Topic
Protecting expeditionary airbases and formations against drones and rocket, artillery, and mortar fire.
Hanwha Systems' laser weapons intercepted all three target drones at a South Korean Army exercise on October 14. The 50 kW vehicle it is offering for export is still in development, and no export order has been announced.
Reality
Latvia is building border anti-drone defenses in which only the final neutralization decision is human, defense minister Raivis Melnis told Business Insider. The aim is to run the network with fewer soldiers, though the reporting does not say when it will be finished, what it costs or how many soldiers it would save.
Reality
US Army awarded $4.15 billion in Domestic Shield counter-drone contracts to 10 companies, within a $7 billion ceiling. The Army requires open architecture, so the test is whether one firm's radar and another's camera work on one base network.
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South Korea's Hanwha Systems-built Cheongwang laser downed two of four drones at its public debut, at 10,000 to 20,000 won of electricity a shot. Its 30-kilowatt Block I is rated for small North Korean drones at two to three kilometres, a narrower job than the US and Chinese lasers it is measured against.
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Backpack Securities put Powerus stock on Solana as a token a day after Powerus closed its Nasdaq merger, drawing $9.1 million of trading by mid-afternoon. The test is whether the Solana price stays tied to the Nasdaq share between sessions.
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At least six countries, most on NATO's Eastern flank, have bought or are buying the $15,000 Merops drone interceptor, a US defense official said. Allies are adding a cheaper layer against Russian incursions, and the Pentagon says it is one part of a wider defence.
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Huntington Ingalls and EO Solutions received a $3.8 million agreement in June for a marinized counter-drone laser. A defense official told Laser Wars the money is likely for experimentation with a system that already exists.
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Xcimer took investment from RTX Ventures and Pacific Fusion signed an agreement with the NNSA. TechCrunch's reporting shows defense interest landing on machines that already exist, with both plant programs still running.
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AV's $464.8M award covers 26 thirty-kilowatt LOCUST X3 units over five years, and the requirement underneath it says a minute of full-power lasing buys up to four minutes of waiting before the next one.
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ONR's $10.25 million draft solicitation treats the laser source and the beam director as separate products joined by fiber. That moves value into connectors, transport, and interface specs.
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