UK’s DragonFire Laser Takes Down Excessive-Pace Drones in Newest Check

On November 20, 2025, Britain’s DragonFire laser focused drones flying by the air at 650 km/h, twice the pace of a Components One automobile alongside Scotland’s Hebrides Vary, and introduced them down with precision. Engineers from MBDA, QinetiQ, and Leonardo watched as their brainchild labored its magic as soon as extra, figuring out, monitoring, and disabling objects that resembled the fast-moving risks already frequent on the battlefield. DragonFire is 5 years forward of schedule and one step nearer to being deployed on Royal Navy ships.

Excessive-speed drones are a nightmare for contemporary militaries, zipping in low and rapidly to overwhelm defenses with numbers. Conventional missiles, for all their efficiency, burn by budgets like dry tinder, with a single launch costing a whole lot of hundreds of kilos. DragonFire flips the equation on its head. Every pulse of its high-power laser prices solely £10, which is a fraction of the associated fee and gives pinpoint accuracy. Operators can hit one thing as little as a £1 coin from a kilometer distant, with no engine roar or smoke trails. In these Scottish skies, the laser corrected for the drones’ pace, altering in actual time to hit them in midair. Success like that sends reverberations by NATO headquarters, the place companions are watching the UK’s progress with envy and urgency.

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Photograph credit score: Crown Copyright
Engineers invested many years of information into this gear, starting with Leonardo’s beam director, which directs the uncooked power to the goal. QinetiQ offered the take a look at vary, placing the system by quite a few simulations of turbulent seas and unpredictable enemy trajectories. MBDA tied all of it collectively, guaranteeing that the laser might trip easily on a tossing Sort 45 destroyer. One notable breakthrough was above-the-horizon concentrating on. Lasers transfer in straight traces, due to this fact the Earth’s curvature used to restrict their visibility from the deck. DragonFire, which is now linked to radars on ships, planes, and even distant networks, can stare over the horizon, recognizing and hanging enemy who’re hiding simply past sight. Trials revealed that it achieved this with ease, a refined reference to how far directed power has progressed for the reason that early prototypes failed within the lab.

Photograph credit score: Crown Copyright
Luke Pollard, Minister for Defence Readiness and Trade, wasn’t holding again. “This excessive energy laser will put our Royal Navy on the forefront of innovation in NATO,” he mentioned. “A innovative functionality to assist defend the UK and our allies on this new period of menace.” His phrases had been backed up by a brand new £316m contract with MBDA that places manufacturing into gear. Scottish Secretary Douglas Alexander added, “It is a defence dividend for my area the place 200 new expert jobs will probably be created from this deal.” Chris Allam, MBDA’s UK managing director, known as it a “huge milestone”, proof that authorities and business working collectively can get sport altering functionality to sailors who want it now.
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