NORTHROP OPENS PLANT FOR LASER WORK SOUTH BAY FACILITY HAS 3 LARGE LABS.Byline: MUHAMMED EL-HASAN Staff Writer Northrop Grumman Northrop Grumman Corporation (NYSE: NOC) is an aerospace and defense conglomerate that is the result of the 1994 purchase of Grumman by Northrop. The company is the third largest defense contractor for the U.S. Corp. has opened a new Redondo Beach Redondo Beach (rĭdŏn`dō), city (1990 pop. 60,167), Los Angeles co., S Calif., on the Pacific Ocean; inc. 1892. Once a commercial port for Los Angeles, it is a residential and resort city with a protected harbor and an excellent marina. facility to produce high-energy laser weapons, the company said Tuesday. The Directed Energy An umbrella term covering technologies that relate to the production of a beam of concentrated electromagnetic energy or atomic or subatomic particles. Also called DE. See also directed-energy device; directed-energy weapon. Production Facility, part of Redondo Beach-based Northrop's Space Technology Sector, represents the first of its kind by private industry in the U.S. and probably the world, the company said. The new facility will allow for volume production of the high-energy lasers for air, sea and ground military uses. The site represents a major step in laser technology's movement from theory to practical use on the battlefield, said Mike McVey, president of Northrop's directed energy systems business area, in a conference call Tuesday. ``It's part of transforming the battlefield of tomorrow by bringing speed-of-light weapons ... to the war-fighter,'' McVey said. ``We are moving into the ability to produce things in production quantities and -- more importantly -- production costs.'' The new facility has three large laser laboratories to produce solid-state lasers A solid-state laser is a laser that uses a gain medium that is a solid, rather than a liquid such as in dye lasers or a gas as in gas lasers. Semiconductor-based lasers are also in the solid state, but are generally considered as a separate class from solid-state lasers (see , which use electric power to create an intense beam of light. The site also will be used to integrate lasers into larger defense systems. ``It has the ability to store parts, run laser tests; it can provide power for testing,'' McVey said. ``It's a significant facility. ... It really will help enhance further our leadership position in solid-state lasers.'' Northrop is building on the laser technology it inherited inherited received by inheritance. inherited achondroplastic dwarfism see achondroplastic dwarfism. inherited combined immunodeficiency see combined immune deficiency syndrome (disease). from TRW TRW The Real World (TV reality show) TRW The Right Way TRW Tactical Reconnaissance Wing TRW The Retriever Weekly (University of Maryland, Baltimore, MD) TRW Thompson Ramo Wooldridge Inc Inc. when it bought the company in 2002. ``Certainly, the old TRW has been in the forefront in this business for many years,'' said Paul Nisbet, defense analyst with JSA JSA - Japanese Standards Association. Research Inc. in Newport, R.I. McVey would not discuss Northrop's investment in the facility or its size, citing his desire to prevent competitors from learning this information. He did say that 50 or more employees could be working there in the next year. The Joint High-Power Solid State Laser program will be the first work conducted in the new facility, Northrop said. In its third phase, this Department of Defense program will build and demonstrate the first 100 kW solid-state laser. A 100 kW laser could be powerful enough to defend against missiles, artillery artillery, originally meant any large weaponry (including such ancient engines of war as catapults and battering rams) or war material, but later applied only to heavy firearms as opposed to small arms. and mortars, McVey said. Northrop plans to demonstrate the 100 kW laser by year's end, said Dan Wildt, the company's business development director of directed-energy systems. While completion of this one laser may require the balance of the year, improvements in the technology and manufacturing process at the facility will allow future lasers to be built quicker and with more power, McVey said. Laser technology for weapons is still in its infancy infancy, stage of human development lasting from birth to approximately two years of age. The hallmarks of infancy are physical growth, motor development, vocal development, and cognitive and social development. . Yet high-powered light beams eventually could prove more cost-efficient than traditional weapons, McVey said. He said that with further technological advances, the cost of using a laser weapon could drop to one-fourth the cost of a tactical missile system. |
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