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Pentagon and FAA to test high‑energy laser counter‑UAS at White Sands, March 7–8

The Pentagon's Joint Interagency Task Force 401 and the Federal Aviation Administration will conduct a high‑energy laser counter‑UAS test at White Sands, New Mexico, March 7–8. The weekend trials are intended to assess airspace safety and address FAA concerns about military laser counter‑drone operations.

Discovered 2026-03-05T21:00:07.724600-08:00 | 2026-03-05T21:00:07.724600-08:00

Briefing

What Hype is tracking

  • The March 7–8 White Sands trials by JIATF‑401 and the FAA are a direct effort to validate the safety of high‑energy laser counter‑UAS operations in civil airspace, addressing explicit FAA safety concerns documented in the announcements.

  • The testing follows recent disruptive airspace closures and agency friction tied to laser countermeasures, underscoring unresolved civil‑military coordination issues that affected operations near El Paso (source:e4a65b98-d831-42b2-afce-2ea85df61461) and prompted earlier FAA clarifications (source:8b70096c-d989-48e1-afe7-700f22f98846).

  • Results will inform technical and procedural standards for future counter‑UAS deployments and data‑sharing for UAS testing and oversight, building on recent FAA moves to expand surveillance access for nonfederal test sites (source:2155c4ee-4ee9-48ad-8f4c-9327a7c2afb6).

Reported By

AeroTime news.defcros.com Fortune Simple Flying Army Times c4isrnet.com
Sources Tracked
20
First Seen
2026-03-05T21:00:07.724600-08:00
Latest Update
2026-03-09T13:09:17.135850-07:00
Coverage
Defense

Sources

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