EL PASO, Texas (KVIA) — Officials from the Joint Interagency Task Force 401, on the behalf of the Department of War, selected five installations to participate in the directed-energy counter-unmanned aircraft systems pilot program included in the Fiscal Year 2026 National Defense Authorization Act. \u00a0<\/p>\n
The following instillations were the ones selected by the task force to participate in the program:<\/p>\n
-Fort Huachuca, Arizona <\/p>\n
-Fort Bliss, Texas <\/p>\n
-Naval Base Kitsap, Washington<\/p>\n
-Grand Forks Air Force Base, North Dakota<\/p>\n
-Whiteman Air Force Base, Missouri<\/p>\n
According to officials, the program will advance the fielding and testing of directed energy capabilities to protect\u00a0infrastructure, military installations and homeland missions.<\/p>\n
“Countering unlawful and adversarial drone activity is a homeland defense imperative,” said Army Brig. Gen. Matt Ross, Joint Interagency Task Force 401 director. “There is no ‘silver bullet’ to address this challenge, and this pilot program integrates cutting-edge technology into the department’s broader counter-drone toolkit.”<\/p>\n
Officials say that these instillations will be getting anti-drone technology including high-energy lasers and high-powered microwave systems. The technology enables service members to disrupt and defeat unlawful or adversarial drone activity while minimizing risk to surrounding personnel and infrastructure.<\/p>\n
Officials also say that a joint DOW-FAA demonstration at White Sands Missile Range, New Mexico, validated that the systems do not pose undue risk to passenger aircraft.\u00a0Officials also mention that recent DOW-FAA safety risk assessment that established procedures for future use while protecting the national airspace.<\/p>\n
“Our collaboration with the FAA and the successful demonstration at White Sands were pivotal steps forward in our counter-UAS efforts,” said Army Col. Scott McLellan, deputy director of the task force. “We showed that directed-energy systems can counter drone threats while preserving the safety of air travelers. This pilot program now allows us to translate that progress into evolving operational capability for the homeland.”<\/p>\n
Officials with the task force say that during the next 180 days, the department will finalize deployment plans with installation commanders, enabling operations to begin later this year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"EL PASO, Texas (KVIA) — Officials from the Joint Interagency Task Force 401, on the behalf of the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":286265,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[138,140,139],"class_list":["post-286264","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-el-paso","tag-el-paso","tag-el-paso-headlines","tag-el-paso-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/286264","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=286264"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/286264\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/286265"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=286264"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=286264"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=286264"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}