Russians Claim to Have Developed an Asat Laser Intended for Aircraft Mounting

Россия активно использовала наработки, полученные при создании самолета с лазерным оружием А-60, и к настоящему времени завершила работы над соответствующим противоспутниковым комплексом, сообщил «Интерфаксу» информированный источник.

«Развитие данного комплекса состоялось, вся проделанная работа позволит сделать шаг вперед в создании подобных самолетов», — заявил собеседник агентства.

Источник отметил, что вероятнее всего «позднее будет создан принципиально новый подобный самолет, но не на базе самолета Ил-76МД». Решение данного вопроса примет Минобороны.

В 2016 году российский концерн «Алмаз-Антей» заявил о работах по созданию лазерного комплекса, предназначенного для подавления с самолета воздушных и космических разведывательных аппаратов.

Google Translated:

Russia actively used the developments gained in the creation of the A-60 laser weapon, and has completed work on an appropriate anti-satellite complex, Interfax was informed by an informed source.

"The development of this complex took place, all the work done will allow to make a step forward in the creation of such aircraft," the source said.

The source noted that the most likely "later will be created a fundamentally new aircraft of this type, but not on the basis of the Il-76MD aircraft." The Ministry of Defense will decide this issue.

In 2016, the Russian concern Almaz-Antey announced the creation of a laser complex designed to suppress air and space reconnaissance vehicles from the airplane.

lenta.ru...

Note:

Lasers have been used against sats for a long time. These are normally temporary blinding lasers, just meant to dazzle, not destroy. The Chinese, US and Russia have done this for some time. It may be a reason the SR-72 may be developed.

Lasers have been tested to DESTROY satellites. The US has done it. Caused a bit of a geopolitical fecal storm in the late 90s.

However, the laser described above is derived from the old Soviet A-60 flying lab[1], much like our own flying lab back in the 80s (ours bagged a sidewinder in flight, fwiw). It is unclear what the power or energy of the laser is (note: those are related, but not the same (watts vs joules)).

This may be a dazzler weapon. Then again, laser diodes are pretty cheap and aggregating them isn't too hard. Physics doesn't care what color your flag is, after all.

1. en.wikipedia.org...

Use them right, and you could vaporize all that space debris. Or maybe use the laser as a tractor beam to nudge the debris into burn-up orbits.

a reply to: stormcell

I wonder if you could nudge it so it would impact a sat...

Maybe its cheaper and easier than a missile shot..

Once the laser is fired, from an aircraft, who can say who is responsible.

Lasers do not have finger prints.

Russia? China? North Korea? The US doing a false flag? Russian false flag?

Now we need new satellites to shoot down the aircraft that are shooting our satellites.

It never ends!

P

a reply to: pheonix358

That's not true. Lasers will leave a fingerprint the same way anything else would. The same way the Russians were outed for shooting down all those civilians that the world has forgotten about. Every weapon system has a unique way in which it impacts a target and leaves some kind of evidence of what did it. For a laser it might be the shape or size of the associated burn etc etc.

a reply to: Caughtlurking

To follow up, the military has been working on orbit inspections, probably precisely for this reason.