“We must actively defend the homeland against emerging threats,” Emil Michael, undersecretary of war for research and engineering, said in a statement. “We are partnering with industry to rapidly deliver deep magazine directed energy capabilities to the Joint Force that can be seamlessly deployed across multiple domains.”

Pentagon officials are looking to develop containerized high-energy laser weapons that can provide military leaders with “scalable, cost-effective intercept solutions for asymmetric and high-tier adversary threats,” a department press release said.

Pentagon officials have frequently highlighted the need for cheaper and reusable counter-drone technology, as the threats that have played out overseas threaten the United States domestically. Directed energy is considered a good option to intercept drones because it takes much less time for a directed-energy laser to intercept an incoming projectile, is much cheaper on a per-intercept cost, and has exceptional magazine depth.

Scaled directed energy is one of the six critical technology areas as outlined by Michael.

Back in March, the Federal Aviation Administration and the War Department successfully tested a high-energy laser counter-drone system at White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico that demonstrated it can be used without harming civilian aircraft. During the test, the LOCUST laser, which is made by AV, demonstrated the ability to hit both stationary and airborne targets; it showed its automated safety shutoff capabilities if the prefire checklist is not met; and it also showed “no adverse impact to civilian aircraft during controlled evaluation scenarios,” the company said in a press release in May.

Cheaper than Reaper

The Pentagon is also looking for a long-range but cheaper drone that could one day replace the MQ-9 Reaper drones, which cost roughly $30 million apiece.

“The Joint Force’s reliance on low-density, high-value ‘exquisite’ (>$30 million) manned and unmanned aircraft is unsustainable against adversaries utilizing layered defenses enabled by increasingly low-cost antiaircraft capabilities,” reads the Defense Innovation Unit solicitation for a new drone, which noted the department wants to “execute missions that the MQ-9A performs today.”

The solicitation points out that “to operate effectively, we must accept this inevitable attrition.”

The U.S. military lost about two dozen MQ-9 drones during the Iran war, though the fact that it is unmanned allows the Air Force to deploy it in ways that are too dangerous for service members.

Air Force chief of staff Kenneth Wilsbach told lawmakers last month the MQ-9 Reaper drone has been “a tremendous capability that we’ve used very well inside of Epic Fury, and they’ve conducted a lot of extremely high-risk missions that we would choose not to put a manned platform in, and they’ve been very effective.”

Despite the losses, “we’re not in a crisis with the MQ-9 at the moment,” he added.

US ‘SHOULD NOT BE SURPRISED’ IF THERE’S A DOMESTIC DRONE ATTACK: CHARLES Q. BROWN

Also this week, the Joint Interagency Task Force 401, which is the whole-of-government entity designed to scale up U.S. domestic counter-drone technology, published a practical handbook to provide a shared understanding of the threat landscape and their guiding principles for defense.

“While there is no silver bullet to protect against drones, the threat can be mitigated if we are proactive, work with partners across the government, and build a layered defense,” said Army Brig. Gen. Matt Ross, the task force director. “We have faced novel challenges before, and we should not be intimidated by this one. We should lean in and take every possible step to prepare ourselves to dominate on the modern battlefield.”