Laser Powers Lockheed Martin's Stalker Drone For 48 Hours

garymortimer writes "Lockheed Martin (LMT) and LaserMotive, Inc., recently demonstrated the capabilities of an innovative laser power system to extend the Stalker Unmanned Aerial System (UAS) flight time to more than 48 hours. This increase in flight duration represents an improvement of 2,400 percent. Stalker is a small, silent UAS used by Special Operations Forces since 2006 to perform intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance missions."

Comments

It was a test indoors, so what?

[Anonymous Coward]

From the article, "At the conclusion of the flight test, held in a wind tunnel,"

So they've pointed a laser at a photocell indoors, this is so far from doing it over hostile territory as to be laughable.

Re:It was a test indoors, so what?

[plover]

From the article, "At the conclusion of the flight test, held in a wind tunnel,"

So they've pointed a laser at a photocell indoors, this is so far from doing it over hostile territory as to be laughable.

This is what research looks like. You don't start out testing a ready-to-deploy espionage platform. You take an idea, enhance it a bit, test it to see if your change works, enhance it more, see if your changes improved it, etc. Nobody's laughing at this stage, but I bet they were cheering.

Leaking the test results is also what 'marketing to investors' looks like. "Hey, Vulture Capitalists Inc., we've got a shiny laser powered spy drone for you to invest in, and we have proof of some ongoing tests ... the military is interested ... you'll get rich ... give us $20 million ... please?"

Re:It was a test indoors, so what?

[Samantha Wright]

Sorta, but aren't they called senators?