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Airborne Laser Test Planned for 2008
The U.S. Missile Defense Agency plans to go forward with an Airborne Laser missile intercept test in 2008 despite concerns about the project’s operational feasibility, Inside Missile Defense reported yesterday (see GSN, Jan. 10). The system has been “the most visible and most technologically challenging” of the directed energy programs being prepared by the Air Force Research Laboratory, said William Baker, chief scientist at the facility. “We have tended to invest in directed energy on those [programs] which are most challenging, those that are not doable by any other way. As a result, they have been very expensive and they have had their challenges,” Baker said last month during a Heritage Foundation forum. Top project contractor Boeing announced in a statement released Monday that the laser — designed to be placed in airplanes to shoot down missiles — “remains on track to conduct its first missile intercept test in late 2008.” The test will determine the prototype YAL-1A aircraft’s ability to detect, track and destroy a missile during boost phase, according to Inside Missile Defense. However, the Missile Defense Agency recently demoted the project to “technology demonstrator” status and delayed development of a secondary aircraft prototype pending results of the test, according to the Defense Department’s fiscal 2007 budget proposal. The program’s cost estimate is currently more than three times the $2.5 billion Air Force estimate from 1996, Inside Missile Defense reported (Carlo Munoz, Inside Missile Defense, March 1).
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