Why An Army Antidrone Laser Grounded Flights At El Paso International Airport

Late connected Tuesday night, nan metropolis of El Paso, Tex., learned that nan airspace complete El Paso International Airport had been closed arsenic of 11:30 P.M. section time. The ban, initially posted arsenic lasting 10 days, was past shortened to a matter of hours. Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy later announced connected X that nan shutdown had occurred arsenic nan Department of Defense and nan Federal Aviation Administration responded to what he called a “cartel drone incursion” on nan separator and that “the threat has been neutralized.” His station didn’t reply really it was neutralized aliases why an airdrome had to spell dark.

Reports diverged connected what was targeted—the Wall Street Journal and nan Washington Post suggested it whitethorn person been a statement balloon, perchance made of Mylar—while Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, chair of nan Senate Committee connected Commerce, Science, and Transportation, stated, “The specifications of what precisely occurred complete El Paso are unclear.”

On Wednesday CNN reported that, according to anonymous sources, Customs and Border Protection had deployed an antidrone laser connected indebtedness from nan DOD successful nan vicinity of Fort Bliss, adjacent to nan airport. Those sources described a conflict complete nan usage of a laser-based counter-drone strategy adjacent and concerns that it could airs risks to aerial traffic. The laser, identified arsenic a LOCUST, a “directed-energy weapon” utilized to antagonistic drones, is simply a merchandise of nan defense institution AeroVironment and its counter-drone portion BlueHalo. An AeroVironment property merchandise states that nan institution had delivered nan first 2 mobile LOCUST systems to nan U.S. Army successful August 2025.

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“These kinds of systems person been nether improvement for rather a agelong while, and protection against drones is simply a cardinal application,” says Iain Boyd, head of nan Center for National Security Initiatives astatine nan University of Colorado Boulder. “It’s often said that lasers person an ‘infinite magazine.’ Compared to regular weapons, wherever you person a fixed number of bullets, arsenic agelong arsenic nan laser is plugged in, it could support connected firing away.” But that infinite mag comes pinch a problem. “If you occurrence a laser astatine a drone and miss it, that laser beam will support connected going for a agelong way,” Boyd says. “It mightiness deed thing other aliases dazzle a pilot.” Even a deed isn’t clean—some materials are highly reflective, meaning laser power bounces disconnected nan drone and scatters, perchance causing blinding. That’s why, Boyd says, tests adjacent engaged aerial corridors tin unit officials to adjacent airspace: nan beam doesn’t extremity astatine nan target.

The entreaty of nan technology, contempt those risks, is elemental math. Missiles costs tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of dollars, are constricted successful amount and tin beryllium overkill for a quadcopter drone that costs little than a laptop. Lasers committedness what Lockheed Martin has called a “deep magazine” and “low costs per kill,” because if you person a root of powerfulness and cooling, you tin support firing indefinitely. Raytheon’s pitch is straightforward: connected a azygous charge, its antidrone laser strategy tin present “dozens of precise laser shots.” And pinch a generator attached, it tin attack “a astir infinite number of shots.”

But a laser isn’t a bullet. BlueHalo’s LOCUST strategy “combines precision optical and laser hardware pinch precocious software,” according to a BlueHalo press release, “to alteration and heighten nan directed power ‘kill chain,’ which includes tracking, identifying, and engaging a wide assortment of targets.” Unlike a warhead, a laser needs clip connected target. Keep nan beam dependable and locked connected agelong enough, and you power thing captious connected nan target—plastic housing, wiring, a sensor, a centrifugal housing—until it fails. In a property merchandise describing tests of Lockheed Martin’s ATHENA (Advanced Test High Energy Asset) laser system, nan institution said that nan strategy defeated its targets by causing “loss of power and structural failure.” Boyd notes that nan powerfulness successful nan beam matters but truthful does nan worldly that is irradiated. “Different materials will respond successful different ways,” he says. And nan targeting is demanding: “you really person to support nan ‘red dot’ of nan laser fixed correct connected nan moving target.”

The systems fielded coming are a acold outcry from nan Reagan-era imagination of nan “Star Wars” program: first projected successful 1983 and officially called nan Strategic Defense Initiative, nan task sought to usage space-based lasers to sprout down intercontinental ballistic missiles. The conception was besides explored pinch nan Airborne Laser project, initiated successful 1996 and tested successful 2007, erstwhile a laser pinch 1 megawatt of powerfulness was mounted connected a Boeing 747. In 2010, aft a mates of successful tests, it engaged 2 trial missiles disconnected nan seashore of California, and though it locked on, it grounded to destruct them, resulting successful nan project’s cancelation.

The lasers that replaced those early models are smaller, much businesslike and acold little powerful—“the systems we’re talking astir coming for antidrones are astir apt successful nan tens of kilowatts, possibly 100 kilowatts astatine most,” Boyd says. That little powerfulness has changed nan target set. Instead of intercepting missiles pinch lasers successful space, you’re shooting down overmuch softer, smaller targets. specified arsenic drones, pinch lasers connected Earth. “Getting them into a shape facet wherever you could beryllium defending things for illustration service bases, sports arenas aliases airports has been nan extremity successful nan past 5 to 10 years,” Boyd says.

The milestones person travel quickly. In August 2017 Lockheed’s ATHENA strategy downed 5 drones astatine nan White Sands Missile Range successful New Mexico. In October 2019 Raytheon announced that it had delivered a strategy to nan U.S. Air Force. In August 2022 Lockheed said it had delivered a laser strategy to nan Navy. And by February 2024, nan Army had deployed 4 laser prototypes to nan Middle East. Boyd notes that nan U.S. Navy has had high-energy laser systems connected immoderate ships for astir a decade and that nan Army has been processing systems for its Stryker vehicle. Yet “I don’t deliberation immoderate of nan U.S. systems person been fired successful anger, truthful to speak,” he says—until, perhaps, nan caller incident successful El Paso.

If this sounds for illustration nan future, nan El Paso incident is simply a reminder that nan early has paperwork to contend pinch and that not everyone is enthusiastic. Citing a Breaking Defense article, nan Congressional Research Service reported that feedback connected tested laser prototypes was “not overwhelmingly positive,” and officials warned that “results from nan laboratory situation and trial ranges are very different from nan tactical environment.” The FAA has warned that “a laser tin incapacitate pilots,” noting that, successful 2024 alone, pilots reported 12,840 laser strikes (mostly from handheld laser pointers that were powerful capable to scope airplanes). Federal law makes it a crime to purpose a laser of immoderate benignant astatine an aircraft. And officials acquainted pinch nan El Paso closure described precisely that benignant of coordination failure: 1 agency’s counter-drone instrumentality became different agency’s aviation hazard.

At a news conference, El Paso’s politician Renard Johnson said, “I want to beryllium very, very clear that this should’ve ne'er happened. You cannot restrict airspace complete a awesome metropolis without coordinating pinch nan city, nan airport, nan hospitals, nan organization leadership.” Speaking to ABC News, John Cohen, a erstwhile Department of Homeland Security official, summed up nan dilemma complete nan usage of specified systems. “It has to beryllium coordinated,” he said, because a instrumentality meant to protect nan separator becomes a hazard to information if nan professionals study astir it nan aforesaid measurement travelers do: via an alert connected their phones.