A key congressional committee wants the Missile Defense Agency to continue developing next-generation directed-energy technology, proposing a $5 million increase to the fiscal year 2023 budget to extend work on a project with Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory on a Diode-Pumped Alkali Laser (DPAL). The Senate Armed Services Committee, in its mark of the FY-23 defense policy bill, proposed increasing MDA’s Technology Maturation Initiative’s funding on the DPAL project. “The committee believes that additional emphasis should be placed upon the pursuit...