US laser weapon maker gets its first foreign buyer

AeroVironment has received its first international order for the LOCUST laser weapon system, a purchase worth more than $50 million, the company announced September 8.

The direct commercial sale covers an initial batch of LOCUST systems and support services. AeroVironment did not disclose the buying country, the number of units included, or a delivery date.

The order comes two months after AeroVironment won a $464.8 million contract from the U.S. Army for its Enduring-High Energy Laser program, known as E-HEL. AeroVironment has described that contract as the first production award for high-energy laser weapons in U.S. history. The company did not specify how many LOCUST units the Army contract covers.

“This first international order signals increasing global recognition that high-energy laser weapon systems are essential to modern air defense,” said Wahid Nawabi, president, chairman and chief executive officer at AeroVironment.

“The threat from low-cost drones is global and has fundamentally changed the economics of warfare,” Nawabi said. “LOCUST gives our customers an affordable, scalable way to defeat drone threats at scale without relying solely on expensive interceptors.”

LOCUST is a high-energy laser system built to track and destroy Group 1 through Group 3 drones, a category that covers small quadcopters up to fixed-wing aircraft weighing up to 600 kg (1,320 pounds). The system can be mounted at a fixed site, moved on a pallet, or installed on a vehicle, and it can link to other radars and command networks already in use by a customer.

AeroVironment says each LOCUST shot costs less than $10, a fraction of the price of a missile interceptor. The company has cited that cost advantage as the main selling point for militaries facing repeated drone attacks, where traditional air defense missiles can cost tens of thousands of dollars per shot.

“This first international order for LOCUST is a pivotal milestone in our directed energy roadmap,” said Mary Clum, president of space, cyber and directed energy at AeroVironment. “We are not only accelerating the fielding of an operationally proven laser weapon system, we are also establishing a foundation for sustained and expanded international adoption to provide layered innovation in counter-drone defense.”

LOCUST has already been used in U.S. military testing and operations. AeroVironment says the system carried out the U.S. military’s first acknowledged laser kills along the southern border and shot down multiple drones during a demonstration aboard the USS George H. W. Bush. The company has also integrated LOCUST onto Infantry Squad Vehicles and Joint Light Tactical Vehicles under the Army’s AMP-HEL program, and has run live-fire tests at White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico. Secretary of War Pete Hegseth operated the system during one of those tests, according to AeroVironment.

The Federal Aviation Administration and the Department of War have signed a safety agreement that creates a pathway for LOCUST to operate in U.S. airspace, following an FAA review of the system.

To meet rising orders, AeroVironment is spending more than $30 million to expand its manufacturing campus in Albuquerque, New Mexico. The company says the expansion will add more than 450 jobs and generate over $670 million in economic impact, and will serve as a production hub for directed energy, space and other defense systems.