The UK Ministry of Defence has awarded the £30 million (US$37.5 million) contract to produce a Laser Directed Energy Weapon (LDEW) capability demonstrator to the UK Dragonfire consortium, led by MBDA. The project will assess innovative LDEW technologies and approaches, culminating in a demonstration of the system in 2019. The contract will assess how the system can pick up and track targets at various ranges and in varied weather conditions over land and water, to allow precision use. It will inform decisions on the future of the programme and help the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory establish a road map to an in-service capability. If it is successful, the first laser weapons would come into service in the mid-2020s.
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