Inactive

The Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering (OUSD(R&E)) Thermal Blooming Initiative is a set of programs coordinated by OUSD(R&E) with cooperation from all the military S... The Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering (OUSD(R&E)) Thermal Blooming Initiative is a set of programs coordinated by OUSD(R&E) with cooperation from all the military Services with the common purpose of increasing the understanding of how laser-induced heating of the atmospheric path, aka “thermal blooming,” affects the propagation of High Energy Lasers (HELs) through the atmosphere. A multi-Service Steering Group developed the Initiative and identified knowledge gaps in the understanding of how next-generation High-Energy Laser systems, with hundreds of kilowatts to megawatts of power and potentially large bandwidths, would be affected by thermal blooming, and is soliciting the Services, Industry, and Academia for information on how to address these gaps.