US plans 2028 demo of scalable high-energy laser weapons for Golden Dome

The Pentagon says directed-energy weapon science is largely complete and is now pushing engineering and scaled production, aiming for a Golden Dome architecture demonstration including lasers in summer 2028. The novelty is the explicit shift from prototypes to mass-producible, fieldable systems (including containerized 150–300 kW JLWS) backed by major funding and a hard deadline, addressing past reliability/heat-management failures in operational testing.