But we think that, finally, we’re starting to see some real progress and, and so that’s why the increased emphasis.”
DeSimone noted that directed energy comes with great potential.
“I mean, there’s so many advantages of having a potential directed-energy engagement system — give the warfighter additional engagement opportunities, save interceptors, lower cost per engagement,” she said.
