Landmark Deal Would Officially Add Laser Weapons to US Army Arsenal

For more than 50 years, the United States military has tried to build laser weapons that actually work. Scientists tested ray guns on airplanes and put lasers on military vehicles, but none of those projects succeeded. Now, for the first time ever, the US Army is close to signing a deal that would make laser weapons an official part of its equipment — and the reason is a growing threat from cheap, deadly drones.

The Pentagon is expected to sign a contract with a company called AeroVironment to buy a weapon known as the Enduring High Energy Laser, or E-HEL. The plan is to place these laser systems at military bases around the world to protect them from drone attacks. The deal could be announced any day now, and it would be worth hundreds of millions of dollars for up to 20 weapons.

The big reason the military wants laser weapons is drones. Wars in Iran and Ukraine have shown that small attack drones are now cheap, plentiful, and very dangerous. In the early days of fighting in the Middle East, the US military fired $4 million Patriot missiles to shoot down $35,000 Iranian drones — a huge waste of money that also used up important supplies.

Laser weapons fix that problem in a clever way. As long as a laser system has electricity, it never runs out of ammunition. Mark J. Lewis, a former chief scientist for the Air Force, explained it simply: 'Basically, you can keep firing them as long as you've got power.' That makes lasers far cheaper to use against swarms of drones than traditional missiles.

Right now, the US military is testing or using about six different laser weapon systems. The Navy has put laser 'dazzlers' on two ships to blind the cameras on enemy drones. The Air Force sent a compact laser system to bases in Europe and Africa. In late June, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth visited a military test site in White Sands, New Mexico, to watch demonstrations of several directed-energy weapons.

Not every test has gone well, though. Four military vehicles with laser systems were pulled from the Middle East after soldiers said they did not perform well enough. One laser near the US-Mexico border accidentally hit a party balloon in February, briefly forcing the FAA to close the airspace around El Paso, Texas — and after it reopened, that same laser mistakenly shot down a Border Patrol drone.

Despite those mistakes, the Army sees some accidents as proof the technology works. The accidental drone kill showed that the laser was powerful enough to destroy a real drone. The Army believes that laser weapons, used together with other tools, can help solve the drone problem better than any single solution alone.

What makes this deal truly special is that the E-HEL will become an official 'program of record.' That is military language meaning the weapon is formally approved and written into the Pentagon's five-year budget plan. It is the first time the Army has ever done this for a laser weapon, and it signals that laser weapons are no longer just an experiment — they are here to stay.

So how does a laser actually work? When an atom absorbs enough energy, its electrons move into an excited state and orbit farther from the center. When they return to normal, they release tiny packets of light called photons, which trigger nearby atoms to release more identical photons, creating a powerful, focused beam of light. Most modern military lasers use bundles of thin glass wires that, when combined, produce a beam strong enough to destroy a drone.

Laser weapons still have real limits. Rain and fog can block or weaken a laser beam, and a laser can only target one drone at a time, taking a few seconds per target. Powerful lasers also keep traveling far beyond their target — even into space — which means they could accidentally damage aircraft or satellites. Experts say the goal is not to replace all traditional weapons, but to use lasers as one smart tool alongside others — especially when the alternative is spending millions to shoot down a cheap drone with an expensive missile.