KIRTLAND AIR FORCE BASE, N.M. - Contracts valued at more than $22.2 million to develop high-energy laser technology for the Department of Defense (DoD) have been awarded to 21 companies, educational institutions and other organizations by DoD's High Energy Laser Joint Technology Office in Albuquerque, N.M. The 21 organizations were selected from more than 220 responses to a request for proposals published a year ago. The one- and two-year contracts will yield technological advances in the way laser light is aimed and controlled in order to destroy a target, in developing better optics needed for managing beams of laser energy and in laser manufacturing processes, the Air Force said. Other contracts involve improvements on various kinds of lasers, including chemical, solid-state, fiber, free electron and x-ray lasers. Contracts were awarded to three nearby Albuquerque companies: Boeing SVS Inc., A-Tech Corp. Applied Technologies Associates and Intellite Inc., for $1 million, $2.1 million and $.8 million, respectively, and to one company as far away as Great Britain -- QinetiQ Inc. -- for $1.4 million. Two educational institutions also received contracts: Northern Illinois University in DeKalb for $.6 million and the University of Illinois at Urbana for $.2 million. The remaining contract recipients are: Argonne National Laboratory, of Argonne, Ill., $2 million; Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp., of Boulder, Colo., $.5 million; Boeing-Laser & Electro Optical Systems, of Canoga Park, Calif., $.5 million; Coherent Technologies Inc., of Louisville, Colo., $1.8 million; Directed Energy Solutions, of Colorado Springs, Colo., $.6 million; HRL Laboratories , of Malibu, Calif., $.9 million; Lockheed Martin Space Systems Co., of Sunnyvale, Calif., $1.6 million; Los Alamos (N.M.) National Laboratory, $.6 million; Northrop Grumman Space Technology, of Charlotte, N.C., $.5 million; Northrop Grumman Corp., of Baltimore, Md., $1.9 million; Onyx Optics Inc., of Dublin, Calif., $1.9 million; Polymicro Technologies, of Phoenix, Ariz., $.1 million; Princeton Lightwave Inc., of Cranbury, NJ., $1.1 million; Science Applications International Corp., of Longmont, Colo., $1.6 million; and Science Applications International Corp., of McLean, Va., $.5 million. The Joint Technology Office was established in 2000 to manage development of high-energy laser science and technology for DoD organizations. For more information, visit: www.de.afrl.af.mil