The anti-missile system known as the Airborne Laser is receiving
several upgrades, in preparation for a 2004 flight test. While the
system—based on a Boeing 747 jet—is designed to shoot
down long-range ballistic missiles, the technology also could be
adapted for smaller platforms, for tactical applications, officials
said.
“The next step is to take this technology and take these
elements and put it on a smaller platform,” said Air Force
Col. Ellen Pawlikowski, program manager for the Airborne Laser.
Possible applications for ABL in the future are advanced tactical
lasers, she said during a missile-defense seminar on Capitol Hill.
The ABL is being developed at Kirtland Air Force Base, in New Mexico.
The $11 billion program recently completed modifications on the
747 jet, which just completed a flight test, said officials. Engineers
recently finished building the beam control system, Pawlikowski
said, providing a significant step toward reaching the capability
of destroying missiles in their boost-phase.
“Between next year and the summer of 2004, we will put the
system together on the airplane and fly it with the ultimate objective
of shooting down a missile by December 2004,” she said.
The ABL flew for the first time in July, completing a 120-minute
test. The laser part of the aircraft is not yet operational. The
test was done simply to assess aerodynamic performance and systems
operation.
“We have taken the airplane and given it a brand new nose.
…Through that nose, or what we call technically the ‘turret,’
is where the high-energy laser will actually fire from the airplane,”
Pawlikowski said. “This turret has to be able to move, roam
and rotate. We tested that. It works like we expected it to.”
The aircraft will fly later this year to Edwards Air Force Base,
Calif., where its tracking and high-energy laser system will be
installed. “This system is one of the most complex engineering
challenges ever undertaken in an aircraft,” said Scott Fancher,
Boeing’s ABL program director.
The ABL team, comprised of prime contractors Boeing, Lockheed Martin
and TRW, is developing the airborne boost-phase missile defense
system under the direction of the Missile Defense Agency. The system
will use a TRW-developed megawatt-class chemical laser aboard the
aircraft to shoot down missiles in their boost phase of flight.
Boeing is responsible for developing the surveillance battle-management
system, integrating the weapon system and supplying the modified
aircraft. Lockheed Martin is developing the beam control/fire control
system, which will acquire the target, then accurately point and
fire the laser. TRW is providing the complete chemical oxygen-iodine
laser system.
New Capabilities
Pawlikowski said that one of the most exciting features in ABL is
“a brand new belly on the airplane,” filled with titanium,
so that the aircraft can withstand the temperature of the exhaust
created as the laser is fired.
There are also new cameras loaded on the aircraft. These are “highly
sensitive cameras that are providing the orders of magnitude with
more sensitivity than ever provided before. So we can actually see
what those lasers are going to be able to provide to us,”
Pawlikowski said.
A key component for the airborne laser is the coating over the
glass that houses the laser. The glass needs heavy layers of impermeable
industrial coating so it can withstand the heat of the laser.
“We have successfully coated our first optic at LPC [Laser
Power Corporation, a subcontractor for Lockheed Martin], in their
large chamber,” she said.
A chamber is a “clean room,” a sterile room where a
coating can be cured, with heat, vacuum or other means, said Lori
Reichart, a Lockheed Martin spokesperson. Large chambers are very
rare, she said.
“The glass that helps us to steer and control this laser
has to be protected, [so] these coatings are critical. That chamber,
by the way, was actually purchased by the Space-Based Laser Program.
… We share each other’s lessons and even each other’s
hardware,” she said.
“Then we have the workhorse that actually delivers the power—the
high energy laser,” Pawlikowski said. Engineers at Edwards
Air Force Base are taking the six modules of the high energy laser
and “laying them all out in an old 747 fuselage so that we
can make sure it all fits,” she said.
“By this time next year, I hope to tell you that we have
produced the full power out of those six laser modules. When we
have finished building and testing those modules and have finished
at Sunnyvale (the Lockheed Martin facility in California), we will
take those two big pieces and move them onto the actual airborne
laser aircraft.”
Looking ahead, she said, “It is important that as we progress
forward, we are not just demonstrating technology. We are beyond
that. The key element now is not to say ‘Look, we got photons
out of a laser.’ The key element is that we put those photons
in hardware, and that hardware on a plane. We have demonstrated
the ability to put it where we want it, and provide that global
reach the Air Force wants.”