The U.S. military first used the laser battle

The U.S. military first used the laser battle - they destroyed a ballistic missile. The tests took place on Friday morning Moscow time in the skies of California. I have been successful. A beam of directed energy will simply melt the missile and cause irreversible violations of the design. First - to detect missile. For this task the system to cope for a few seconds. The objective is fixed, is being tracked. Second - run low-power charge. This is in order to measure the atmospheric disturbance and adjust the trajectory of the fire. Finally, the final chord. Extremely powerful laser beam strikes the target, heating it up to the critical temperature and causing irreversible destruction of the structure. All. The object is destroyed. In the operation took less than two minutes. Half a century ago on laser weapons have written only in science fiction novels. But in the 70-ies "Hyperballoid Engineer Garin" became a reality. In the early 80's Ronald Reagan formally announced that the United States on the verge of directed energy weapons. Soon, though, so-called program of "Star Wars" had to be frozen: too low was the level of technology and, consequently, extremely high costs of development. But a decade later, a laser weapons project was revived and now - is one of the few successful components of a missile defense system the United States. In creating this complex was attended by several large companies. Corporation has granted Boeing aircraft carrier installation. This specially modified 747 model. Northrop Grumman has established a high power lasers. Lockheed Martin developed a system of beam control and management of fire.