Lifeboat Foundation

JERUSALEM — Israel’s new laser missile defense system has successfully intercepted mortars, rockets and anti-tank missiles in recent tests, Defense Minister Benny Gantz said Thursday.

The Israeli-made laser system, designed to complement a series of aerial defense systems such as the costly Iron Dome deployed by Israel, will be operational “as soon as possible,” Gantz said.

The goal is to deploy the laser systems around Israel’s borders over the next decade, Gantz added. The tests took place last month in the Negev Desert.

During an Office of Naval Research (ONR) test, an all-electric, high-energy laser weapon was used to defeat a target representing a subsonic cruise missile in flight. The Layered Laser Defense (LLD) weapon was designed and built by Lockheed Martin to serve as a multi-domain, multi-platform demonstration system.

A meteor crashed into the Pacific Ocean in 2014, but it wasn’t until Harvard scientists researched its velocity and trajectory five years later that they learned it came from outside our solar system.

It’s a very good plan for some very good boys and girls.

The U.S. Army’s military working dogs are entering augmented reality, thanks to the service’s investment in a company developing AR goggles for canines.

➡ You love badass military tech. So do we. Let’s nerd out together.

Continue reading “The Army Has Created Augmented Reality Goggles for Dogs” »

The US reportedly kept the test a secret for weeks for fear of spooking Moscow, following Russia’s own hypersonic use.

The nuclear bombs and missiles market is set to witness growth in this decade as market capitalization will reach $126 billion, Allied Market Research said in a recent report.

Back in 1994, Ukraine had signed on to the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and declared itself a non-nuclear state. Even after the annexation of Crimea, the country remained committed to its non-nuclear status and found itself at a disadvantage with Russia threatening to attack its borders. Given that the Ukrainian conflict has continued unabated for over a month now, it is likely that countries will move toward nuclear weapons adversaries. Although a nuclear war would be catastrophic for one and all, the weapon serves as a good deterrence measure during periods of uncertainty.

Brig. Gen. Stephen Purdy: Seeing Starbase ‘gives you a lot of ideas of what the future could be’

COLORADO SPRINGS – Brig. Gen. Stephen Purdy was in Boca Chica, Texas, last month visiting Starbase. That is SpaceX’s launch and rocket manufacturing and testing facility where the company hopes to operate Starship, the largest rocket ever built.

Purdy is the commander of Florida’s Eastern Range and also serves as the Space Force’s program executive officer for assured access to space, a new post within the Space Systems Command overseeing launch services procurement for the U.S. military and intelligence agencies.

DARPA and its U.S. Air Force partner recently completed a free flight test of the Lockheed Martin version of the Hypersonic Air-breathing Weapon Concept (HAWC). The vehicle, after release from a carrier aircraft, was boosted to its Aerojet Rocketdyne scramjet engine ignition envelope. From there, it quickly accelerated to and maintained cruise faster than Mach 5 (five times the speed of sound) for an extended period of time. The vehicle reached altitudes greater than 65,000 feet and flew for more than 300 nautical miles.

This is the second successful flight in DARPA’s HAWC program. Last September, a different vehicle configuration from another contractor team also reached hypersonic flight.

“This Lockheed Martin HAWC flight test successfully demonstrated a second design that will allow our warfighters to competitively select the right capabilities to dominate the battlefield,” said Andrew “Tippy” Knoedler, HAWC program manager in DARPA’s Tactical Technology Office. “These achievements increase the level of technical maturity for transitioning HAWC to a service program of record.”