USAF calls down power of ZEUS to destroy explosives

Parsons is claiming to be the first company to receive a production contract from the US DoD for a ground-based directed-energy system, with a $50.6 million award for the Recovery of Airbase Denied by Ordnance (RADBO) system.

The USAF will receive 13 RADBO systems under the six-year contract.

Parsons will make, integrate and sustain the RADBO units, each of which comprises the ZEUS laser and an interrogation arm assembly mounted on an MRAP vehicle.

ZEUS is designed to destroy unexploded ordnance with extreme accuracy in previously denied areas at ranges of up to 300m to improve the safety of deployed warfighters, Parsons noted in a 1 October statement.

It added that the laser is powerful enough to detonate small submunitions from cluster bombs, landmines, general-purpose bombs and thick-cased artillery rounds.

RADBO will therefore ‘greatly increase safe and effective explosive ordnance disposal operations’, said Hector Cuevas, Parsons executive vice president of missile defence and C5ISR.

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