Joint Directed Energy Transition Office: Overview and Opportunities

In 2000, congress moved to implement the DoD Laser Master Plan to advance the state of the art, stimulate the industrial base, and pursue enabling technologies for High Energy Laser (HEL) systems. To do this, they formed the High Energy Laser Joint Technology Office (HEL-JTO) to direct and coordinate HEL technology development across academia, industry and government laboratories. In 2017 congress renamed HEL-JTO to the Joint Directed Energy Transition Office (DE-JTO), with a mission to also help with the increased interest to transition DE technology onto militarily useful platforms. Over the years, JTO has advanced state of the art (SoA) in DE technologies, and provided the Services with components necessary to perform initial system demonstrations. Typical funding activities for JTO include sponsoring flagship projects and funding university, military and government labs, and industry. Opportunities exist to team with JTO moving forward.