The Missile Defense Agency has awarded a new round of contracts to a trio of defense firms drafting new airborne laser proposals, advancing the Pentagon objective to field an unmanned aerial vehicle armed with a speed-of-light weapon to shoot down enemy ballistic missiles by the early 2020s. On Aug. 31, MDA collectively awarded Lockheed Martin, Boeing and General Atomics nearly $70 million for continued work on design concepts for a Low Power Laser Demonstrator, bringing total spending on the new...
