Let’s talk about lasers—not the kind from your favorite sci-fi movie, but the real, high-powered beams the U.S. Navy is working hard to bring to life on its warships. If you’ve ever imagined a ship blasting drones out of the sky with a beam of light, you’re not alone. That dream has been decades in the making, with plenty of ups and downs along the way.
The Navy has long been interested in directed-energy weapons. For years, the concept of protecting ships with lasers has drifted between futuristic utopia and the next breakthrough in defense technology. It’s an attractive idea: lasers use electricity, so you don’t use up; you just refill. And nothing is faster than the speed of light to hit a target.
But getting that fantasy functional on a real-world, rolling ship in untested conditions? That’s been a tough sell. That’s where HELIOS enters the picture. Short for High-Energy Laser with Integrated Optical Dazzler and Surveillance, HELIOS is Lockheed Martin’s newest and most ambitious effort to put a true laser weapon system on a Navy warship and make it functional in the real world.
So what makes HELIOS different? It’s not just a laser that shoots down drones. It also scatters the sensors of incoming threats—such as missiles or hostile drones—making them less likely to lock onto a target. And HELIOS has its surveillance system, providing the ship with added eyes to scan the skies. And there’s evidence that it does: in 2024, the USS Preble employed HELIOS to destroy a drone in an actual-world test. That’s a huge step—it demonstrates the system can function beyond the lab, out on the water where conditions are anything but perfect.
However, before we go too wild with images of ships blasting swarms of drones miles away, it’s time to take a deep breath. The path to fully functional laser weapons has been a long and winding one. The Defense Department still hasn’t worked out how to actually employ these systems in regular operations—and how to adapt them to what sailors actually require at sea—according to a 2023 report by the Government Accountability Office.
And exciting as lasers are, they have their limits. They only strike once per target, and they must remain focused on the target for several seconds to cause any damage. That’s difficult when facing rapidly moving objects. And then there are conditions such as fog, rain, or even salty marine air that can disrupt them. The gear itself is fragile, as well—not precisely designed to get bounced around on rough seas without a bit of extra caution.
But the Navy won’t give up. Chiefs like Admiral Daryl Caudle have urged the acceleration of progress even as they admit that the technology has a long way to go. The goal is to continue raising the power of the laser—successor versions of HELIOS might reach 150 kilowatts or higher, which would make it possible to eliminate more formidable targets, potentially even aircraft or cruise missiles down the line.
For the time being, such systems as HELIOS are best applied to close-in defense—shooting down tiny drones or runaway boats—so missiles are held in reserve for larger, more threatening targets. It may not be a force field à la Star Wars yet, but it’s significant. Each successful test brings the Navy closer to an era in which laser weapons are not merely a cool idea—the Navy has them in the fleet.
It hasn’t been smooth sailing or simple, but that’s sort of the idea. True innovation doesn’t happen overnight. And the Navy’s not going to give up anytime soon.