{"id":84285,"date":"2017-09-13T09:58:00","date_gmt":"2017-09-13T09:58:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/?guid=4cb92da4732fd27f2fd2b0242f8e7b75"},"modified":"2017-09-13T09:58:00","modified_gmt":"2017-09-13T09:58:00","slug":"press-release-dragonfire-laser-directed-energy-weapons","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/?p=84285","title":{"rendered":"Press release: Dragonfire: Laser Directed Energy Weapons"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"govspeak\">\n<p>In January of this year, 2017, the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (<abbr title=\"Defence Science and Technology Laboratory\">Dstl<\/abbr>), awarded a contract to the Dragonfire consortium, worth \u00a330million to UK industry, to demonstrate the potential of Laser Directed Energy Weapons (<abbr title=\"Laser Directed Energy Weapons\">LDEW<\/abbr>).<\/p>\n<p><abbr title=\"Defence Science and Technology Laboratory\">Dstl<\/abbr> supplies high-impact science and technology for the defence and security of the UK. Scientists from <abbr title=\"Defence Science and Technology Laboratory\">Dstl<\/abbr>, working with industry partners under contract to <abbr title=\"Defence Science and Technology Laboratory\">Dstl<\/abbr>, have been working on laser technology since the 1970s, with the intent of realising the benefit of an affordable and precise weapon for the UK military.<\/p>\n<p>Testing of the demonstrator will begin on UK ranges in 2018, culminating in a major demonstration in 2019.<br \/>\nThe Dragonfire solution is based on unique technical approaches developed in the UK under <abbr title=\"Ministry of Defence\">MOD<\/abbr> and industry funding centred on high energy lasers and will address the challenges associated with engaging aerial targets safely. It represents the major element of the <abbr title=\"Defence Science and Technology Laboratory\">Dstl<\/abbr> led <abbr title=\"Laser Directed Energy Weapons\">LDEW<\/abbr> project, which draws on expertise across <abbr title=\"Defence Science and Technology Laboratory\">Dstl<\/abbr> and contributes to internal collaborative programmes.<\/p>\n<p>UK Dragonfire, led by MBDA in the UK under contract to <abbr title=\"Defence Science and Technology Laboratory\">Dstl<\/abbr>, has brought together the best of relevant UK industry expertise to deliver the highly challenging and complex programme. The team capitalises on the strengths of the individual companies involved, which include QinetiQ, Leonardo, GKN, Arke, BAE Systems and Marshall Land Systems.<\/p>\n<p>The <abbr title=\"Laser Directed Energy Weapons\">LDEW<\/abbr> technology provides operational advantage to the UK military and the potential to export such systems in support of the Prosperity agenda, as advocated in the UK\u2019s 2015 Strategic Defence and Security Review, by developing on-shore industrial capability.<\/p>\n<p>Peter Cooper, <abbr title=\"Defence Science and Technology Laboratory\">Dstl<\/abbr>\u2019s Project Technical Authority for Dragonfire, said:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p class=\"last-child\">Dragonfire is the culmination of many years of work in the area of laser directed energy weapons. We are looking forward to the 2019 demonstration and, working with our industry colleagues, we aim provide the UK Armed Forces with innovative, effective and affordable solutions to the emerging threats they face.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<div class=\"contact \" id=\"contact_1970\">\n<div class=\"content\">\n<h3>\n<abbr title=\"Defence Science and Technology Laboratory\">Dstl<\/abbr> Media Enquiries<\/h3>\n<div class=\"vcard contact-inner\">\n<div class=\"email-url-number\">\n<p class=\"email\">\n              <span class=\"type\">Email<\/span><br \/>\n              <a class=\"email\" href=\"mailto:press@dstl.gov.uk\">press@dstl.gov.uk<\/a>\n            <\/p>\n<p class=\"tel\">\n              <span class=\"type\">Media enquiries<\/span><br \/>\n              01980 956845\n            <\/p>\n<p class=\"tel\">\n              <span class=\"type\">Out of hours<\/span><br \/>\n              07384 210107\n            <\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Dragonfire will be showing a model of its new Laser Directed Energy Weapon for the first time on the Royal Navy stand at this year\u2019s DSEI.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84285"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=84285"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84285\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=84285"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=84285"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=84285"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}